As the fog slowly settled over Drake Stadium on Thursday night,
so did the Bruins’ offensive woes.
It didn’t take long for the No. 12 UCLA men’s soccer
team to end the scoreless streak that had been plaguing it for the
better part of the past four games, two of which went into double
overtime, improving their record to 8-3-2, 3-1-1 Pac-10.
In the third minute of their 1-0 victory over No. 22 UC Santa
Barbara, sophomore forward Kamani Hill converted on a penalty kick
by passing to freshman defender Brad Rusin, who headed the ball in
for a score. For the next hour and half of play, UCLA’s
defense was able to make Rusin’s goal stand as the
winner.
Hill passed the ball into the box where Rusin was open for a
head ball, which he sent past Gauchos goalkeeper Kyle Reynish to
the back of the net.
“It was a good ball by Kamani that just went over the
defender, and I headed it in,” Rusin said.
The successful conversion was the Bruins’ first goal in
over 367 minutes of playing time. UCLA had not scored since their
Oct. 7 victory over Washington.
“Brad is dangerous in the air and it was a good
finish,” coach Jorge Salcedo said. “I was a little
surprised that he was that open in the box, but when we
haven’t scored too many goals in the past four games.
I’ll take a goal any way it comes.”
The Bruins have also become successful at keeping their
opponents off the scoreboard. Goalkeeper Eric Reed recorded his
ninth shutout of the season with some help from the goal posts.
“Lord’s just seeing the ball and helping me out a
lot,” Reed said. “He’s been blessing me with a
lot of lucky times.”
Salcedo has also acknowledged the fact that his team has been
lucky with balls hitting off the post rather than sailing past
Reed.
“Sometimes you need a bit of luck as well,” Salcedo
said with a smile.
The Gauchos outshot their opponent but failed to take advantage
of any of their opportunities, a difficulty the Bruins had also
been experiencing in recent weeks.
Several shots by UCSB came close to rolling by Reed, who felt
that his performance was not up to his standards.
“Every game we’re going to make mistakes and me,
personally, I don’t think I played the best game,” Reed
said.
Though he was not happy with his outing, Reed knew that Salcedo
expected strong performances from his starting goalkeeper. He has
certainly fulfilled and likely exceeded his coach’s
expectations.
“That was one of our big goals this year: Every game we
step in, try not to allow a goal,” Reed said. “As long
as we keep doing that, no team is going to win against
us.”
But Salcedo stressed that the shutout was not solely due to the
performance of his defense, but also could be attributed to his
midfielders and offensive front. Similarly, the game-winning goal
in the third minute was not completely due to the play of the
offense, especially since it was a defender who was able to end the
scoreless drought the Bruins had found themselves stuck in.
“When we have a shutout, it’s the whole team that
has the shutout. When we score goals, the whole team scores the
goal,” Salcedo said of Thursday night’s effort.
Prior to the game, the Bruins knew that they would have to get a
quick jump start and Salcedo made sure his team realized the
importance of an early score.
“One of our goals today was to get an early goal and just
hold them like we’ve been holding all the teams,” Rusin
said. “It was our tenth shutout, so one goal was all we
needed.”
Although Thursday’s victory was by no means the
Bruins’ best game, they were happy to put an end to their
three-game winless streak.
“We grinded out a win and we’ll take it,”
Salcedo said.