The UCSB women’s water polo team did not play at their maximum potential this weekend, losing to Arizona State and Stanford, and bringing their record to 12-11 overall and 2-5 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

Saturday the #10 ranked Gauchos took a 7-4 loss to #18 ranked Arizona.

“We are a young team that hasn’t played together very long. We have learned to play well and shut down our difficult competition, but we seem to overlook these games,” freshman utility Zizi Clark said. “We weren’t mentally ready for the game.”

The girls agreed that they needed to adjust their playing, especially their defense.

“We just did not react quick enough,” sophomore goalie Christy Medigovich said, “and Arizona capitalized on our mistakes.”

The Gaucho scorers were sophomore utility Alaina Whitaker with two, and one each from freshman two-meter defense Aimee Stachowski and junior two-meter utility Katy Kunkel.

Sunday the girls stepped up their game and played #2 Stanford. Stanford won the match 6-1, but the women said they played higher caliber water polo than they had in past days.

“Stanford is a great team, and we played much better against them, but we still did not play at the level we wanted to,” Clark said.
With sophomore utility Jennifer D’Ana scoring UCSB’s only goal, the women feel they need to rev up their offense.

“We played decently, but we didn’t attack as much as we needed to. They were aggressive and we played how they let us,” Medigovich said.
The struggling Gauchos return to action this Friday at Cal State Northridge and will try to get back on track at home Sunday against San Jose State.