During the opening weekend of the 2009 regular season, the UCLA men’s soccer team hit a high note on Friday only to be brought back down to Earth two days later.
The No. 19 Bruins (1-1-0) took down reigning national champions and No. 1 Maryland (1-1-0) on the Terrapins’ home turf Friday, 2-0, but then fell 2-0 to the unranked Georgetown Hoyas (1-1-1) on Sunday in the nation’s capital.
“The game Friday was a good result for us and a great way to start the season,” UCLA coach Jorge Salcedo said. “Losing (Sunday) was a bit of a difficult pill to swallow because I thought we played pretty well and thought we should have won.”
On Friday, the Terrapins controlled the game early on. However, UCLA senior goalkeeper Brian Perk made five saves in the first half to keep the Bruins afloat.
In the 77th minute, senior defender Sean Alvarado scored his first collegiate goal as a Bruin with a header off of a corner kick from senior midfielder Michael Stephens, and freshman Ryan Hollingshead extended the Bruins’ lead with a close range shot off a rebound in the 83rd minute to put the Terrapins in a hole they could not dig themselves out of.
“(Scoring my first goal) was unbelievable,” Alvarado said. “(But) we got the win, that’s most important. I was more excited about that than actually scoring.”
Perk was a brick wall in front of UCLA’s goal for the entire 90 minutes against Maryland, keeping a clean sheet and making a personal best 10 saves in the process. Like Alvarado, Perk seemed more satisfied with the team’s performance than his personal achievement.
“I’ll take the win anytime,” Perk said. “The saves, that’s not as important when you look at the final score.”
In Salcedo’s eyes, the Bruins controlled the game against Georgetown better than they did against Maryland, but the Hoyas seized two opportunities, bagging a pair of goals while the Bruins squandered all the chances they had.
“We weren’t incisive enough,” Salcedo said. “We didn’t finish our attacking plays well enough.”
UCLA had possession for more than twice as long as their opponents, but junior Georgetown striker Jose Colchao redirected a header from junior midfielder Alex Verdi into the net in the 60th minute to break the deadlock.
In the 82nd minute, senior forward Kyle Nakazawa was called for a penalty for tackling Georgetown junior midfielder Seth C’deBaca in the box. C’deBaca converted the ensuing penalty kick, but Salcedo harbored some skepticism over the call.
“We won a tackle in the box and somehow the referee interpreted it as a foul,” Salcedo said. “We didn’t lose the game because of the referee, but he did have an impact on the result.”
As the weekend came to a somewhat anticlimactic end, Alvarado had an interesting take on how the Bruins would overcome this particular defeat.
“Usually you want to forget about losses, but this is a loss I want to remember and I hope (my teammates) remember,” Alvarado said. “We should win these games. We’re going to have to get results against teams that are like Georgetown. I want to keep it in the back of my head and hopefully we can learn from it.”