Women’s water polo aims to learn from recent mistakes

This week, the water polo team is focusing on mistakes – mistakes the Bruins have made in previous games and what they need to do to avoid repeating them.

UCLA’s relative success is obvious considering its 21-4 record, but what cannot be captured with just numbers, players said, is their unending desire to improve and cultivate new strategies. What it also does not show is that they have been unable to beat Stanford or Arizona State in important conference games.

Sophomore attacker Emily Donohoe said the team does not simply move on from a loss or forget about it.

Instead, after every single one of the four losses, they’ve focused on what their weakness was – hesitation, in the case of last weekend’s game – and work twice as hard in practice to perfect it.

“We will take this loss and use it as another reason to continue to get better. We will focus on the game and not dwell too much on the loss but rather use it as a way to make ourselves better,” Donohoe said.

With only one Mountain Pacific Sports Federation game and two non-conference games left, the team has limited time for improvement.

“We have to get better. We need to hold ourselves to the standard of last weekend’s game and we should compare to that,” said coach Brandon Brooks, in regard to playing against tough MPSF competitors such as undefeated Stanford and USC.

This week, the Bruins are focusing on building confidence from the already strong record that they hold.

After noting their hesitation to shoot in their last match at Stanford, Brooks has been stressing the importance of attacking with confidence to provide opportunities to score.

“We have a lot of work to do this next month but I think we’re getting there,” said freshman attacker Kodi Hill.

What makes this easier is that each player is more than willing to put in the extra hours to build stronger strategies and to help each other improve, especially considering the large influence the freshmen have this season.

“Every year the team is different, so this year finding your groove is the biggest thing because there is such a big freshman class,” said redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Sami Hill.

“I’m just learning to stay positive and try to lift up my teammates so that they can do their best.”

In practice, the team will put a bigger emphasis on recreating real-life situations, including pressure shooting and blocked shooting, in order to avoid another shock like the one it felt against Stanford’s strong defense.

Although the next couple of games are non-conference, the team will not take them lightly. These upcoming games will provide the Bruins with the perfect opportunity to overcome the hesitation they saw last weekend.

“Each one of (the players) shoots well and knows how to shoot, so it’s just a matter of when you’re in the game under crunch time,” Hill said.

“You need to be able to step in and take your shot with confidence.”