M. water polo flooded with awards

M. water polo flooded with awards

By Mark J. Dittmer

Daily Bruin Contributor

The UCLA men’s water polo team won the NCAA championship in
December, but it is still enjoying the fruits of its success two
months later.

UCLA goalie Matt Swanson won the Player of the Year award and
head coach Guy Baker earned Coach of the Year honors from the
American Water Polo Coaches Association last week.

Each team is allowed to nominate only five players as potential
All-Americans, and the water polo association awarded each poloist
UCLA nominated. Senior Mark Sutter and junior Jeremy Braxton-Brown
joined Swanson on the first team, while Adam Krikorian and Jim
Toring were named to the second and third All-American teams,
respectively.

Baker now has two Coach of the Year awards during his five- year
career. But he is quick to downplay his own achievements.

"I think it’s a credit to the players," Baker said. "I’m
definitely more proud of the All-American awards than I am of the
Coach of the Year award. The All-American awards show how balanced
our team was, with different guys helping us at different
times."

Swanson helped on many of those occasions. Already named the
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Goalkeeper of the Year and
co-MVP of the NCAA tournament, Swanson is now a repeat
All-American, having earned third-team honors last year, as a
sophomore, when he set the UCLA record for saves in a season, with
250.

While Swanson posted 181 saves in 97 quarters of play this
season, he recorded a 6.94 goals-against average, a half-goal
improvement over last year.

Sutter and Braxton-Brown also came up big last season. Sutter
finished the year with 26 goals, coming back from a season-ending
knee injury in 1994. Braxton-Brown led the Bruins with 40 goals,
and supplied postseason heroics by scoring the winning goal in the
NCAA championship match, despite playing with a broken nose.

UCLA Sports Info

Jeremy Braxton-Brown

UCLA Sports Info

Matt Swanson

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