[Online Exclusive]: Women's water polo headed to national championship after Stanford blowout
By Bryan Chu
May 12, 2006 9:00 p.m.
Correction appended
Huddled around on a patch of grass as night fell, the UCLA
women’s water polo team watched coach Adam Krikorian point out each
player’s significance in Saturday’s match.
After a near-perfect game that saw UCLA blow out rival Stanford,
8-5, the Bruins can smell a repeat national championship. All that
stands in their way is powerhouse USC.
“Sure we’re one step away, but it’s a long
step,” said Krikorian, who will be in search of his fourth
national championship in the last six years.
“We picked a good time to play our best water polo. That
was our best game of the year.”
The championship match, which will be a 5 p.m. bout at the Ted
and Rand Schaal Aquatics Center on the campus of UC Davis, will be
between the national champions of the last two seasons.
Asked if there are going to be any butterflies going against
coach Jovan Vavic’s Trojans, Krikorian swatted down that
idea.
“We’ve been there and we’ve done it before. We
know what it takes,” he said.
It won’t be easy for the third-seeded Bruins (28-4),
especially with the way the top-seeded Trojans (28-2) have knocked
around their opponents this season. To get into the championship
game, USC gutted out a 9-7 win over fourth-seeded Hawai’i
(18-11) after falling 4-2 in the second period.
"They’re big, strong and fast," said Krikorian, whose Bruins
hold a 1-2 record
head-to-head this season with the Trojans. "They got two of the
best centers (Moriah van
Norman and Lauren Wenger) in the country. You don’t win 26 games
in a row to be a slouch of a team.”
UCLA can almost taste its 99th national championship.
“If it comes, it comes. It’ll be great for our
school and sport,” sophomore Gabrielle Domanic said.
Last year, Stanford (23-5) fell 4-3 in a heartbreaking
championship loss to the Bruins in Michigan. Asked how it feels to
come short again, after having won this season’s conference
tournament, Stanford goalie Meredith McColl choked up. Stanford
coach John Tanner had to interject.
“It obviously isn’t easy,” he said.
“It’s very frustrating for Meredith and for our whole
team. We had our seniors from last year watching here, hoping we
would come up on the top.”
The Bruins aren’t known for their quick starts, but
Domanic took it upon herself to assert some vigor into the team.
Domanic had a finger on two goals, scoring in the opening minute
and then finding senior Thalia Munro for a skip shot to give UCLA a
2-0 lead. Everything seemed to go UCLA’s way. With the shot
clock winding down, Kristina Kunkel rocketed an 8-meter shot to
give UCLA an almost insurmountable 3-0 lead.
“It was intense in the beginning,” Domanic said.
“We attacked from the start and as long as that fire gets up,
it’s contagious in the bench and the water.”
The Cardinal mounted a comeback with a two-goal run in the
second period to bring the game to a 4-3 UCLA advantage. But UCLA
leading scorer Kelly Rulon, who notched a game-high three goals,
found the back of the goal in back-to-back possessions ““ one
unassisted and one on a 4-meter penalty shot which Kacy Kunkel drew
on Cardinal Laurel Champion. Rulon now has 66 goals on the season,
which puts her third all-time in UCLA’s individual season
scoring records. (Coralie Simmons is atop that list with 74 goals
and last season Rulon notched 70.)
“This is a different UCLA team than two weeks ago,”
said Tanner, referring to the Cardinal’s 8-5 semifinal win in
the MPSF tournament.
The Bruins held the Cardinal scoreless in the third period as
they took a 7-3 advantage into the final period and cruised the
rest of the way.
Stanford was woeful on its man-advantage plays. The Cardinal
went 2-for-11 to the Bruins’ 3-for-6.
UCLA junior goalie Emily Feher had a stellar game finishing with
a game-high nine saves, which included stopping Katie
Hansen’s 4-meter penalty shot.
As for Tanner’s take on the championship game against the
Bruins and the Trojans, he was trite.
“If UCLA plays like this, they’ll have an extremely
good chance of winning,” Tanner said.
After a quick bite to eat at Plutos Restaurant for dinner,
Krikorian and the team will once again prepare. They’ll watch
video. They’ll go over their game plan.
But they all know what’s at stake – No. 99.
