#1 UCLA Men’s Water Polo Hosts #4 Southern Cal in the Crosstown Splashdown

Last night, the UCLA women’s soccer team got the weekend started with an exciting 4-2 win over crosstown rival Southern Cal. Today, the UCLA men’s water polo team has the opportunity to beat SC for the second time in two days. This morning’s water polo game will air on Pac-12 Network Los Angeles at 10:30 am PT.

Last Time Out

The Bruins began MSPF play on the right foot with a 10-9 come-from-behind win over UC Berkeley.

UCLA got on the board first when Felix Brozyna-Vilim scored the first goal of the game with 6:39 left in the first quarter. That lead was short-lived because the Golden Bears tied it up 1-1 just 35 seconds later. Ashworth Molthen gave UCLA its final lead until the fourth quarter when he made it 2-1 with just under five minutes to go in the first quarter. The Bears tied it up with 3:30 left and took the lead with 2:48 to go. They added one more goal at the end of the quarter and led 4-2 after one.

Jack White scored for UCLA to cut the lead in half with 5:46 left in the half but, 83 seconds later, UC Berkeley pushed it back to a two-point lead. Then, with 1:26 left, Andy Rogers made it 5-4 on a powerplay goal. UC Berkeley scored one more time with 1:08 left, but Molthen made it a one-point game against with a second left in the half and UC Berkeley led 6-5 at the half.

In the third quarter, Matthew Kacura tied the game up at 6-6 when he scored on a powerplay goal for the Bruins with 4:57 left in the period, but that was all the offense UCLA could muster in the third while UC Berkeley went on to score three times to take a 9-6 lead heading into the fourth.

The fourth quarter belonged to the Bruins. For starters, goalie Alex Wolf held UC Berkeley scoreless over the final eight minutes. That was important because UCLA was able to net fourth quarter a pair of goals from Chasen Travisano 14 seconds into the quarter and then 42 seconds later. Brozyna-Vilim tied the game 9-9 with 6:05 left.

Then, with 57 seconds left to play in regulation, Jordan Hoover stole the ball for the Bruins and Molthen passed it to Jake Cavano who hammered it home with 43 seconds left to give UCLA a 10-9 victory.

Southern Cal Trojans

By their usual standards, the Trojans have not had a very good season to this point. They have lost to UC Santa Barbara, Pepperdine and twice to Pacific. That’s not great.

They did, however, beat Stanford last weekend at home, 9-8, giving them an advantage for seeding in the upcoming MPSF Tournament. That means the winner of today’s game will have a chance to win the MPSF regular season outright by winning next weekend and securing the top seed in the MPSF Tournament.

As is always the case in the Crosstown Splashdown, it will be a knockdown, dragout fight to the finish. UCLA will have the edge here because they do have home pool advantage, but anything goes. The #1 Bruins need to prep themselves for the postseason with a win today because it only gets tougher from here.

My prediction is that UCLA wins by one goal, possibly in overtime.


Go Bruins! Beat SC!