With her team heavily favored entering its second straight NCAA
quarterfinal, Jillian Ellis needed some advice.
Naturally, she turned to a wise man. A very wise man.
How should her team deal with the pressure, she wondered. How
could it still focus with a bear-sized target on its back?
“My dear, you wouldn’t want it any other way”,
the wise man told her.
And with that, John Wooden wished the third-seeded UCLA
women’s soccer team the best of luck in its quarterfinal
match against Florida.
Never mind that the Bruins lost despite outplaying the Gators
for much of the game. The very fact that the Florida win was
considered an upset served as a striking sign that UCLA soccer had
arrived.
Now as Ellis enters her fourth season at UCLA, she has embraced
Wooden’s remarks.
“It’s true,” said Ellis, 58-13-2 (not
including the games over the weekend) in her three-plus years at
UCLA. “You really do want to be the team.”
UCLA shouldn’t have any trouble fulfilling that role.
Ellis responded to losing seven starters by bringing in the No.
2-ranked recruiting class in the country.
It has become a recurring theme for the former Under-21 U.S.
national team coach. Finally, the Bruins can reload instead of
rebuild, something that prized recruit of 2000 and now junior
midfielder Sarah-Gayle Swanson values.
“They’re all so talented,” said Swanson
of the freshmen. “Everyone is on the same page, and the
competition is so skillful that you get better every time you step
on the field.”
So attractive has the UCLA name become that Jill Oakes, the
top-ranked recruit in the country, joins four other players ranked
in the top 25 by Soccer America in trying to keep the bar as high
as it has been in previous years with more experienced players.
So far-reaching has the UCLA name become that forward Iris Mora
came from Cancun to play in Westwood.
Like Ellis before she came to UCLA, freshman forward Katie
Rivera, the No. 21-ranked recruit in the nation, saw everything
else the school had to offer.
“First, the soccer is awesome,” Rivera said.
“Also, UCLA has great academics, there’s a lot to do
around here, and the team seemed really nice.”
Ellis says that the national exposure of two years ago, when the
Bruins reached the national championship game, coupled with her
approach to coaching, has greatly assisted in the recruiting
process.
“We’re at a point now where the best kids in the
country are coming here,” Ellis said. “I think
I’m a players’ coach in the sense that I try and think
like a player would and ask what would motivate me as a
player.”
Still, there is more to do. The Bruins took home their third
Pac-10 title in program history last season but couldn’t get
back into the Final Four.
“These last two years have helped us get recognized, but
at the same time we haven’t won a championship,”
Swanson said.
And then there’s Oct. 4. It’s hard to have a
conversation with a Bruin player without hearing about how
important it is that the team beat defending champion Santa Clara.
UCLA still has yet to score a goal on the Broncos in 270 minutes of
play. In many ways, UCLA players won’t feel like they have
arrived until the team can beat Santa Clara.
With the majority of the freshmen more accustomed to offense,
Ellis asked senior Tracey Winzen to move to the back line, where
she and junior Nandi Pryce will anchor a new-look Bruin
defense.
“It’ll be a slightly different-looking team this
year,” Ellis said.
“We’re still going to possess, but probably play out
of the back with four rather than three.”
Thus far, the new Bruins have come up with mixed results. At the
second UCLA Women’s Cup, they defeated then-No. 5 Virginia on
a golden goal by freshman Kim Devine but lost to then-No. 12 Penn
State 1-0 in double overtime two days later.
Ellis has again drawn up an impressively challenging slate of
games for her squad, including a Sept. 28 tussle with the Mexican
National Team at Drake Stadium.
Everyone will be gunning for her team, and it might not always
be easy.
But, she wouldn’t want it any other way.