As the moon emerged over Drake Stadium from behind the Earth’s shadow, it certainly would have been poetic if the practically nonexistent Bruin offense made its own long-awaited arrival.
But Sunday night appeared to be anything but poetry.
For 68 minutes, the UCLA men’s soccer team (4-4-0) looked overmatched and underprepared across the pitch, stumbling to a 3-0 deficit at the hands of unranked UC Irvine (2-5-2).
Then the offense arrived, erupting for four unanswered goals in a furious comeback that ended in a 4-3 overtime victory for the home team.
“In any game, there’s a lot of twists and turns, highs and lows,” said coach Jorge Salcedo. “That game had it all.”
Things got off to a bumpy start for the Bruins. Just 12 minutes into the match, freshman defender Malcolm Jones earned a controversial red card after his midfield tackle injured Irvine’s freshman midfielder Luis Leon. The Bruins contested the referee’s decision, but to no avail.
Irvine spent the rest of the half peppering redshirt freshman goalkeeper Pepe Barroso Silva with shots, but both teams entered halftime scoreless. The draw would not last long, however, as a trio of Anteater goals in just 15 minutes left the Bruins searching for answers.
In the 69th minute, UCLA’s lone-man offensive juggernaut Seyi Adekoya took over. The sophomore forward knocked in a free kick from 20 yards out to open the Bruin scoring and – 15 minutes later – snuck behind the defense to bring UCLA within one.
Adekoya’s two goals were his team-leading fifth and sixth of the season, all coming in the past four matches.
“To get the result after 3-0 down in the second half, I mean, that’s amazing,” Adekoya said. “That just shows how strong our team is mentally. Even though we’re three goals down and a man down, we can still come back and beat a team like UC Irvine.”
As UCLA amped up the urgency, Adekoya finally received some help, this time in the form of freshman midfielder Jose Hernandez. Down by a goal with only 10 seconds remaining in regulation, Hernandez sent a volley past the outstretched Irvine goalie.
Overtime was all UCLA. Even after over 80 minutes playing shorthanded, the Bruins showed no signs of wearing down with new life in them. They outshot the Anteaters three to nothing, and Hernandez found the back of the net once again just over seven minutes into the extra period.
The freshman was quick to credit his teammates.
“It was an overall team performance,” Hernandez said. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who scores as long as the team gets the result. This really shows what kind of team we are, the character we have as individuals and players, and we just bring that together.”
Four unanswered goals. Three in the final 22 minutes of regulation. Two in the final seven minutes. And one lightning quick Bruin midfielder with both the game-tying and game-winning goals.
As Salcedo said, that game had it all.
The victory gave UCLA its first back-to-back wins of the 2015 season, after UCLA defeated unranked VCU (2-6-1) 2-1 Friday afternoon. Adekoya put the Bruins on the board with an acrobatic goal in the 30th minute and senior forward Larry Ndjock put them ahead for good with a penalty kick in the 56th.
UCLA will enjoy the next three days off before hitting the Pacific Northwest for a pair of Pac-12 matches against Oregon State (5-3-0) and Washington (4-1-2) next weekend.