No. 3 UCLA women’s water polo focuses on zone offense

With 13 games behind them, the No. 3 UCLA women’s water polo players sit comfortably near the top of the rankings. The road to the team’s 12-1 record, however, has not always been smooth.

While UCLA easily handled its first nine games, it took a last-minute goal in double overtime to push past No. 4 California before the team fell to No. 2 Stanford. After another close game with No. 5 UC Irvine last weekend, it became clear that while UCLA is near the top of the pack, the team has a ways to go before it has any hope of following through on its goal of winning its eighth national title since 2000.

One clear hole in the Bruins’ play so far this season has been offense, especially late in the game and against elite teams. UCLA has scored 56 goals, a little under a third of its total, in the first period of its games, but has only managed 26 goals in the fourth. Against the top-five teams, the Bruins have averaged under seven goals per game, compared to 13 goals per game overall. While some decline in scoring is expected against elite defenses, coach Brandon Brooks has consistently talked about a need to “score a lot of goals” to ensure that top teams can’t overcome UCLA’s defense.

The Bruins have known about their tendency to fall off late in the game since early this season. Freshman utility Mackenzie Barr said that “staying 100-percent focused on the game all four quarters” was an important part of UCLA’s strategy going into the Stanford Invitational about three weeks ago.

Against the Cardinal, the Bruins were able to hold the game 3-2 during the first half by playing strong defense, but weren’t able to hold on as Stanford widened its lead to 8-4 by the end of the game. Although he wasn’t unhappy with the game as a whole, Brooks said that he thought the team had “finished poorly” and has stressed the need to play consistently throughout the entire game since facing Stanford.

To help against their upcoming elite opponents this weekend, the Bruins spent a good deal of time working on zone offense in practice this week. Instead of ending practices with the usual full-pool scrimmages, the team broke into two and focused just on offensive scoring plays.

“Working in zones – that’s something you’ll always have to work on in water polo,” said sophomore attacker Rachel Fattal.

According to Brooks, the offensive focus won’t just only help the Bruins, but could also hinder their opponents in future games.

“We don’t make other teams play enough defense,” Brooks said. With a stronger attack, other teams would be forced to spend more of their energy preventing UCLA goals instead of attempting their own, which could be the deciding factor in tough games.

UCLA will need all the offensive power it can muster this weekend. Nine of the top-10 teams of the country will convene at UC Irvine for the 2014 UCI Invitational Tournament. Five other ranked teams look to make the 16-team bracket incredibly competitive. First up for the Bruins will be the Aztecs from San Diego State. UCLA could face No. 6 Hawai’i and a rematch against Stanford. With three wins by both UCLA and No. 1 USC, the last game of the tournament could feature a showdown between the crosstown rivals.

While playing the top team in the country and reigning national champions could be intimidating, the Bruins seem excited by the possibility.

“We’ve already played most of (the top teams), but we haven’t seen ‘SC yet so hopefully we’ll get to play them,” said redshirt junior goalkeeper Sami Hill.