Squad in race for championship again

By Jonah Goldfinger

Daily Bruin Contributor

The UCLA women’s water polo team heads to Bloomington,
Ind., this weekend to try to bring home the school’s fourth
national championship in the six years it has been played as a
varsity sport.

The Bruins (26-5 overall, 8-1 MPSF) earned an automatic bid to
the Collegiate Championships after finishing second at the Southern
California Western Regional two weeks ago. UCLA finished tied for
third with USC in the national rankings, behind Stanford, the
nation’s top-ranked squad, and California.

This weekend’s seedings are indicative of the level of
competitive play in the MPSF. The first four seeds in the
sixteen-team tournament ““ Stanford, UCLA, Cal and USC ““
are all MPSF schools. San Jose State, San Diego State, UC Davis,
Hawaii, Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara and Loyola are also
conference members that will be competing for the title this
weekend.

UCLA has quickly established itself as a dynasty in the sport
after winning national championships in 1996, ’97 and
’98. Last year, the Bruins finished a disappointing third
place after three players redshirted to compete on the U.S.
National Team. One of those redshirts, senior Catharine von
Schwarz, will be competing for her fourth national title this
weekend for UCLA.

The Bruins certainly believe they have the talent to bring home
another championship. Von Schwarz was named to the MPSF
All-Conference first team last month for the second time. Sophomore
sensation Elaine Zivich and senior Erin Golaboski won second team
honors, while sophomore transfer Kelly Heuchan and freshman Jessica
Lopez were named honorable mention.

“We’ve been stressing defense in practice the last
two weeks,” head coach Adam Krikorian said. “The indoor
facility will make it very hard to hear one another in the water.
We’re going to have to play some strong team defense and if
we do that, we’ll be successful.”

UCLA will face 15th-seeded Michigan in the first round Friday at
8 a.m. The Bruins have not faced the Wolverines this season but are
2-0 lifetime against them. Their last meeting came in 1998 when the
Bruins won 15-5. The winner of the UCLA-Michigan game will then
face the winner of the UC Davis-Long Beach State match at 3
p.m.

The Bruins, though, could be looking ahead to tougher matches on
Saturday and Sunday. No. 1-seeded Stanford has been UCLA’s
nemesis all season, defeating the Bruins four times by a total of
six goals.

“We’ve come up with little excuses for each of our
Stanford losses,” Heuchan said. “Now we’re just
going to have to come together and get the job done. And we
will.”

UCLA’s only other loss came to USC in the MPSF
championship two weeks ago. Beyond those teams, Cal has been the
only other squad able to play competitively with UCLA this season,
though the Bruins have had the upper hand both times.

The national championship game will be played Sunday at 3:30
p.m.