Bruins hope to keep streak alive up north

MEN’S WATERPOLO NorCal Tournament
Saturday-Sunday All Day Stockton, California

By Rekha Rao
Daily Bruin Contributor

The top-ranked UCLA men’s water polo team heads up north
for the second consecutive weekend in hopes of continuing their
seven-game winning streak in the Northern California Tournament,
hosted by University of the Pacific. With several top teams in the
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference competing, including
Pepperdine, UC Santa Cruz and USC, the Bruins will be challenged in
this weekend’s competitions.

“This is a key weekend because if we win we will be in the
driver’s seat for the NCAAs,” said two-meter offensive
player senior Dave Parker.

This is the second of three key tournaments for the men’s
water polo team. In September at the Southern California
Tournament, UCLA took third place with a 5-4 loss to USC.

The MPSF Championship is the final tournament of the season.
From this tournament, the two top-finishing teams, and the team
with the next best record in the league will continue on to the
NCAA Championship tournament.

Although NorCal doesn’t help the Bruins maintain their No.
1 ranking, it gives them the needed practice for the weeks
ahead.

“This tournament goes a long way towards our at-large bid
for the NCAA tournament,” said UCLA co-head coach Guy Baker.
“But it doesn’t help with our rankings.”

At NorCal, UCLA faces a tough two days, playing No. 16 UCSC in
their first round and then the winner of the Pacific-Pepperdine
match in the second round on Saturday.

The Bruins have had an unlucky past with this tournament the
past two years. In 1998, they fell to UC Irvine in the championship
game, and last year lost the final game to USC.

“We always expect to do well, but we have lost both times
in the championship game the last two years,” Baker said.

The Bruins are hoping to change the statistics this year.

“We are using (the losses) for motivation. It has just
been frustrating,” co-head coach Adam Krikorian said.
“We felt we played well but were just unfortunate. This year
we hope to have the opportunity to win.”

UCLA brings their winning streak to the tournament and hopes to
keep the game-winning attitude this weekend.

“I like coming into it with a winning streak. I like our
confidence right now,” Baker said.

Krikorian added that he thinks their streak will give them the
confidence they need to win.

“It all depends on how we look at it,” Krikorian
said. “We are going into it thinking positively and looking
at it as challenging.”

The winning streak does not seem to put much pressure on the
players.

“We’ve been playing pretty well. It is not an
amazing streak. It isn’t out of the ordinary and winning has
become day-to-day for us now,” Parker said.

The Bruins’ confidence might just be what gets them the
victory they’ve been missing the last two years.