UCLA Men’s Water Polo Welcomes Long Beach State to Westwood Tonight

This evening, UCLA men’s water polo hosts Long Beach State at 7 pm at the Spieker Aquatics Center. Last Sunday, UCLA suffered their first loss of the season when they were beaten by Stanford in the championship game of the SoCal Invitational.

Last Time Out

After beating the #1 UCSB Gauchos 9-8 on Saturday, the Bruins fell to the Stanford Cardinal 13-9. The Cardinal started the game with a pair of goals to take an early 2-0 lead, but Jake Cavano cut the lead in half with 3:49 left in the quarter. The teams then traded a pair of goals including one for UCLA by Andy Rogers and Stanford led 3-2 after one.

Chasen Travisano scored the Bruins’ lone goal in the second quarter with 39 seconds left in the half. Meanwhile, Stanford added four goals to take a 7-3 lead at the half.

After Stanford scored the first goal of the second half, Tommy Gruewell made it 8-4 on a powerplay goal. Ashworth Molthen sandwiched a pair of goals by Felix Brozyna-Vilim and Matthew Kacura to give UCLA five goals in the quarter, but Stanford scored two more including the game-winner and the Cardinal led 10-8 after three.

Molthen completed his hat trick in the fourth when he scored UCLA’s only goal while Stanford tacked on three more to make it a 13-9 final.

Long Beach State 49ers

The 49ers have lost to each team they’ve played whom you’d expect them to have lost to including Southern Cal and Pepperdine twice each, Stanford, and UCSB. The best team Long Beach State has beaten would have to be UC Irvine.

As a result, the Bruins should win rather easily tonight. I’d be surprised if the margin of victory isn’t somewhere around five. My prediction is 13-8, Bruins.

This is your UCLA men’s water polo vs. Long Beach State open thread.


Go Bruins!!