Jan. 29, 2007
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THIS WEEK
Feb. 3 - at Pacific, Noon
Feb. 4 - vs. UC Santa Cruz (Seaside, Calif.), 1 p.m.
Feb. 4 - at Cal State Monterey Bay (Seaside, Calif.), 4 p.m.
LAST WEEK
Jan. 27 - HARTWICK (W, 13-6)
Jan. 28 - SONOMA STATE (W, 21-3)
Jan. 28 - CAL STATE EAST BAY (W, 16-2)
NOTES
UC Davis, ranked No. 9 in the national preseason poll and No. 1 in the WWPA, opened its season with three home wins... The Aggies topped Hartwick, 13-6, ranked 12th nationally and No. 1 in the CWPA conference poll... Freshman Heidi Kucera led all players with five goals in the two Sunday WWPA wins as the Aggies scored 33 unanswered goals in almost 53 full minutes (early 1st quarter against Sonoma State to the 0:11 mark of the 3rd quarter vs. Cal State East Bay)... Head coach Jamey Wright spread out the minutes (13 field players averaged 10 or more minutes) and the goals (14 players scored goals, two others had four assists each)... Christi Raycraft, Casie Mota, Laura Uribe and Kucera each tallied six goals for the weekend... Mota also had six steals in her 41 minutes... The total of 50 goals is the highest-ever mark for a three-game span... The previous high was on March 22-24, 1997, when the Aggies beat Pomona-Pitzer, Cal Poly (club) and San Jose State by a combined 49-3.
UP NEXT: The Aggies hit the road for the first time, first at Pacific, then for two WWPA games against UC Santa Cruz and Cal State Monterey Bay... The Tigers went 0-22 in 2006, fielding just an eight-person roster... Pacific in its first season under new head coach and former Hartwick assistant Megan Thomson... Junior utility Kellie Fletcher is the team's leading returner, starting all 22 games and scoring 34 goals last season... The Tigers open their season on Wednesday at Cal.
UC Davis heads to the central coast for games against Cal State Monterey Bay and UC Santa Cruz on Saturday... The Otters are 1-2, having crushed Cal Maritime by a 21-3 margin, then losing to 17th-ranked Santa Clara, 14-7; then to Hartwick by a 20-10 final... CSUMB is led by junior Chelsea Laning, who scored a staggering 120 goals last season... U.S Water Polo Hall of Famer Gary Figueroa is in his third season at the Otter helm... UC Santa Cruz went 1-3 in a tough field at the Michigan Kick-Off, dropping games against Indiana, Marist and the host Wolverines, then beating Slippery Rock by a 14-9 final... Annie Keating scored 11 total goals in the tourney, including six in the win against the Rock.
HEAD COACH JAMEY WRIGHT:
"I knew Hartwick would give us a good game, and that's what I wanted. I wanted a game against a competitive team so that I could see what we need to work on. If you beat a team 16-2, it doesn't tell you much. Hartwick ran really good picks and stormed us on 6-on-5, putting constant pressure on the ball. We didn't do a good job reacting to that. So we learn from that stuff and watching that game tape will be very helpful."
"I thought our overall team speed and our depth really stood out. It's not like it was a surprise, because I expected it. But until you see it, you don't really know."
"I reinforced after the Hartwick that the team won that game in the first half or maybe even in the first quarter when we countered the crud out of them. I told the team that it happened because they had trained their hearts out in the fall and in our swim sets this month. It's a cause-and-effect relationship. When someone does the hard work and it comes to fruition -- I want to make sure the team sees the connection. Their hard training made a difference."
"I was glad to see that our new players were as good as I thought they were. Dana Nelsen scored three goals against Sonoma. Laura Uribe scored multiple goals in all three games. She's working harder than she probably ever has in her life, and it's paying off. Heidi Kucera, only going to two practices a week, came in and made things happen. She scored in all three games. Ashley Chandler, who didn't play[against East Bay] but played a lot in the Hartwick game, is awesome. Then Madeline Stephenson is solid, a Rock of Gilbraltar. So we've mixed five new players into what was already a really deep team."
