The Long Beach State men’s water polo team will finish its non-conference schedule with a match against Loyola Marymount on Thursday night at home before rounding off the season at No.1 UCLA on Saturday night.
Head coach Gavin Arroyo sees the matchup against LMU as a chance for the 49ers (17-5, 6-2 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) to regain their poise.
“We need to get our confidence back,” Arroyo said. “In terms of our system, I think offensively, we need to improve on our flow.”
Arroyo said that the 49ers’ recent offensive struggles in Thursday’s 8-4 victory against UC San Diego overlapped into Saturday’s home defeat.
“Even down in San Diego, we were a little bit off offensively,” Arroyo said. “We were definitely off this last Saturday with [Southern California]. So I think it’s more about getting back on track and in-sync offensively.”
LBSU’s top scorer is defender Zacchary Kappos, who has netted 54 goals in 24 games. Behind Kappos in goals scored is senior attacker Nolan McConnell, who tallied three goals during last weekend’s games.
Arroyo said the matchup against No. 16 LMU (7-16, 3-3 Western Water Polo Association) will give his team some experience in playing in front of its home crowd before they host the MPSF Tournament on Nov. 21-23 at The Beach.
“We have to get used to playing at home with the crowd in order to get ready for [the tournament],” Arroyo said. “Obviously, we didn’t play very well in front of the crowd on Saturday.”
Arroyo also said that he and Lions’ head coach John Loughran scheduled this head-to-head game for later in the season as a way to help both sides prepare for their respective conference tournaments.
“The coach [Loughran] and I decided it was a good time to play each other,” Arroyo said. “He’s a great coach and has proven himself over and over.”
Even though the Lions have played more opponents from the Western Water Polo Association than opponents from the MPSF, Arroyo said he isn’t going to underestimate them.
“LMU has always been the pride of the WWPA,” Arroyo said. “They have a great tradition of being dominant in that conference. So they come in with a championship mentality, and their record doesn’t necessarily reflect how good of a team they are.”
In the regular season finale, the 49ers will travel across town to Westwood and take on the No. 1 UCLA (24-2, 7-0 MPSF) on Saturday night at 7 p.m.
The game plan for that night is to do a better job defensively, Arroyo said.
“We have to get stops,” Arroyo said. “We didn’t do a very good job at that against USC. We can’t get scored on at the end of quarters and can’t give up counter goals. We need to just slow the game down and hope the defense steps up.”
Arroyo said it’s new ground for his team to be expected to beat top contenders.
“In some levels, it’s easy when no one is expecting something from you,” Arroyo said. “All of a sudden, for the first time, people expect you to beat a Pac-12 team, and that’s unchartered territory for us.
Arroyo also said that playing a tough team doesn’t change the team’s work ethic. He said the team will train and prepare for this weekend the same way it always does.
“Nothing changes,” Arroyo said. “Other than you’re dealing with maybe a little less success. And that’s got to be something that doesn’t affect you the next time down.”