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Strong defense of men’s water polo team leads to 11-8 triumph over UCI

Sophomore attacker Griffin White scored three goals for No. 3 UCLA against No. 5 UC Irvine Saturday at Spieker Aquatics Center. White’s hat trick gave him 17 goals on the year, tied for third-most on the team. The win over the Anteaters has the Bruins sitting at a 3-1 MPSF record halfway through the conference season.

UCLA 11
UC Irvine 8

By Daily Bruin Staff

Oct. 25, 2010 12:24 a.m.

The UCLA men’s water polo team had not asserted itself against a top-level opponent all year, but that didn’t show in an important conference matchup against UC Irvine.

The Bruins dominated on both sides of the ball in a workmanlike 11-8 win Saturday night at Spieker Aquatics Center. UCLA never trailed in the contest and used some tough defense to keep a dangerous UCI team out of reach for the whole game.

The game was of a physical nature from the outset.

The two teams traded fouls on the first four possessions of the game, and both No. 3 UCLA (12-3, 3-1 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) and No. 5 UCI (13-4, 2-1) converted their opportunities to keep the game tied at two goals apiece.

Then the Bruins turned up their five-man defense. The Anteaters were smothered on their next two chances with a man advantage and finished the game four-for-11 on exclusion play. A power play goal from redshirt senior center Jacob Murphy and a cross-cage lob shot from senior attacker Ben Hohl gave the Bruins a two-goal lead, one which they held for the rest of the game.

“We just wanted to make a statement, and the past couple of games, we haven’t been playing that well defensively; it wasn’t that good of an effort,” redshirt junior center Brett Hays said.

“We kind of wanted to set a tone from the beginning (today).”

UCI was drawing exclusions left and right, which forced coach Adam Wright to deviate slightly from his normal rotation and empty his bench. That didn’t affect UCLA’s defense at all, further emphasizing that the win was a collective team effort.

“In the first quarter, we had three, four guys with fouls, and guys that aren’t usually thrown into that situation in the first half had to play a lot of minutes,” Wright said.

“They had to go in early, and they all did a good job. They played good defensively.”

Wright constantly brings up his two key rules for defense: no goals from inside two-meters, and no goals from the counterattack. Save for one counter goal in the first quarter, UCLA prevented the easy scoring opportunities, which forced UCI to settle for long-distance shots.

“If we follow those rules, we’re always going to usually put ourselves in a position to have a chance to win,” Wright added.

Freshman goalkeeper James Hartshorne, who had six saves in his fifth career start, added that the team’s preparation during the week helped the defense stay strong for the whole game.

“We did a lot of video on them, so we were trying to know what they were going to do before coming down the pool,” he said. “We did cover well on the counterattack.”

The Bruins now hit a lull in their season, with only two non-conference games and an MPSF matchup against Long Beach State separating them from an eagerly anticipated rematch with USC on Nov. 6. But no one is looking that far ahead.

“It is (hard to not look at USC), but Adam’s really good at making us just focus on one game at a time,” Hays said. “He’ll remind us every time, like, don’t think about that, take one step at a time, one game at a time. And when it’s there, we’ll prepare.”

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