Women’s water polo to go up against Tritons in NCAA quarterfinal
Sophomore attacker Devin Grab and the women’s water polo team have a chance to end a six-year title drought. UCLA battles UC San Diego Friday afternoon for a spot in the semifinal. (Keila Mayberry/Daily Bruin staff)
By Kelsey Angus
May 13, 2016 2:00 a.m.
Since the inception of the NCAA championship for women’s water polo, the Bruins have played in the title match 10 times. In the 16 years of the tournament, only UCLA, USC and Stanford have ever taken home hardware.
And it doesn’t look like this year will be any different.
The Bruins (24-4, 5-1 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation), Cardinal and Trojans enter this year’s National Collegiate Women’s Water Polo Championship ranked No. 3, 2 and 1 in the nation, respectively.
However, before UCLA faces off against the only two teams to hand it a loss this season, the team has to get past No. 10 UC San Diego (27-9, 3-0 Western Water Polo Association).
It’s the first contest between the two programs this season, but this is the third year in a row the Bruins and Tritons have met in the national quarterfinal. UCLA came away with a victory on both occasions, by 12-8 in 2014 and 9-2 in 2015.
Still, every game matters on the path to UCLA’s 114th national championship.
“We take it game by game, quarter by quarter. We are not necessarily thinking about the end result, but just winning the game that is next,” said junior utility Mackenzie Barr, a first-team All-MPSF selection. “My goals are just that we stay in the moment and we just try to win every battle and every possession.”
The thought of playing in the biggest game in collegiate water polo on Sunday is too much to ignore entirely. After falling 7-6 and 9-5 to Stanford in the past two title games, UCLA is still searching for its first title since 2009.
“Winning one this year would mean that we are taking the next step. I think that our program is going in a good direction,” said coach Brandon Brooks. “I think that the culture is good, and we have to keep doing a lot of things correctly to be in the position to be in the championship game.”
Assuming the Bruins are able to weather the Tritons on Friday, it is likely that they will see the Cardinal in the semifinal on Saturday in a rematch of this year’s MPSF semifinal game. Stanford’s zone defense proved too much for UCLA, as the Bruins were shut out in the second half in the 6-3 loss.
“It’ll be a very exciting semifinal,” Brooks said. “I’m sure they’re going to be tuned up, and they’ve been preparing for us, and we’ve been preparing for the possibility of playing them as well.”
Another likely possibility is seeing rival USC in the championship game Sunday. The undefeated Trojans are responsible for all three of the Bruins’ regular-season losses.
The chance to finally play USC in UCLA’s home pool, Spieker Aquatics Center, is appealing.
“Beating your rival school at your home pool – it doesn’t get much better than that,” said sophomore attacker Devin Grab, who leads the team with 41 goals and 26 assists on the season.
The team emphasized that level-headedness and fundamentals remain key to beating any team.
“It’s the same game, and USC is the same team that we’ve seen three times this year,” Grab said. “So I think something big is just focusing on our defense. That’s one of our strong suits, so if we can play the team defense that we know we’re able to play, then that’ll be good.”
Leading up to this weekend, the Bruins have had two weeks off to prepare for potential matchups this weekend, and they are taking advantage of the extra practice time.
“We’ve just been watching a lot of video, visualizing, practicing as hard as we can, just basically pushing it,” Barr said. “We talk about our how it’s our last week and we have to give it everything we have, so that’s our attitude going into the weekend.”
The NCAA water polo championship will take place Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Spieker Aquatics Center on UCLA’s campus. The Bruins will face the Tritons at noon Friday.
