Between two closely matched teams, corner kicks are often the
difference between winning and losing, and it was no different in
Sunday’s women’s soccer match between San Diego and
UCLA.
The Bruins clearly won the battle of set pieces ““ corner
kicks or free kicks ““ scoring two goals off of corner kicks
in their 3-0 win over the Toreros in the second round of the NCAA
Tournament.
“We worked all week on set pieces because that will get us
goals,” forward Iris Mora said. “With the games getting
tighter and tighter, set pieces become more important.”
With the game scoreless in the 25th minute, UCLA executed a
perfect corner kick to take the lead. Junior midfielder Iris Mora
connected on a short pass to senior forward Lindsay Greco, who
quickly knocked it back to Mora.
Finding an open space created by the short corner, junior
midfielder Jill Oakes received a swinging cross pass from Mora that
she headed into the upper-left corner of the goal.
San Diego goalkeeper Karen Cook got a hand on the ball, but
could not keep it out of the net.
“We were able to draw a couple of people out of the box
with the short corner and create some space,” Greco said.
Coach Jill Ellis had watched videos of a few of the
Toreros’ past games and noticed that San Diego tended to pack
the six-yard box and the near post with defenders, leaving the far
post open. Add that to San Diego’s lack of height ““
only one player is taller than 5-foot-9 ““ and the
opportunities for corner kicks were there. “We watched how
they defended and we noticed that they put a lot of players in and
around the six,” Ellis said.
“Other than (5-foot-11 Michelle Rowe), they didn’t
have a whole lot of height so we hoped to get Kendal (Billingsley)
and Oakes in there, who are great in the air.”
UCLA scored its next goal in the 58th minute on a corner kick,
but in a completely different way from its first goal.
This time, Mora curled a ball to the near post.
The Toreros were not defending their near post as tightly as
they usually do because of the adjustment they made after
Oakes’ far-post goal.
This would prove to be a mistake as freshman forward Danesha
Adams ran past her defender and onto the perfectly served ball,
flicking a header past Cook to make the score 2-0 and essentially
putting the game away for the Bruins.
Greco noted that this year has marked a vast improvement on the
movement of the players just before a corner, which certainly
helped create the two corner kick goals for UCLA against San
Diego.
“The more you move, the more you keep them off
guard,” senior forward Lindsay Greco said. “We’ve
actually been much better this year on our movement. Last year we
would just stand around.”