DALLAS, TX- In the first three rounds of the 2002 NCAA
tournament UCLA made a statement that its high-powered offense was
poised to blow opponents off the field en route to a national
title.
The Bruins scored three and four goals respectively in their
first two games, and then exploded for a seven-goal destruction of
No. 15 Penn State in the national quarterfinals.
Needless to say very few people thought it would be UCLA’s
defense would carry them to a national title.
That, however, is exactly what happened. Zach Wells, Scot
Thompson and company gave up only one goal in two games, and shut
out arch-rival Stanford for the third time this year in final.
“We’ve played Stanford twice this year so we knew
what they were going to be doing a lot of the time and that
helped,” defender Leonard Griffin said. “We were solid
back there and played like we have all year.”
Stanford came into Sunday’s championship averaging 1.81
goals and 6.0 shots on goal per contest. On Sunday they failed to
find the back of the net, and were limited two shots on goal, none
of which came in the final 67 minutes of play.
“UCLA did a great job of keeping numbers back,”
Stanford head coach Bret Simon said. “They kept three
defenders home almost the whole game and kept our forwards covered
very tightly.”
On Sunday Griffin Thompson and Tony Lawson made a habit of
picking the pockets of potent Stanford scorers Roger Levesque and
Johanes Maliza. UCLA’s terrific trio beat the two all Pac-10
first team selections in multiple one-on-one situations that could
have easily resulted in shots on goal for Stanford.
“We have three brilliant marking backs in Tony (Lawson),
Leonard, and Scot,” Wells said. “They keep everything
in front of them.”
While Lawson, Griffin, and Thompson clearly make up UCLA’s
defensive nucleus, Sunday’s effort received heavy
contributions from several other sources. Wells, the defensive MVP
of the tournament, was superb in controlling the middle and
intercepting Stanford crosses.
“It was very important for Zach to take charge of the box
and take everything in the air,” UCLA head coach Tom
Fitzgerald said. “Stanford is the best team in the country in
the air, and if you don’t take charge of the box they make
you pay for it. Credit not only to Zach but to all the defenders
who did a tremendous job of marking defenders who were in some
cases six to eight inches taller than they were.”
Wells only had to make seven saves on the weekend, but such a
statistic is not indicative of the how active Wells was in the
defensive effort.
The UCLA midfielders were also active in clearing balls out of
the box, despite the significant height disadvantage mentioned by
Fitzgerald.
Stanford’s starting front line features two forwards who
are 6’2″. In addition, defender Taylor Graham who often
participates in offensive set pieces is 6’4″. Several
UCLA players who kept the ball away from Stanford’s giant
front line, including Mike Enfield, Ryan Futagaki, and Jimmy
Frazelle, are under 5’10″. Griffin, Thompson, and
defender Aaron Lopez provide height in back, but none of them are
taller than 6’1″.
Frazelle came up with arguably the defensive play of the
tournament for UCLA in the 7th minute. He stopped a sure goal on
the goal line with his body following a Stanford corner kick.
Despite constant pressure from the Stanford offense, the UCLA
defense showed resolve in continuing to make big plays, even
towards the end of the game when fatigue was clearly a factor.
“Even though they bent today, they never broke,”
Simon said. “That’s to their credit.”
Sunday’s victory over Stanford marked the end of another
chapter in the biggest soccer rivalry on the West Coast. It is a
rivalry that UCLA has certainly controlled this season, holding
Stanford scoreless in all 272 minutes the clubs played this year en
route to three victories.
“(Beating Stanford three times) is a great feeling,”
Griffin said. “To beat a team twice is hard enough and to
beat a team three times is ridiculous.”
While the two regular season wins were tremendous high points in
this dream season, it was the ridiculous third win- a clinic in
resilient team defense- that secured UCLA’s place in history
as the best collegiate soccer team in the land this season.