Tournament no Hawaiian holiday with new Rainbows on horizon

Thursday, February 12, 1998

Tournament no Hawaiian holiday with new Rainbows on horizon

W. WATERPOLO: Despite depth of team, Bruins may have a major
challenger in talented contender

By Steve Kim

Daily Bruin Contributor

The standard in collegiate women’s water polo is constantly
being raised by none other than the UCLA Bruins.

Coming into this season as two-time national collegiate
champions, the UCLA women’s water polo team enjoyed a tremendous
start in last week’s season opening UCSD Tournament.

No team, including No. 2 Cal, ended the game closer than seven
points to the Bruins during their five-game streak.

As if that didn’t set enough of a standard, they’re out to
improve on their past performances throughout the duration of the
season.

UCLA head coach Guy Baker felt although the team performed well
against the higher ranked teams, it lacked excitement against teams
of lower caliber.

Having lost no major contributors to graduation, and with the
freshmen members adding to the depth, this coach expects more from
his team.

"The group is now an older, more mature team," Baker said.
"We’re going to take the workman-like approach. We’re going to put
a lot of work in practice on being more consistent in the way we
play every game. We want to reach close to perfection as
possible."

Junior driver Coralie Simmons agrees.

"Sometimes we have a late start so we want to get a consistent
game all four quarters," Simmons said. "We want to play the best we
can every game, never lose and have a desire to go out and win all
the time."

Added senior goalie and team captain Nicolle Payne, "Even if we
win, we have to be happy with how we play. We’re playing well in
practice so we should carry over and play well in the games,
too."

With this kind of attitude, the team will be driven to improve
on what is already the best. And with this kind of team, UCLA’s
next opponent, University of Hawaii, faces a tough challenge during
its Friday morning visit to the Men’s Gym Pool. To accommodate
Hawaii’s traveling schedule, the game will be played at 10 in the
morning.

Coming into the game, Hawaii faces another challenge of debuting
a brand-new women’s water polo program. The Rainbows were
nonexistent last year, but backed by a large budget and three
Canadian recruits, the team has beaten every opponent it’s played
so far, including Long Beach State. Hawaii is out to prove it has a
worthy women’s water polo program, and Baker recognizes it.

"Personally, it’s exciting to have a new team in our
conference," Baker said. "They’re actually going to be a pretty
good team. And we get to go play at Hawaii a couple times, which no
one’s complaining about."

Despite its early success, Hawaii doesn’t pose too much of a
threat to UCLA’s veteran team. However, assistant coach Adam
Krikorian says the Bruins can gain a learning experience from
playing the new team.

"We’re going to play Hawaii again a month from now," Krikorian
said, "so this game will be a good chance for both teams to see
what each team does offensively and defensively. We’ll get to see
their tendencies and the type of skills they have."

As serious as this championship team is, it’s not all work and
no play. The players obviously enjoy winning just about every game
they play. More importantly, they enjoy the thrill of competition.
The upcoming home game against Hawaii is no exception.

"They have some good players we hear about so we get to see what
they bring us," said Simmons. "And it’s our first home game so
hopefully, we’ll get a lot of fans coming out to watch us. It
should be exciting."