The Bruins’ win Sunday snapped a three-recreation losing streak against the Golden Bears.
It also snapped the streak of tournaments that made up most people of No. 4 UCLA women’s water polo’s (17-3, 1-0 MPSF) nonconference schedule, which meant moving its method in guidance from tournaments to unmarried-sport opposition.
“The pleasant component approximately an unmarried-game weekend is that you could just pay attention to that crew,” stated junior attacker Bronte Halligan. “(Coach Adam Wright) and the training group of workers positioned in work to ensure we have been prepared, and we have been, and it confirmed.”
UCLA scored five times inside the first 1/2 earlier than No. 3 Cal (10-three, zero-1) was given its first goal mins before halftime in their second season meeting.
The first meeting, though, changed into the complete opposite.
Cal pitched a shutout in opposition to UCLA the entire first half while scoring four desires on Feb. 24. The loss became the Bruins’ first and simplest time beyond regulation one this season, and the Bears ultimately got out on pinnacle.
UCLA played both No. 7 Michigan and No. 2 Stanford the day earlier. The Bruins dropped 15 dreams at the Wolverines within the win; however, they had to turn around and go up against the Cardinal later that day, scoring four times in the course to a loss.
The Bruins’ three losses have all come from the final tournaments they regarded in.
The Triton Invitational brought UCLA its first lack of the season against No. 1 USC. Then, the Barbara Kalbus Invitational resulted in the Bruins’ first and handiest lower back-to-again losses.
Freshman attacker Bella Baia stated that gambling in tournaments isn’t constantly smooth and that fatigue becomes an aspect in the first matchup against Cal.
“It changed into much of what we noticed last week, so we were very organized,” Baia stated. “We studied plenty of their plays and dispositions, and manifestly, it’s less complicated to do this for one group rather than four or five teams.”
Preparation ties into consistency and development – the two factors of the game Wright stated he addresses every week.
“If we’re going to be critical about the crew that we, in the end, need to turn out to be, then we’ve so that it will deal with one sport at a time,” Wright stated.
UCLA will not have any more tournaments until the convention and NCAA championships in April and May, respectively.
Wright said he believes the Bruins are fortunate to compete in opposition to the type of competition they’ve played in both tournaments and conference play. He also said that for UCLA to be where it needs to be at the end of the season, its recreation must be steady in each format.
“It’s less complicated as an entire to fear approximately one group simply, but the reality is that we’ve got if you want to do both,” Wright said. “There’s going to be a time and area in which we must put together for more than one group. However, this week, it became super the manner the group targeted on Cal.”
