UCLA travels up to Nor Cal to vie for top team ranking

Friday, October 16, 1998

UCLA travels up to Nor Cal to vie for top team ranking

Coaches focus on beating rivals, not winning tournament

By Steve Kim

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The UCLA men’s water polo team is on its way up ­ up to
Stanford for the Northern California tournament. The Bruins will
play up to five games Saturday and Sunday and vie for the top
spot.

St. Francis of New York is their first opponent on Saturday
morning. UCLA rarely plays St. Francis, but when the No. 2 ranked
Bruins meet the No. 17 team, the outcome is predictable.

The Bruin head coach, Guy Baker, however, takes a reserved
outlook.

‘It’s ridiculously stereotypical, but all we’re concentrating on
right now is beating St. Francis,’ he said.

‘If we look too ahead toward who we’re going to play in the
final, we might end up playing in the consolation game instead so
we’re really concentrating on Saturday right now.’

Assuming the Bruins beat St. Francis in the early round, their
match schedule will be dictated by the tournament, which includes
all the major water polo college teams such as USC, Stanford, Cal
and UC Irvine. Currently at an uncomfortable No. 2, the Bruins want
to slide out of that ranking and into USC’s No. 1 spot.

Having lost to the Trojans a month ago at the Southern
California tournament, UCLA currently holds a 7-1 overall match
record. However, the tournament wasn’t a conference event, so the
Bruins stand undefeated in MPSF, 3-0.

After beating Pepperdine at their first match, the Bruins had
two weeks to train for this tournament. Two weeks without games is
a long time at this point in the season, and they took this
opportunity to do some major training.

‘Whenever you have a bye week, you want to get in great shape,’
sophomore setter Sean Kern said. ‘This week and the last, I think,
have pretty much been the hardest for us in terms of training.’

Working the players to their maximum ability was exactly the
coaches’ intention. Assistant coach Adam Krikorian’s attitude is,
if you can, why not?

‘Not that we’re not in good shape already, but we wanted to get
in better shape,’ he said. ‘It’s been an intense week because
there’s no reason to slow down. We’re able to do that because we
had the last weekend off from competing.’

In other words, the players could afford to be in more pain last
weekend since they didn’t need to rest up for any game. Sore
muscles and pure exhaustion may not be pleasant at all, but it’s
all part of the Bruins’ dedication to get better and win.

‘We never want to get repetitive in the water,’ Kern said.
‘We’re so young, we have much more to improve and the guys are
eager and willing to learn.’

Climbing up a notch to the No. 1 ranking is definitely within
reach, but Krikorian stresses that it’s not the ranking they’re
going for ­ it’s the opponents.

‘We don’t focus on what seed we want to be or what rank we want
to be,’ the coach said. ‘We’re more focused on who we’re going to
be playing this weekend.’

The three major contenders UCLA is likely to encounter are
Stanford, USC and UC Irvine. UCLA has no history with No. 3
Stanford as of yet this season, but it beat UC Irvine 5-4 early in
September. USC beat the Bruins 11-7 mid-September in the Southern
California tournament and currently stands as the top seed.

Should USC live up to its No. 1 ranking, and should the Bruins
meet the Trojans at the tournament final, Kern thinks his team is
prepared to beat their opponents.

‘The last time we played them, we just had a really poor game,’
Kern said. ‘But I think the more we play them, the better we’re
going to get compared to them.’

The Nor Cal weekend is the Bruins’ last tournament before the
MPSF conference championship tournament. It’s not only a good place
to see just how much they’ve improved in the last two weeks ­
they can assess their opposition’s progress as well.

‘It’s the last chance everybody’s going to be together, where we
can watch everyone play,’ Baker explained. ‘In the So-Cal
tournament we were second, so the first objective is to get to the
championship game and then we’ll see who we play with that Sunday,
as far as that goes.’

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