Sunday, September 30, 2007

Men's Waterpolo vs UCLA 9/29/2007

Stanford 7 UCLA 6
It was a beautiful day and there was a nice turn-out to the game which conveniently led up to the football game against Arizona State. I was surprised to see a decent-sized UCLA fan base. Perhaps they were family and friends.

We were ranked #4 and had lost to #3 UCLA two weekends ago so this was a pretty big game. They got out to an early 3-1 lead. We fought back but it seemed that every time we levelled the score and got some momentum going, they would score and seize back the advantage. The pendulum finally swung in our favour during the 3rd quarter when our goalie saved a 5 meter penalty shot with the score knotted at 5-5. He maintained the 3rd quarter shutout and we scored 2 goals to take the lead. We managed to hold onto it despite some nerve-wracking moments at the end of 4th after UCLA scored to pull themselves within 1 with about a minute left. It was a huge victory.

For the length of the dramatic game, I was seated near someone who I presumed to be a dad of one of our players. It was really neat to see the rollercoaster-like game unfold through his eyes. As much as I enjoy Stanford sports, I'm just not as vested in certain teams like waterpolo, but the dad definitely reminded me of myself at basketball games. I can only imagine the pride and joy of seeing your child playing at such a high level of competition.
~Zhihao

"Water polo is basically a bunch of guys trying to drown each other."-Alissa Haber
All I know about water polo is you have 30(35?) seconds to shoot, the object is to score more goals than your opponent, and Sandy Hohener is good. Thankfully Alissa gave me that nugget of knowledge for the little bit I checked the 3rd and first half of the 4th period.
~Albert

2 comments:

Troy said...

OK, it's been at least 2 hours. Where is my "Upset of the Century" post???

Zhihao said...

They don't have wireless in the middle of nowhere between LA and Stanford.