On Thursday night, UCLA men’s soccer finally caught a glimpse of its full potential, and saw the opposing team – the No. 1 Washington Huskies – crumble in the Bruins’ wake.
With a starting lineup featuring their three highly-touted freshman forwards – Seyi Adekoya, Christian Chavez and Abu Danladi – together for the first time this season, the No. 14 Bruins produced a type of first-half offensive explosion that was mostly absent for the first 12 games of the season.
“Tonight was the first time all season that I got to put out the group that I thought was our best group in the attack,” said coach Jorge Salcedo.
UCLA scored two goals in a 10-minute span during the first half, jumping out to a 2-1 lead over Washington on an Adekoya goal in the 25th minute. And even after Adekoya was dismissed from the game after his second yellow card in the 54th minute, the Bruins went on to hold their lead and defeat the Huskies 2-1 despite playing with just 10 men for much of the second half.
“(This win is) so big,” Adekoya said. “I mean, everyone thinks this (Washington) team is No. 1 in the nation, but we just beat them … with 10 people.”
The Bruins (7-3-3, 2-1-1 Pac-12) came sprinting out of the gates against a physical Huskies (9-2-1, 2-1-1) team that tried to slow them down with tackles and hard hits in the box. That gameplan broke down when the speedy Adekoya broke out into the open field for a two-on-three breakaway midway through the first half. While hastily dribbling upfield with the go-ahead goal in sight, the freshman forward made sure not to attack too fast.
He said that before going for a long-range goal, he remembered just a few games earlier when that plan had failed him.
“A few games ago, I was in that similar situation and I was going at a defender and (senior midfielder Leo Stolz) was there and I didn’t give it to him,” Adekoya said. “It ended badly.”
This time, Adekoya steadily dribbled towards the box, and passed it over to Stolz, who promptly returned the favor, assisting Adekoya’s second goal of the season.
Soon after, Adekoya raised his arms and went into a full-fledged front flip right in front of the home fans at Drake Stadium.
The Adekoya goal was arguably the highlight of a night which Salcedo said had a lot of dynamic attacks and great ball movement.
From the get-go, the Bruins’ fresh starting lineup was eager to make a statement and prove its worth against the nation’s top team.
“We came out really hard and we always come out hard, but we came out more hard today because we were playing the number one team in the nation,” said Danladi, who was playing in his first home game of the season after missing much of the year with various injuries.
Adekoya said that the energy that UCLA showed in the first half can be attributed to the fact that he was finally able to play extended minutes with fellow freshman Danladi.
“It started with (Danladi) because I love playing with (Danladi) … and that just hyped us all up,” Adekoya said.
Now the key for the Bruins will be making sure the new lineup and newfound momentum established during the Washington game is maintained. UCLA is now tied for Washington atop the Pac-12 standings, but another tough conference test – against No. 17 Oregon State – comes on Sunday.
“It’s a seven-game season,” Salcedo said. “You know that obviously we’ve had some up and down moments throughout this early part of the season. We’re taking every game as the most important game.”