Water polo to face No. 1 USC

Erin Wagner (Contact)
Published: Friday, October 20, 2006

Saturday, at noon, the UCLA men’s water polo team will face off against USC at McDonald’s Swim Stadium.

The Lexus Gauntlet rivalry match against USC (16-0, 3-0 MPSF) has the potential to be pivotal in both team’s water polo seasons. A win would put the Bruins (9-3, 1-0 MPSF) atop the conference rankings and send USC a step back, snapping the Trojans’ 34-game win streak.

Last season the Trojans traveled to UCLA and handed the Bruins their first home-game loss in 20 matches. Although breaking the win streak is not the Bruins’ main focus, it would be an added bonus to the victory.

“I don’t really care about breaking their streak. I am more interested in starting our own,” sophomore Krsto Sbutega said. “Though breaking their streak would be nice because they broke ours here at home.”

However, the task of upsetting USC will be far from easy. The top-ranked Trojans have proven themselves to be worthy of their No. 1 ranking by capturing both the Northern California and Southern California tournament titles this season. The Bruins finished third in both tournaments, yet it has been more than a month since the No. 3 Bruins have faced the Trojans in the water. With rivalry and pride at stake, anything can happen.

“Just to beat ’SC is an awesome feeling whether they are having a terrible season or they are undefeated,” coach Adam Krikorian said. “That’s the great thing about the rivalry: It doesn’t matter. I know everyone has heard this cliche before, but you do, you do throw everything else out the window.”

The Bruin team has the capacity to be on the same level with the Trojans, but will need to focus and bring together elements of play that have, at times, been missing entirely.

“We are going to need to play with some passion and energy and at the same time with a lot of intelligence (to win),” Krikorian said. “We haven’t been able to mix those. We have played with a lot of passion and energy at times, but then we lack the intelligence. Then we’ll play pretty intelligent, but in this sport that can only take you so far. You need both.”

At times – for example, against UC San Diego this past weekend – the elements seemed to all be in place. But that match followed a disappointing loss to Cal where the element of passion seemed to be nonexistent. The Bruins know they cannot afford to have any key elements missing if they want to have a shot at upsetting the deep Trojan team.

“We need to focus on being consistent,” Sbutega said. “I think during the season we have had some good games and some bad games. I still don’t think we have played any great games. We need to play consistent throughout the game in order to have a great game.”

Sbutega leads the way for the Bruins offensively as he has tallied 17 goals on the season. The redshirt sophomore from Yugoslavia has had multiple two-, three- and four-goal games.

“I think we are capable of being on their level,” Sbutega said. “It’s definitely going to be a close game; everything is going to come down to the last two or three minutes, maybe overtime.”

With a prediction like that, it may be worth the free admission.