For the first time this season, junior goalkeeper Brian Perk left the net and dashed at full speed toward the opposite side of the field. Once he arrived at the UCLA bench, Perk leapt and landed on top of an elated mob of Bruins.
Before the celebratory mayhem broke out, senior forward Maxwell Griffin had scored his second goal of the game to give the UCLA men’s soccer team (8-4-6, 6-1-2 Pac-10) a commanding 2-0 lead over Stanford (3-10-2, 1-5-1) on Sunday at Drake Stadium. Most importantly though, Griffin’s score gave the Bruins a comfortable two-goal advantage.
At halftime, with both teams knotted in a scoreless tie, coach Jorge Salcedo informed his team that California, the team chasing the Bruins in the Pac-10 standings, had lost at San Diego State. The revelation meant that UCLA could clinch the Pac-10 conference championship with a win against the Cardinal.
“I told the guys, “˜What more motivation could they need?'” Salcedo said. “That’s what I shared with them, and they responded. We ended up scoring two very good goals.”
The halftime speech seemed to pay dividends once the team took the field for the second half. The Bruins, who were held scoreless in the 0-0 double-overtime tie against Cal (7-3-5, 2-2-3) on Friday, finally found the net seven minutes into the second half.
“As soon as we heard (that Cal had lost), the guys’ eyes just lit up,” Perk said. “We went from not the greatest first half, to our energy and momentum just rising because we knew if we scored one (goal), we’re Pac-10 champs.”
The first goal began with junior forward David Estrada’s give-and-go pass with freshman midfielder Eder Arreola, who lobbed the ball over his shoulder back to a streaking Estrada.
Estrada sped down the far sideline and sent a right-footed line drive to the front of the box, where Griffin one-timed it to the back of the net.
“We’ve been scoring goals up until Friday,” Salcedo said. “And I can’t be disappointed with our attacking performance on Friday either. I thought we played better on Friday than we did (Sunday) ““ we had better ideas, better movement. So the fact that the goals didn’t come on Friday but came (Sunday) is proof that the guys are on the same track and doing the right things on the field.”
After the first goal, the Bruins wanted to add a goal to put the game out of reach.
“All we needed was a second goal to give (Stanford) a good blow to the stomach,” Griffin said.
That blow came in the 72nd minute, when Griffin added his second goal to put the Bruins 18 minutes away from clinching the team’s first Pac-10 title since 2005.
Once the second goal was scored, Perk, who has been a defensive catalyst in UCLA’s six consecutive shutouts, could not contain himself because he knew the title was theirs.
“Excitement came over me,” Perk said. “I wanted to get my first celebration in ““ I don’t get too many of those.”