NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin Freshman playmaker Amber Stachowski
leads the defending national champion UCLA women’s water polo team
into the Final Four this weekend held at USC’s McDonald’s Swim
Stadium. The No. 2-seeded Bruins will take on the No. 3-seeded
Loyola Marymount Lions in the semifinal on Saturday.
By Susana Zialcita
DAILY BRUIN CONTRIBUTOR
[email protected]
The UCLA women’s water polo team hopes to experience a
little deja vu this weekend as it heads off to the NCAA Final
Four.
The Bruins will start the tournament the same way they started
it last year ““ with a semifinal game against Loyola
Marymount. If they defeat the Lions, and if Stanford wins its
semifinal against Michigan, a rematch of last seasons’
championship game will go down. Last year, the Bruins defeated LMU
11-1 and beat Stanford 5-4. They are hoping to end the tournament
as they did last year and earn the title of national champions.
On Saturday at McDonald’s Swim Stadium on the USC campus,
the Bruins should encounter a tough defensive game with the Lions,
who are led by goalie Devon Courtney. Although the Bruins are 3-0
against LMU, they aren’t taking the match lightly.
“It’s really important for us to have our last game
be a championship game,” Bruin senior Jenny Lamb said.
“And we’ve got to win to have that.”
To combat the Lions’ strong defensive play, the Bruins
won’t change much about their game. Their aggressive play on
offense and defense has been successful in the past, so the Bruins
are just fine-tuning parts of their game.
“In practice, we’ve really been working our man up
and man down play,” UCLA coach Adam Krikorian said.
The Bruins, the No. 2 seed in the tournament, are expected to
advance to the final where they are expected to face top-seeded
Stanford.
Above all else, a game between the two titans will be a mental
battle.
Neither team has a true physical weakness. Strategically
speaking, the Cardinals are more offensively inclined, while the
Bruins are more defensive.
“If we get the opportunity to advance to the championship
game, I’d expect we’d play Stanford, and they have
great two-meter offensive players,” Krikorian said.
To contest the Cardinal’s phenomenal offensive players,
the Bruins will employ a zone-style defense. To shut down a strong
two-meter offense, the defense can collapse onto the center
attacker and prevent passes into the two-meter zone.
The Bruins will also go into the game feeling confident about
their offense.
“They play a defense that is easy to prepare for, so we
just need to capitalize on all the opportunities we get,”
Krikorian said.
If the final match were to be between UCLA and Stanford, the
Bruins are expecting the team that is mentally stronger to come out
victorious.
“Last year, we showed up with a do-or-die attitude to the
game,” Bruin sophomore center Natalie Golda said. “We
just need to do the same thing this week.”
And if the mindset is going to determine the national champion,
the Bruins may have a slight advantage over Stanford. The Bruins
have already played two high-pressure games at McDonald’s
Swim Stadium. Earlier in the season, the Bruins defeated USC in a
must-win game. Then, last weekend, UCLA beat Stanford for the first
time this season to win the MPSF championship.
“We’re really trying to find the perfect medium
between being strategically prepared for the game, and having
fun,” UCLA junior attacker Mari Joyce said,
“That’s what we did last week and that’s what we
need to do again.”