By Joann Groff
Assistant Sports Editor
Rankings, shmankings.
The No. 5 ranked Pepperdine men’s water polo team came into Saturday’s contest against the No.1 Stanford Cardinal as underdogs, but no one would have known it by watching the game.
The Waves prevailed 10-7 at their first, and arguably most difficult league match-up of the year, bouncing back from a loss Thursday at the University of California Irvine.
“We didn’t just play — we handled Stanford,” assistant coach Alex Rodriguez said. “We showed our superiority. We really are the better team, and we have hopes for a national championship.”
The players agreed that team chemistry played a major role in their success over Stanford.
“We came together as a team,” sophomore Jordan Keitel said. “Everyone played well — more importantly, we played together. We really wanted this one.”
Their desire for the win was evident to the large crowd that gathered at Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool for the highly anticipated game.
“Even before the game there was so much excitement for it,” senior Vedran Kaluderovic said. “It was amazing, you could almost feel the excitement.”
Junior Jeremy Grubbs agreed.
“The difference was the energy,” Grubbs said. “Coming off a loss, you know you’ve got to get fired up. You saw it happen.”
Sophomore Jesse Smith led the team with five goals in the game on Saturday, and his efforts were well recognized by his teammates.
“We had a good team strategy and a good team effort,” Kaluderovic said. “But the key was Jesse Smith.”
Smith, tabbed Mountain Pacific Sports Federation player of the week, attributes his offensive domination to the camaraderie of his teammates.
“I felt good because you get in situations when everyone is fired up, and it gets you more focused and fired up,” Smith said. “We came as a team, but we played as a team, and that’s why we did well.”
The Waves practiced specific strategy in preparation for the game. Stanford’s star player, Olympian Tony Azevedo, was the winner of last year’s Peter J. Cutino Award for outstanding water polo player as voted by the coaches of NCAA Division I schools. Pepperdine alumnus Greg Lonzo was runner-up.
“We knew Stanford had two key players,” Grubbs said. “Tony Azevedo — we knew he’d shoot. So we matched up, kept our strongest player on him, never dropping off. There two-meter was really good, so we practiced a double-team, crashing the hole, and he never scored.”
It was agreed upon by the majority of the players that strategy was the key to their win.
“I thought the coaches developed a good strategy to fit all the players on the team,” Smith said. “We developed it in the beginning of the game, and it just came together. We were all on the same page, and it was easy because everyone knew what they wanted.”
Another recognized strength of the Waves’ play was their aggressive defensive efforts against the Cardinal.
“Defense was the key,” Grubbs said. “We found a niche. We each knew what the others were doing in the pool because we are talking more.”
The Waves’ coaches agreed that the level of defensive play improved because of one key aspect: they were playing good defense together, as a unit.
“The defense and intensity against Stanford rose to a new energy level,” Rodriguez said. “The guys played together, played some great defense together and were a lot more intense than they’ve been all year.”
Defensive standout junior goalie Michael Soltis recorded nine key saves during the competition, rebutting one-on-nobody shots and backhands from two meters.
“The field guys played the best defense I’ve ever been a part of,” Soltis said. “We did everything we were supposed to do and that led to a big win. Our team defense dictated me to play a better game.”
Man-down situations proved to be far from costly as Soltis stifled many attempts, and field blocks were as common as Stanford’s bad passes.
“Our six-on-five and five-on-six percentages were good,” Schroeder said. “ We took a big step in the right direction.”
“A great improvement was the energy,” Schroeder said. “We were lacking on Thursday, but Saturday there was a big change.”
Spectators would agree that Thursday and Saturday’s games seemed to be played by two different teams. While Pepperdine still played strongly in their match versus UCI, the desire to win was not so apparent.
“We came out flat, but we did play hard,” junior Phil Spataru said. “We actually did play with some intensity. We were really unlucky, shooting a lot of bar-outs. They kept getting break after break after break … they really hustled us for the rebounds.”
Kaluderovic agreed that the Anteaters got “quite a few lucky shots,” but the coaching staff assured the team that it’s improvement was apparent.
“The UCI game was a little disappointing,” Schroeder said. “Coaches Jack, Alex and I saw improvement and the players understanding concepts. We left feeling good — as good as you can after a loss like that.”
Rodriguez said he believes his players made an important change in their game against Stanford after the loss at Irvine.
“One key was that there was a lot of lost opportunities against UCI,” Rodriguez said. “But when we had the same opportunities against Stanford, we put them away, and took advantage of our chances.”
Despite the fact that Pepperdine didn’t leave Irvine the winner, the players said they grew and still gained from the 9-7 loss.
“Thursday was a tough loss, but we showed a lot of promise,” sophomore Matt Bjorner said. “It was the best game we played up to that point in the season. It gave us confidence when we started to do things right. We always had the talent, and we were finally putting it together.”
And they insist that they will keep it together as the Waves travel to Berkeley to compete in the NorCal Tournament, facing University of California San Diego first round, and most likely seeing Irvine for another chance at revenge in the second round.
“We have a good chance to beat UCI this weekend,” sophomore Josh Acosta said. “In the last game against them, they beat us on the small stuff. If we play defense as well as we did last Saturday and keep up the momentum from the Stanford game, we will win.”
That’s the plan anyway, and it seems that their unified playing and improved defense has everyone right behind them.
“The team really came together,” Schroeder said. “The guys got a taste of their potential and how good they could really be. Now they are motivated to work harder and come together more to see how far we can take it.”
The team is confident that they can take it all the way. The Waves last won a national championship in 1997, and the 2002 roster has been highly publicized as Pepperdine’s best chance at another.
“Whether or not we win this weekend, we will use this game,” Smith said. “During the national championships we can use this win to remember we can do it.”
This humble team always leaves room for improvement, insisting that Pepperdine fans ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
“We are still working on things, on becoming a close-knit team,” Smith said. “It’s a building process. Stanford was just another step in the process.”
But Soltis sets the record straight: “If we play the way we did on Saturday, we are the best team in the nation by far.”
October 03, 2002