Bruins battle Waves in year’s first home game

Friday, October 2, 1998

Bruins battle Waves in year’s first home game

PREVIEW: Team trains hard despite previous win against
Pepperdine

By Steve Kim

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The UCLA men’s water polo team invites the defending NCAA
champion Pepperdine Waves to the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center
this afternoon at 4 p.m.

The Pepperdine Waves return numerous players from their
championship season, including All-Americans Jeremy Pope and goalie
Merrill Moses. However, being the team to beat has gotten the Waves
stuck in low tide.

With Pepperdine’s season record of 2-3 thus far and a previous
4-7 loss to UCLA in the Southern California Tournament, the Waves
have a lot of ground to make up and are not likely to take this
game too lightly.

The Bruins don’t plan to cut them some slack either. They are
riding high with a 2-0 conference and 6-1 overall record. And
beating the Waves several weeks ago gives them an extra boost
coming into this afternoon’s match.

"Pepperdine has a lot riding on this game because they’re kind
of struggling right now," UCLA co-captain Sam Grayeli said. "If we
go out there and play the way we’re capable, we should win."

In effort to better assure a win, the Bruins have been improving
a little here and a little there, according to UCLA head coach Guy
Baker. One of those improvements is in defense.

"They only scored four goals last time, but I still think they
missed some easy shots," Baker said. "We’ve been working on our
counter attacks, and they’re doing that better in practice."

Winning is always nice, but winning this game would also help in
another way, explained team co-captain Eric Helfer.

"Since this is another conference game," Helfer said, "we want
to go undefeated into the Northern California Tournament in two
weeks so we can get a good seeding there."

That this is the Bruins’ first home game of the season adds to
their desire to win. It’s a pride thing.

"We’re anticipating a good-sized crowd," Baker said. "We have a
good team and so does Pepperdine, so it should be a real exciting
home game."

And it couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time than the
first days of school.

"Since I’ve been here I can’t ever remember school starting in
October," Baker said. "Coming in this morning, it was hard to find
parking. Things are back to normal."

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