Friday night lights strike at Drake Stadium for the first time
ever as the No. 3 UCLA women’s soccer team squares off
against Santa Clara tonight.
The Bruins (7-1) are looking forward to breaking in the new
lights at Drake.
“It’s going to be awesome,” UCLA head coach
Jillian Ellis said. “When you play at night I think a lot of
these kids think back to high school, when you have a Friday night
game and you get a big crowd, and I think it just tends to get you
more excited when you’re playing at night.”
Additional intrigue is added to tonight’s match-up as the
Broncos (6-2-1) are the defending national champions. UCLA has
never beaten Santa Clara, having met, however, only three times
during the regular season. Last year, the Bruins lost to the
Broncos at Santa Clara 3-0.
“It’s kind of a revenge thing to go out there and
beat Santa Clara,” senior defender Tracey Winzen said.
“I think we can do it and I think we’re a solid
team.”
As it stands, UCLA is ranked higher than No. 11 Santa Clara, but
the Bruins aren’t placing too much importance in the national
rankings. In fact, some players claim not to be paying attention to
the national polls at all.
“Each game is different and you have to show up each game
and try to play your best game,” Winzen said. “I
didn’t even know Santa Clara was ranked lower than us or
higher than us. I think we should just go out there and
play.”
Still, dusting off Santa Clara for the first time ever at Drake
Stadium’s inaugural night game would be nice.
“(This match) is big for us in the sense that we would
like to come out and play well. It’s our first game under the
lights and we haven’t beaten Santa Clara, so I think it has
more of a psychological importance than anything,” Ellis
said.
The Bruins face Loyola Marymount Sunday. LMU and UCLA have
played six times with UCLA winning all six matches.