Even if the Cal men’s water polo team loses to No. 3 UCLA on Saturday, its NCAA title hopes won’t be entirely lost.
But if the Bears can’t perform better than they did last weekend, it will be hard to hang on to those hopes for much longer.
The No. 7 Bears (9-5, 0-1) will take on the Bruins (15-2, 0-0) on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. at Spieker Aquatics Complex for Cal’s first home game of the season.
Conference games against UCLA, USC and Stanford are always marquee matchups for the Bears — but this time, a tilt with an MPSF juggernaut carries even more weight than usual.
The Bears already have an uphill battle to overcome. When the new rankings came out Wednesday, Cal is at No. 7, marking the first time since 2008 that Cal had been ranked below No. 5. It’s the lowest rank that the Bears have had in the past four years.
Last year, in a season in which the Bears stayed within the top three rankings, Cal split the regular season series with UCLA, initially losing 6-5 in the NorCal Invitational and then winning 8-5 in an MPSF conference match in Los Angeles.
The game that mattered, however, occurred in the MPSF semifinals on Nov. 26. The Bears lost a 7-6 overtime heartbreaker and watched their national title hopes die.
To make matters worse, the Bears carried a perfect 7-0 record into the teams’ first matchup of this season.
But history has a habit of repeating itself.
This year on Sept. 16, the Bears were again faced with an eerily familiar situation. After battling for a tied score of 10-10 at the end of regulation, the Bruins scored the match-winner in overtime.
Since that loss, the Bears have been unable to regain their top form. Cal dropped its next two games to No. 4 Stanford and No. 1 USC and has gone 4-4 since the loss to the Bruins.
UCLA will also have something to prove this weekend. The Bruins dropped from No. 2 to No. 3 after losing to UC Santa Barbara at the SoCal Invitational.
As they attempt a comeback, the Bruins will rely heavily on senior attacker and leading scorer Josh Samuels on offense. True freshman left-handed attacker Joey Fuentes has provided speed for the Bruins from the right side, already scoring against top teams like Pacific and Princeton early in his collegiate career.
Fuentes adds to the Bruins’ already young and fast offense, which includes sophomore Paul Reynolds, who scored the overtime goal to knock the Bears out of MPSF contention last season.
On defense, UCLA has a strong base with senior goalie Matt Rapacz in the cage. Rapacz adds to a strong veteran presence on UCLA after he was named to the All-NCAA First Team for his performance at the 2011 NCAA tournament.
The Bears will need strong offensive performances from the usual suspects: leading scorer junior Collin Smith, sophomore Aleksa Saponjic and senior team captain Marin Balarin.
Both Cal and UCLA came into the season with hopes of challenging four-time defending champion USC for this years NCAA title.
After disappointments for both squads, there will be little room for error on Saturday.
Warren Laufer covers men’s water polo. Contact him at [email protected]
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