Women’s water polo aims to snap losing streak to Stanford, remain unbeaten in MPSF
Senior defender Rachel Whitelegge – who has 13 goals on the season – said the team was able to focus more on film for individual teams once the nonconference tournaments were over. No. 3 UCLA women’s water polo will face No. 1 Stanford and No. 18 San Jose State on the road this weekend. (Elise Tsai/Daily Bruin)
By Marcus Veal
April 5, 2019 1:37 a.m.
The Bruins are on the road for the final time in the regular season.
The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation’s last two undefeated teams will duke it out when No. 3 UCLA women’s water polo (20-3, 3-0 MPSF) visits No. 1 Stanford (15-1, 3-0) on Saturday. The Bruins will then conclude the road trip against the No. 18 San Jose State Spartans (9-11, 1-2) on Sunday.
“For us as a program, Stanford is always a big test,” said coach Adam Wright. “I believe the last 4 1/2 weeks of games and training has had really good progression within our team. Now, can we put all that together against a team that we’ve had difficulty with for the better part of a couple years.”
The last time the Bruins and the Cardinal squared off was at the Barbara Kalbus Invitational in February.
Stanford jumped out to an early 4-0 lead after one quarter and shut out UCLA for nearly the entire first half. Each team scored once in the second quarter and the Cardinal had a 5-1 lead going into the half.
The Bruins never got closer than four goals. Stanford kept pulling away, outscoring UCLA 5-3 in the second half to secure the 10-4 win.
The loss marked the fourth straight defeat the Bruins have suffered at the hands of the Cardinal, a losing streak that started back at the national championship game in 2017.
Stanford driver Makenzie Fischer scored five goals in the contest. The All-American is the team leader in goals with 60 and multigoal games with 13. Fischer is also eighth on Stanford’s all-time goals record with 181.
During her college tenure, the Laguna Beach, California native has earned conference, All-NCAA tournament and All-American honors in each of her first two seasons.
“She’s obviously a really talented player and has all the experience in the world,” Wright said. “She’s one of the best players in the country and the majority of her goals are on the counterattack and we have to slow that down by how we attack.”
As a team, Stanford has outscored its opponents 75-23 in the opening frame and 62-21 in the second.
Senior center Sarah Sheldon said the Bruins did not play their game in the teams’ first meeting and sees this matchup as an opportunity to put the last four weeks of training to the test.
“It’s going to be a lot about playing our game and honing in on what we’ve been practicing,” Sheldon said. “If we create movement on offense and we’re slowing down their movement on offense, I think that’s going to create and play into a lot of opportunities.”
In the last four weekends of competition, the Bruins have picked up four wins.
The winning streak began when UCLA defeated No. 5 California (13-4, 1-1) in early March and continued when it picked up wins against No. 10 Arizona State (12-9, 1-2), Indiana (5-13, 0-4) and No. 7 Pacific (9-8, 2-0 GCC).
Senior defender Rachel Whitelegge said elements of the team’s game are improving just in time for the final three games of the regular season.
“After we finished all the nonconference tournaments, we were able to really focus on film and look at our mistakes and capitalize on what we messed up on,” Whitelegge said. “It’s always fun to keep a few of the bigger games toward the end of the year and (Stanford) is one of the teams that we have improved so much on preparing for.”
