Women’s water polo loses to SDSU, UCSD
By Daily Bruin Staff
April 16, 1995 9:00 p.m.
Women’s water polo loses to SDSU, UCSD
By Emmanuelle Ejercito
The UCLA women’s water polo team was unable to pull away with a
victory on Saturday, as the Bruins played two tough matches in San
Diego on Saturday and were dunked by both teams.
In the first match, the Bruins were defeated by San Diego State,
12-4. The second match of the day came against UC San Diego and the
Tritons prevailed, 8-3. UCLA had lost to both teams earlier in the
season, 10-5 to SDSU and 6-3 to UCSD.
In the first match, SDSU came out strong against UCLA, which was
sluggish from the long drive to San Diego.
"I think that in the first quarter, I don’t think that we were
really ready to play," UCLA team captain Kim Bhesania said. "We
weren’t really warmed up. We just drove there and you could kind of
tell that. We were just kind of flat."
When UCLA tried to be aggressive against the Aztecs, the Bruins
found themselves in foul trouble. UCLA had 12 kickout penalties,
which gave SDSU many 6-on-5 opportunities on which the Aztecs
capitalized.
UCLA was slightly more warmed-up for the UCSD game. The Bruins
put together a solid second half and were able to set up their
offense well, but it was not enough to defeat the defending
national champions.
Despite the losses, the Bruins knew that SDSU and UCSD were two
of the most experienced teams and were happy that such high-caliber
teams felt the need to play their hardest.
"Both teams played really aggressively against us, which is
good," Bhesania said. "It means that the teams have taken us
seriously."
The Bruins were hoping to be able to use these two matches to
measure the improvements they have made during their first year of
being a varsity team. Regardless of the end results, the team feels
that there has been improvements made since they last played the
two teams.
"We’ve gotten better," Bhesania said. "We’ve made a lot of
progress. The score may not show it. But we did make progress."
The matches in San Diego were the last of the season before UCLA
heads into the Collegiate Championship Qualifying Tournament in
Davis this weekend. The Bruins hope to take all the lessons learned
this season, and apply them this weekend.
"I think that if we just apply everything that we’ve learned and
put it all together, we would play awesome," Bhesania said.
