The Bruins have a chance at staying undefeated as they prepare for a rematch.

No.1 UCLA men’s water polo (10-0) is set to compete against No. 12 UC Santa Barbara (10-4) at Spieker Aquatics Center on Friday. The Bruins have won 33 matches against the Gauchos in program history while suffering only one loss.

“There’s a lot of new things that we also want to be implementing this year that we weren’t doing last year,” said coach Adam Wright. “But that takes time.”

According to graduate goalkeeper Garret Griggs, the team uses each game as a learning experience.

“Every game, we look at it as an opportunity to grow and get better as a group,” Griggs said. “Santa Barbara’s a good team. They always give us a great game whenever we play them. So it’s a good opportunity for us to work on some stuff we have been wanting to work on coming out of this last weekend.”

The Bruins’ prior match against the Gauchos ended with a 13-7 victory for the Bruins. A total of eight Bruins contributed to the scoreboard, half of them new arrivals. With the same theme continuing into this season, the Bruins have had at least two goals made by freshmen in each game.

Wright said the team’s defense is a core component for the upcoming match.

“Our hope is (that) over the course of the tournament last week, we got better with our defense,” Wright said. “And our hope is our defense is just going to continue to keep moving forward and get better.”

The last match the Bruins had was the Sunday takedown of USC during the MPSF Invitational.

Wright said graduate student attacker Makoto Kenney’s – who scored twice on Sunday – performance was valued, in addition to redshirt junior attacker Chase Dodd adjusting to the collegiate level after the Olympics.

“Overall, the group as a whole did great. But those things stuck out. Whether it be Kenney picking up more minutes because people are out, or Chase doing a really nice job adapting to the style of play, and they’re officiating back here. These are both big positives.”