|
August 28, 2007 2007 Men's Water Polo Season Preview After finishing ranked first in the nation among Division III teams one year ago, the UCSC men's water polo team looks to win their first WWPA conference championship in program history. Led by seventh year co-head coach Alan Cima and first year co-head coach Danielle Mulford, the Slugs welcome back 12 letterwinners and three of their top six scorers from 2006. A young team with a strong blend of veteran leadership and talented newcomers, the 2007 Slugs should contend for the conference championship along with perennial powers LMU, UCSD, Using a varied offensive attack, the Slugs will rely on several of their key goal scorers from last fall. A key contributor to UCSC's offense will be senior Grant Shubin. Shubin’s 63 career goals are the most of any current Slug. "Grant has gotten smarter and has improved physically," Cima said. "He's a very intelligent player who will be one of our key leaders." Senior Justin Garver will anchor the team’s defensive unit. "I think Justin just thrives on matching himself up against the other team’s offensive strength” Cima said. "He's a player who has a strong defensive position, good vision and a great sense of the game." Senior Angel Martinez brings years of experience to UCSC both offensively and defensively. “When we lost him for the season in the middle of his junior year you could really see the effect on our team play” Cima said, “His being back will help everyone on our team play better” Others expected to contribute in UCSC's offensive game plan include juniors Lucas Zepeda and Devon Allred and freshman Brian Fischl. "Those guys will factor into this year's team and will be constant threats, offensively," Cima said. "They're all unique in their own way and will do a great job for us." The success of second year JC transfers KC Drake, Casey Cardone and Matt Bischel will be a key to the Slugs' success in 2007. KC Drake was a stalwart defender last season and Casey and Matt made contributions throughout the 2006 season. "KC Drake is a guy who could break out and be one of the great players in the nation” Cima said. “Both Matt and Casey have come into 2007 in radically better condition than 2006 and we are counting on them to be central to our team’s offense.” UCSC hopes to replace the loss of All American goalie Joe Lyons and will look for several talented youngsters to rise to the occasion. Junior Luke Green, Sophomores Tom Zhao and Ian Horn and Freshman Sam Blum are all competing hard for the position. Tabbed the number seven team in the WWPA preseason coaches' poll and nineteenth in the National preseason poll, the Slugs look to battle defending NCAA champion California, UCLA and Stanford along with those from their conference. UCSC opens its regular season at MIT on Sept. 7 and dives into its conference slate against UC Davis at home on Sept. 22. “Our conference will be a wide open battle this year, the top teams, including ourselves, are very even and can beat anyone on any given day," Cima said. "As well as we did last year, it would have only taken a few goals more to win the conference championship. This year we want to push ourselves to that level." Slugs open season at MIT on Sept. 7 |