Undefeated women’s water polo looks to continue making improvements
UCLA women’s water polo coach Adam Wright’s “system” may be tightly kept, but he expressed his frustrations about the team after Saturday’s close wins over Loyola Marymount and Fresno State. (Ellie Tsai/Daily Bruin)
By Marcus Veal
Feb. 5, 2019 12:10 a.m.
The Bruins have been focused around one question that coach Adam Wright asks his players week after week.
“How are we progressing and getting better at the areas that we need to address?”
After a perfect start to the season, the consensus of No. 3 UCLA women’s water polo (10-0) is that there is still a lot that needs to be improved.
“This was the perfect example for our team and it was good to go through what we went through,” Wright said. “You can’t treat one game different from the next and the goal is to learn from our mistakes.”
This weekend against No. 5 Hawai’i, No. 14 Fresno State and No. 15 Loyola Marymount University tested many different aspects of the Bruins’ game.
The Bruins had to overcome a two-goal deficit in the fourth quarter against the Lions and needed a goal in the very last minute to avoid their first loss of the season.
“There needs to be consistency in how we approach every game, in how we warm up and in our mentality,” Wright said. “Until we understand how important being consistent is in our everyday approach, who we are every day and how we act in and out of the water, it’s always going to be a step backwards.”
Wright said the right preparation and consistency result in improvement, but the Bruins’ mindset standpoint affected their physical standpoint.
Offensively, 6-on-5 success has been a point of emphasis all season.
In a weekend where UCLA scored in more than half its man-up shot attempts, it struggled against LMU, shooting just 5-for-14 in that game.
“The reality is when you don’t come with the right mindset and all of a sudden there’s pressure and the game is close, you do things you shouldn’t do,” Wright said Saturday. “You don’t set yourself up to be ready to shoot and you turn the ball over. (Against Hawai’i), the attack was a lot better.”
The Bruins found power play success in the other two games, shooting 5-for-8 against the Rainbow Wahine and 8-for-13 against the Bulldogs.
Junior attacker Maddie Musselman had her fifth and sixth career five-goal games in those two games. She picked up half her goals via the 6-on-5 advantage.
“There were a lot of different openings that I tried to expose and when I took advantage of them, they went in,” Musselman said. “We work hard on those 6-on-5’s in practice and I just tried to play my role.”
UCLA held its opponents to 8-of-23 shooting in man-down situations.
The Rainbow Wahine entered Friday’s contest 14-for-20 on power play opportunities but were held to just 1-for-7 in their loss to the Bruins. On Saturday the Lions were held to eight goals, the first time this season they didn’t score in the double digits.
“I thought we did a really good job communicating, especially in the second half of the LMU game,” said senior defender Rachel Whitelegge. “We’re starting to learn everyone’s tendencies a lot more and finish out our defensive possessions more often in critical moments.”
UCLA will compete in the Triton Invitational this weekend in San Diego. Wright said that this weekend showed signs of progress.
“There’s been a progression and we’re moving in a good direction,” Wright said. “From this weekend minus some setbacks to where we were last week and then two weeks ago in Santa Barbara, we’ve gotten better and will continue to get better.”
