The team bus was quiet on the ride to the Oakland Airport Sunday
afternoon.
Despite escaping the Bay Area with a win and a tie, the UCLA
women’s soccer players were more focused on their trio of
fallen teammates.
The Bruins tied Stanford 0-0 on Friday and beat California 1-0
on Sunday, but three key Bruin players ““ sophomore midfielder
Stacy Lindstrom, junior goalkeeper Sarah Lombardo and sophomore
forward Katie Rivera ““ sustained potentially serious
injuries.
“We were happy to win, but we got hit hard by injuries
this weekend,” senior forward Sarah-Gayle Swanson said.
Lindstrom, a fixture in the Bruins’ starting lineup all
season, went down awkwardly in the second half Friday against
Stanford. She will have X-rays taken today to determine the extent
of the injury.
“Stacy planted awkwardly and felt a shooting pain up to
her knee,” coach Jill Ellis said. “There was no contact
at all. It was pretty scary.”
Lombardo and Rivera both sustained knee injuries and had to
leave Sunday’s match. Ellis wouldn’t speculate whether
the injuries could be season-ending, but both players will undergo
MRIs today.
Those personnel losses spoiled an otherwise
relatively-successful road trip for the No. 3 Bruins (10-1-3, 3-0-1
Pac-10) in their quest for a Pac-10 title.
UCLA was outplayed in the first half against Stanford (6-5-4,
2-1-1), but rebounded nicely in the second half and overtime.
The Bruins outshot the Cardinal 24-14, and generally had the
better of the scoring opportunities, but simply couldn’t get
one past All-American goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart in 110 minutes of
play.
“I told them at halftime, “˜They look hungry, and we
don’t,'” Ellis said. “In the first half we
allowed them to gain confidence, but we dominated the second half
and overtime. That’s not good enough, though, because if we
played 90 minutes, we would have won.”
Junior forward Lindsay Greco had arguably the best scoring
chance of the match for the Bruins, knocking a second-half strike
off the crossbar.
An exhausted UCLA team was forced to use 18 players in
Sunday’s match against Cal (6-5-3, 1-3-0), and the Bruins
were quite happy to come away with a win.
“We used all of our emotion on Friday,” Ellis said.
“This was a gut-check game for us. It wasn’t
particularly pretty, but it was a win.”
Swanson provided the lone Bruin goal in 200 minutes of soccer
over the weekend, a header off senior Nandi Pryce’s free kick
in the 13th minute.
“Nandi took a free kick, and I got my head on it and
flicked it past the keeper. It was definitely big to get an early
goal,” said Swanson.
Prior to Sunday, UCLA had played overtime in its previous three
matches, a tie against Stanford and wins over Washington State and
Washington. While not playing overtime was somewhat of a relief,
there is still the slew of injury problems to face.
“We’re keeping our fingers crossed,” Ellis
said.
With reports from Jeff Eisenberg, Bruin Sports Senior
Staff.