What a difference a year makes.
The No. 4 UCLA men’s water polo team (12-4, 4-0 MPSF) is experiencing a complete turnaround in its season compared to last year’s record (15-8, 4-4), which included failing to qualify for the NCAA tournament.
“This year, we felt more of a sense of urgency than we did last year,” junior center Ted Peck said. “That’s why we lost a couple close games last year, but now we really feel like every game this year is a do or die situation and we’ll have to dig deep and do whatever it takes to pull out a win.”
UCLA is currently on a seven-game winning streak, which dates back to the beginning of October.
“We’re actually happy to be practicing,” sophomore center defender Michael March said. “For a while when we were working hard and still losing our games, we wondered, ‘Why should we work hard if we don’t win?’ But, now we’re winning, and everyone is ready to get in the pool.”
Winners of 11 of their past 12 matches, the Bruins lone loss came at the hands of Stanford, 7-4.
UCLA will reunite and square off against the No. 3 Cardinal (12-3, 1-1) Nov. 1 at 10 a.m. in Palo Alto.
“I feel if we get this win over Stanford we’ll be in a great position for the remainder of the season,” Peck said. “The goal is to go undefeated in conference, and if we do that, it will instill a big sense of confidence in everyone.”
If the Bruins hope to continue their outstanding play, they will need to stop Stanford’s leading scorer, junior driver Tony Azevedo, who commands the Cardinal offense with 50 goals in only 15 matches.
UCLA’s offense will also have to re-calibrate its shooting against Stanford sophomore goalkeeper Chad Taylor, who has totaled 89 saves on the year.
As for preparation for the Stanford match, UCLA has its game plan well in hand.
“We’re going to focus a lot of our defense against Tony,” captain Peter Belden said. “We’ve played these guys enough before, and we’re familiar with their style so our success will depend on us being able to put together a good game.”
The Bruins have been able to close out games thus far in the season by winning both of their overtime contests, an 11-10 victory over Long Beach State, and most recently, a 6-5 overtime win over USC. In comparison, last year’s Bruin squad managed to salvage only two victories in six overtime contests.
“I’d have to attribute our success to us working hard during the off-season,” Belden said. “We’re in such great shape that if we get into overtime like we did against USC, we’ll have the advantage.”
Furthermore, this year’s Bruin team has been outstanding in protecting their home pool. Going 6-0 thus far at home has been a drastic improvement from last year’s subpar 3-3 record.
“We take a lot of pride playing at home,” head coach Adam Krikorian said. “We’re not going to let any team beat us in our place.”
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Belden was named Mikasa/MPSF Player of the Week for the week of Oct. 20-26. He scored the game-winning goal against USC last Sunday.
Belden leads the team in steals with 17 and has netted 12 goals on the season.