By Erica Sigman
Staff Writer
The Waves have three regular season games left before they travel to the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship tournament, but there are still a few kinks that need working out.
With junior utility man Jesse Smith out of commission, while he recovers from a punctured eardrum, junior two-meter man Morgan Matthies and senior two-meter man Michael Hausmann have both emerged as the team’s leaders and top scorers.
Smith still leads his squad with a total of 46 goals, but Hausmann follows close behind with 41 goals. Junior driver Josh Acosta is third with 27.
It is uncertain when exactly Smith will return to play for the Waves, but it is almost guaranteed he will be back in action in time for the MPSF conference tournament.
The Pepperdine squad has proven that they are well qualified to be within the top five teams in the nation, defeating top teams such as University of Southern California and University of California Berkeley, but they will have to bring their
A game to the MPSF tournament in order to make it to compete in the NCAA tournament they fell one game short of last year.
While teams such as USC, Cal and Stanford should be tough teams to face in the tournament, the Waves greatest enemy is themselves.
“I feel like our biggest roadblock is getting over some of our own weaknesses,” Head Coach Terry Schroeder said. “Most of our bad losses were because we beat ourselves.”
In evaluating all the top teams that Pepperdine could possibly face in the conference tournament, it is apparent that every team has a unique strength about them that can cause a problem for the Waves.
“I think that Cal has a pretty good two-meter man and they’re pretty fast,” Schroeder said. “They’ve been playing good, energetic water polo.”
The Waves have proven once before that they are capable of beating Cal. But Stanford is another story.
“A big part of being able to defeat Stanford is stopping Tony Azevedo,” Schroeder said. Azevedo is one of the nation’s top scorers as well as a member of the USA national team.
Pepperdine has defeated the Trojans once before, but USC will still prove to be the team to beat to be No. 1 in the nation.
“USC has the most talent of any team out there,” Schroeder said. “On paper, they are the best team but they are still very beatable.”
The outcome of the past weekend proves that one of Pepperdine’s major roadblocks will be their defense.
“We put ourselves in a bad situation this weekend,” Schroeder said. “The key for us to win is to keep everyone out of foul trouble.”
Assistant coach Jack Kocur put it in simple yet profound words.
“Our biggest competition is ourselves — our own mental and emotional control,” Kocur said.
Hausmann expressed how he felt about the tough teams they may have to meet in the tournament.
“Overall, the only advantage they have is mentally,” Hausmann said. “We just have to get in the mind set of do or die. We do really well in that mindset.”
November 13, 2003