man, it was a good weekend of waterpolo here at USC. saturday we played #3 stanford and pulled out an 8-7 overtime win. that was a great battle. then sunday we played #5 pepperdine and took off to an early 5-1 at half and won it easily.
watching the trojans play against pepperdine was like watching a well-oiled machine at work. everything was smooth and the plays were run to perfection. i could see how every movement contributed to the possession. it was excellent. and zatovic once again dominated the pool.
it was the opposite for the pepperdine team. they didn't seem to have a lot of direction on their offensive possessions. the ball wasn't moving around much and they didn't seem to have their head in the game. i felt their resident olympian, jesse smith, was more than disappointing. he scored a few goals on nice one-on-one plays, but he didn't lead the team like i expected him to, like ormsby did for ucla or azevedo for stanford when the trojans played them in the past.
smith was majored in the third quarter and what followed was a display of immaturity and selfishness. he walked away from the pool and out of my sight. the ref had to pause the game so the pepperdine coach could go get him and bring him back to the bench. then he sat there looking all huffy and pissed off while his team struggled on. during timeouts and the final break before the fourth quarter, he remained on the bench while his team gathered around the coach. it was such a display of childishness. i couldn't believe it. he is supposed to be a national team member and he was acting like a spoiled child. i understand that a few calls didn't go the way he wanted, but i felt he was acting like he was too big for the game and the refs. it was just disappointing to watch one of the supposed leaders of united states waterpolo act that way.
quote: "I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool." -Kurt Vonnegut, Jailbird
1 comment:
you should so write a sports column for the dt
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