Men’s water polo defeats USC, advances to MPSF finals
Senior utility Danny McClintick and the UCLA men’s water polo team advanced to the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament finals with a win over USC. (Daily Bruin file photo)
By Savannah Shapiro
Nov. 21, 2015 5:21 p.m.
LOS ANGELES – For 22 minutes, the USC Trojans couldn’t find the back of the net, giving the home crowd at Uytengsu Aquatics Center little to cheer about.
Driven by dominant defensive efforts in both the frontcourt and the cage, No. 1-seed UCLA (27-0) held its rival scoreless until the end of the third quarter, eventually sealing the 6-3 victory over No. 4-seed USC (19-6) in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament semifinals.
“I think defensively we were locked in from the start of the game and honestly the whole way through,” said senior utility Danny McClintick. “To hold a team with shooters like that, with centers like that, that’s as dynamic as they are to three goals, you can’t say enough about the defense.”
The defense from UCLA’s frontcourt allowed the Bruins to effectively shut down the Trojans, drawing 16 steals in the process.
“We played great positional defense,” said coach Adam Wright. “We were present and our focus was there and that was really key.”
As USC continued to push offensively to get on the board, junior goalie Garrett Danner’s stellar play persisted. In the process, Danner broke UCLA’s all-time career saves record, which was originally set by Chay Lapin in 2009 with 719 saves.
On a 5-meter penalty shot by driver Grant Stein, Danner was able to come up with the historic 720th career save.
“Obviously it’s a cool thing to happen, and I feel honored to get that, but that’s not what we are here to do,” Danner said. “Obviously our goal is to hopefully win another NCAA Championship and that’s just a by-product of our journey to do that.”
After UCLA jumped out early with a 6-0 lead, in the waning minutes of the third quarter, a short run from USC was able to cut the deficit in half, but that was as far as it would get.
“Early on we got good balls in to our centers off the transition,” Wright said. “We know they want to press us, and we did a good job moving. As the game went on we know that we could have done a better job continuing with that because it started getting away from us a little.”
The Bruin went two for nine on 6-on-5 power plays, while the Trojans came up empty in six tries. UCLA will face No. 3-seed California in the championship tomorrow.
