A 75-match streak stood in the balance.
With just under four minutes remaining, center Ilias Angelopoulos gave the Golden Bears back the lead for the first time since early in the third quarter – threatening to hand the Bruins their first two-match losing streak since 2023.
But like clockwork, junior attacker Ryder Dodd gave the Bruins a mulligan – two, in fact – to reset the looming doomsday clock.
Dodd’s back-to-back penalty conversions in the fourth quarter for No. 1 UCLA men’s water polo (15-1, 1-1 MPSF) proved vital in its 13-11 win over No. 4 California (9-4, 0-2) on Sunday at Spieker Aquatics Center, allowing the team to split the weekend after a 19-15 loss to No. 2 Stanford (12-1, 2-0) on Saturday ruined its perfect season.
The back-to-back Peter J. Cutino Award winner tallied nine goals on 19 shots over the weekend for a total of 17 points. The rest of the Bruins shot 19-for-48 across both outings.
While UCLA did receive notable contributions this weekend from fifth-year attacker Frederico Jucá Carsalade, who had four goals on six shots, as well as five other players who scored at least two goals, coach Adam Wright said an increasingly one-dimensional offense was a concern.
“What makes this program unique and special is we don’t want to rely on one player,” Wright said. “If we’re going to see who we can ultimately become, it really lies with each and everyone’s personal responsibility, including myself.”
Wright, who has led the Bruins to back-to-back national titles the past two seasons, added that he saw Saturday’s loss as a product of bad habits and mistakes catching up to his team.
He said that being able to focus on a single program, after stepping down as the women’s water polo coach in July, gives him more time to focus on student-athletes individually and bring recent additions up to speed.
Jucá Carsalade called Saturday a wake-up call and Sunday proof that there is still work to be done. However, the Rio de Janeiro local went on to say that wake-up calls are best when they come early in the season – so long as they are answered.
“Yesterday (Saturday), we had a really bad defensive game,” Jucá Carsalade said. “In terms of who we want to be, who we want to be defensively, who do we want to be for each other – there was a little slip in that sense yesterday. Somewhat of a start to bring it back today, but still not where we want it to be.”
The Bruins will face the Golden Bears and Cardinal for the third time this season Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, respectively, and could run into either – or both – come the MPSF tournament and NCAA Championship.
History sides with these squads, as a program besides UCLA, Stanford, Cal or USC hasn’t made the NCAA final since Pacific in 2019 and hasn’t won the national title since Pepperdine in 1997.
Senior goalkeeper Nate Tauscher struggled Saturday, allowing Stanford to score on 19 of its 30 shots and defeat UCLA for the first time since Oct. 5, 2024, but rebounded Sunday.
Cal shot 4-for-17 in the first half and 11-for-33 overall, with Tauscher making eight saves.
“We knew we needed to step it up, coming from our energy standpoint,” Tauscher said. “No way we’d lose two games in a row. We just had to get out there and show that we don’t lose at home.”
Like Jucá Carsalade, the Mater Dei High School alumnus added that the team will have to clean up its play going forward – even with the win over the Golden Bears – namely in terms of communication and execution on defense.
UCLA will play Golden West College at 1 p.m. Saturday in an exhibition match at Spieker Aquatics Center, followed by a 6 p.m. matchup against Cal Baptist.
“We don’t really like to compare ourselves to who we’re playing,” Tauscher said. but it’s every day at practice, it’s the team we’re going to become at the end of the year. So just pushing ourselves to be the best that we can every day.
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