After a tough start to its season, the UCLA men’s soccer team is steadily righting its ship.
The latest example came on Sunday afternoon against Cal State Northridge, where UCLA displayed its perseverance to the 851 fans in attendance at Drake Stadium. In a physical match between two tough West Coast teams, the Bruins (2-3-3) fell behind twice before battling back to a dramatic 2-2 tie.
Unlike last Thursday, when the Bruins scored early and then held on for a 1-1 tie at the University of San Diego, Sunday’s game featured two come-from-behind, game-tying goals.
“I was very happy with the way we responded,” coach Jorge Salcedo said. “At halftime, our morale was down. I felt really proud of our guys for responding the way they did. Our guys showed some character in the way they fought to get to our second goal.”
The latter of the two scores developed with five minutes left in regulation, when senior defender Brad Rusin ran up the left side of the field to track down a perfectly placed ball off the foot of junior midfielder Michael Stephens.
“Mikey just placed a great ball for me over the top, and I just beat my guy to the ball,” Rusin said.
Trying to negate the game-tying goal, a pair of Matador defenders pulled Rusin to the ground inside the penalty box and the whistle blew. Stephens easily put away the penalty kick, sending the Bruin players into a frenzy.
Northridge capitalized on one of its few first-half opportunities in the 24th minute, when Sunghyun Kim dribbled past a Bruin defender and sent a shot past junior goalkeeper Brian Perk to break the scoreless tie.
UCLA responded in the 71st minute. Senior midfielder Jason Leopoldo sliced a shot towards the right corner that found its way to the back of the net.
“One of our assistant coaches was telling me to stay in that spot and wait for the second balls to drop in,” Leopoldo said. “Last game, it happened, and I had a bad touch. This game, I got pretty lucky and hit it well.”
Just three minutes later, Northridge scored again, and the Bruins found themselves in another deficit.
“I think we played pretty well and we dealt with adversity pretty well also,” Leopoldo said. “We were down 1-0, found a goal. Down 2-1, found another goal. That’s just good character, and that will help us out.”