The UCLA women’s soccer team has made eight trips to the
College Cup and eight times, the team has come home empty-handed.
However, 2013 seems to be the year for the Bruins. With a new coaching staff, the team won the Pac-12 title, finished conference play undefeated and is now back in the Final Four of the NCAA tournament for the ninth time in the program’s history.
The Bruins will match up against the Virginia Cavaliers on Friday for a spot in Sunday’s national championship game.
Junior midfielder Sam Mewis said that UCLA’s accomplishments can be attributed to the work the coaching staff has done.
“I think that we have done a great job so far this year,” Mewis said. “We got a whole new staff … and I think they did a great job coming here and revolutionizing the program. I think they’re really proud of us, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
The match on Friday will feature an encounter between the top defense and top offense in the country.
Overall, the Bruins have a 0.283 goals-against average while the Cavaliers lead in offense with 3.08 goals per game.
UCLA has not allowed any goals in the postseason and has netted 9 goals. Meanwhile, Virginia has scored 10 goals and has allowed a goal against.
Neither team has won a national championship, and thus both teams enter the game hungry for a victory that will give them a ticket to the final for an opportunity to win the first national championship for their program.
Mewis is aware of the opportunity the Bruins have to be national champions and said that it’s important for the team to stop and think about this possibility.
“I think (the NCAA tournament) has been going really fast, but it’s important to stop and think about it and make sure we understand that we are in a really good position. We’ve gone really far and it’s really cool that we got this opportunity to make history (by winning the NCAA) and we need to appreciate that fact and just make sure that we enjoy it,” Mewis said.
The Bruins are the only non-Atlantic Coast Conference team left in the Final Four and sophomore forward Kodi Lavrusky said that this makes them want to work harder.
“After watching the seeding and knowing that we didn’t get a first seed, we were kind of bummed about it at first and then realized that it didn’t really matter about the seeding, you just have to come out and win every game,” Lavrusky said. “But knowing that we’re the only (Pac-12) team, it kind of makes us want to push a little harder.”
Coach Amanda Cromwell echoed Lavrusky’s words and added that not being a No. 1 seed has actually helped the Bruins get better in the tournament, which could be a decisive factor for UCLA.
“I think (making it to the Final Four) makes a point of where we should have been placed in the bracket, but our past is our past and it’s actually made us stronger. I think we’ve had some games that other teams in the Final Four haven’t had to make them better,” Cromwell said.
“We’ve been pushed, and to play the last two national champions to just get to the Final Four is quite an accomplishment and I think it’s going to help us, hopefully, win a national championship ourselves.”