One week after falling to #1 UCLA, the #17 UCSB women’s water polo team continue their tough conference schedule when #2 Stanford and #8 San Jose State come into town this weekend, before heading to San Diego to take on SDSU on Sunday.

The young Gauchos (4-9 overall, 0-3 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) are coming off a shutout loss to the Bruins which they hope proves to be a learning experience they can build off of heading into this weekend’s set.

“We watched the video [against UCLA] right away on Monday,” senior co-captain Lindsay Knott said. “It was a good indicator of where we can go and use that knowledge to improve.”

Friday’s opponent, the Cardinal (11-2, 3-0 MPSF) are led by junior driver Lauren Silver (31 goals) who earned MPSF Player of the Week honors with last week’s five goal outburst.

“Stanford has a really good counter-attack and are really quick,” Knott said. “Solid defense is definitely our first priority.”

UCSB will take on the two-headed Spartan attack in junior two-meter Juliet Moss and freshman utility Adrianna Vogt on Saturday. The two lead the Spartans in scoring with 30 and 28 goals respectively. The Gauchos should expect a fight from a SJSU squad that comes in to Saturday’s match looking to rebound from the back-to-back losses it suffered last weekend.

Sunday’s game against San Diego State will be a rematch of the two squads Triton Invitational match earlier this year. The Aztecs took that game by a score of 8-6 in a game that started the Gaucho’s current nine-game skid.

The weekend action starts at 4 p.m. on Friday at the Recreational Center pool when the Gauchos take on Stanford and continues Saturday at noon against SJSU.