The SoCal tournament curse has finally been lifted.
In a traditional red versus blue battle, No. 1 UCLA conquered cross-town rival and three-time defending Kap7 SoCal Invitational champion No. 2 USC 10-9 to win its first recorded SoCal trophy on Sunday.
Coach Adam Wright said that the Bruins experienced a wide variety of situations on Sunday, including foul trouble and losing a lead – all of which aided the team in learning to adjust quickly and powered the comeback.
“We wanted to see really what the character of our team was after this weekend and who we were and who we want to become,” Wright said. “We’re a young team and we’re still building … but this was a major step.”
UCLA (17-0, 1-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) ousted Pomona-Pitzer (7-10) on Saturday 22-6 to advance to the quarterfinal against No. 7 UC Irvine later that afternoon, securing a spot in the semifinal with a 13-4 win.
Roster depth was paramount in the Bruins’ first two wins of the tournament. Twelve players scored in the win over the Sagehens, with four registering hat tricks. In the quarterfinal, 10 players tallied points.
By the end of the tournament, 17 of the Bruins’ 18 position players had scored a goal. Wright stressed that depth and balance are critical components of UCLA’s playing style.
“Our hope is as a whole that we don’t have to lean on one or two guys,” Wright said. “Obviously we have some great players on our program, but at the same time we want everyone to take ownership of how we play.”
Last October, the Bruins’ 18-0 record was tainted after a loss in the semifinal of the 2014 SoCal tournament. This October, the Bruins solidly defeated No. 4 Cal 13-8 to earn a spot in the final.
Cal struck first Sunday, but its early one-point lead was its only lead of the game. UCLA answered immediately to take a 7-3 lead heading into halftime, and the momentum never swayed back in Cal’s favor.
“At the beginning of the game we were really scrambling even though we had the lead,” junior attacker Ryder Roberts said. “Finally, we started dictating how we wanted to play. The game started to slow down for us and we started playing our game.”
The final match pitted the Bruins against the Trojans for the first time this season. In traditional rival-game fashion, the 10-9 final score came down to the final 15 seconds.
The Trojans built an early 3-0 lead in the first period, but the Bruins fought back to tie the score at 4-4 heading into halftime. Roberts was a major component of the first-half comeback, securing a hat trick in the first 11 minutes.
The Bruins’ defense held the Trojans to just two goals for the entirety of the second and third periods, while the offense secured eight points in that time.
The Trojans staged a fourth-quarter comeback, tying the game at 9-9 with 22 seconds left, but junior attacker Patrick Fellner sealed the Trojans’ fate off a 5-meter foul at the 15-second mark.
While Wright wasn’t satisfied with the team’s 6-on-5 performance over the weekend, he added that the defense continues to improve largely due to efforts from the Bruins’ reliable goaltending.
“It helps to have (junior) Garrett Danner in the goal because a lot of times we will make mistakes and he’s there to clean it up,” Wright said. “We take great pride on defense. The combination of a good five-man and a good goalie becomes difficult to score on.”
Over the four tournament games, the Bruins’ five-man defense allowed just five total power-play goals, shutting down the Bears’ man-up offense, and holding the reigning SoCal champions to two conversions in the final.
“We really strive to be the best five-man team in the country every single year,” Danner said. “I think according to the stats right now, we 100 percent are. We really focus on five-man and find great success.”
The Bruins’ tournament win over USC does more than tack another win on the season’s record. The victory extends the Bruins’ win streak to 20 since November 2014. With one more win, the Bruins will tie the third-longest streak in school history.
Though the most dominant team in the nation, the Bruins won’t head into practice with that mindset.
“Now we know we can beat everybody, but confidence is also a dangerous thing,” Roberts said. “We really need to go into the week’s practice hungry to try to get better, be willing to change and make sure the mistakes we made this weekend don’t happen again.”