The men’s soccer team began its preseason practice last week as the No. 1 ranked team in the nation.
UCLA returns eight starters and 22 players total from last year’s team that fell in the College Cup final. They have been picked to win the Pac-10 for the sixth straight season.
The Bruins are preparing for a five-game road trip to start their season.
They will play an exhibition against North Carolina State in Raleigh, N.C., then regular season games against Indiana and Notre Dame in Bloomington, Ind., and finally take on Creighton in Nebraska. On Sept. 14 the Bruins play their first home game of the season against Ohio State.
The team did suffer one major off-season loss. Midfielder Sal Zizzo signed a professional contract with Hannover 96, ending his collegiate career.
Zizzo is one of the only major losses, though. The Bruins return star midfielders Tony Beltran and Jason Leopoldo. Junior forward Maxwell Griffin will be back after an ACL injury that sidelined him in 2006. And the Bruins will count on a key contribution from its class of star sophomores, Michael Stephens, Brian Perk, Kyle Nakazawa and David Estrada.
On Sept. 22 the Bruins face No. 5 Santa Clara on the road. The Broncos are the top-ranked opponent the Bruins face this season. Santa Clara is just one of the road challenges the Bruins will face at the start of the season. Only three of their nine out-of-conference games are at home.
UCLA does not face No. 3 UCSB, the team it lost to in the national championship last season.
FLORES TO PLAY IN AMATEUR: Junior golfer and former Pac-10 Freshman of the Year Erik Flores will be competing in the United States Amateur this week at the Olympic Club in San Francisco.
The prestigious tournament starts today with a stroke play tournament that concludes tomorrow. The top 64 scorers after 36 holes move on to the single elimination match play tournament, which starts Wednesday.
Incoming freshman Maria Jose Uribe won the Women’s Amateur last week in Indiana. The win earned her a two-year exemption at the U.S. Women’s Open and a 10-year exemption at the Amateur. The winner of the men’s amateur receives an exemption at the next year’s Masters, U.S. Open and British Open.
Flores tees off today at 2:15 p.m. He will play with Rice’s Michael Buttacavoli and Texas’ Farren Keenan.
NEW DEN FOR THE BRUINS: A $16 million renovation project was completed on the Rose Bowl locker rooms last week. The home and visitor locker rooms were expanded to 13,791 square feet. Each has 22 couches and 10 televisions.
The extensive renovation is just a part of the planned improvments on the storied stadium. The Rose Bowl Operating Company hopes to upgrade the luxury boxes and press facilities, as well as the scoreboard and sound technology. There are also plans to add or improve the tunnels in order to ease access to the seats.
UCLA has signed a deal to play at the Rose Bowl through 2023.
CHANGES MADE TO BASKETBALL SCHEDULE: Last week Pac-10 officials made several changes to the conference schedule to accommodate television broadcasts.
Three of UCLA’s biggest road matchups were switched from Saturday to Sunday. Away games at Arizona, Washington and USC will be played on Sunday, instead of Saturday. The USC game is set for 7 p.m.
Several home games were affected as well. UCLA was originally scheduled to play Arizona on Thursday, Jan. 31, and Arizona State on Feb. 2., Saturday. Now they will play Arizona on Saturday and Arizona State on Thursday. The homestand against California and Stanford was similarly flipped. UCLA now faces Stanford on Thursday, March 6, and California on Saturday, March 8. None of the Bruins’ out-of-conference games were affected by the change.
With reports from Sam Allen, Bruin Sports senior staff.