Water polo’s leading scorer named MPSF Player of the Week for third time

This week, sophomore attacker Emily Donohoe was named Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Player of the Week for the third time this season, a recognition that her coach said can be accredited to the entire team.

“(Donohoe) getting this accolade is an excellent result of everyone else that put in all the hard work to prepare for her to score a goal,” said coach Brandon Brooks.

Brooks explained that it takes the entire team’s contribution to set up these golden opportunities for Donohoe, this season’s leading scorer with a total of 55 goals.

“It takes a lot of people’s efforts to set up an opportunity and it makes me feel good that everyone is contributing to make that opportunity possible,” Brooks said.

Still, Donohoe’s sights are set further than winning Player of the Week.

“It’s really nice to be recognized, but ultimately the main goal I’d like to reach is winning the (NCAA) championship with the team,” Donohoe said.

With just four games left to play in the regular season, Donohoe says the Bruins are focused on fixing the mistakes they have seen in games as well as emphasizing the importance of communication during difficult situations.

“The (games) that we’ve lost have shown us where we need to improve, and we’ve been trying to work on that so we can continue to get better and reach our full potential by the end of the season,” Donohoe said.

This weekend’s game against Stanford will prove to be a key MPSF game, but the team intends to go into the competition with clean slates, working together to respond to each other’s missteps.

“We played a good game (against Stanford) last time. We played hard, but made some mistakes. We are a better team than we were then, and they are a better team than they were then,” Brooks said.

Reflecting on the season, Donohoe said she feels good about the progress of the team, but she sees the journey as far from over. The team is filled with young talent that Donohoe feels has brought new enthusiasm to the squad.

“We started off the season really excited and we have a lot of fresh new players, so it was kind of exciting to see a lot of youth on the team,” Donohoe said.

No. 4 UCLA has a five-game winning streak and less than a month of regular-season play before it has to prepare for the postseason.

“The team shows up every day, they work hard and we’ve progressed because of it,” Brooks said. “And I’m expecting a hard-fought game.”