BERKELEY “”mdash; When the clock expired Sunday on UCLA’s third consecutive loss, it put the men’s soccer team’s season on the brink of making the wrong kind of history. After losing to Stanford 2-1 and Cal 3-1 over the weekend, UCLA (8-8-2, 4-4-1 Pac-10) is in unfamiliar territory, sitting at .500 with just one game remaining in the season.
“It’s extremely disappointing (to be at .500), given that we had a lot of guys coming back from last season,” coach Jorge Salcedo said. “We were looking forward to having a very successful season, and obviously at 8-8, it’s bitterly disappointing.”
The Bruins will finish in single digits in the win column for the first time since 1959, and if they lose at home against San Diego State in two weeks, they will have their first losing season since 1952. In that year, soccer was not an NCAA sport and the Bruins played only three games, going 1-2.
If the team falls below .500 and thus fails to make the postseason, it will be the first time since 1982 that the Bruins will not compete.
“We’re in a position that this program hasn’t been in for 24 years,” senior Mike Zaher said. “I’ve been here for four years, and I’ve never even been close to being in this situation.”
UCLA had a terrible weekend of deja vu to bring the season to this point.
On Friday against Stanford (6-5-5, 3-2-2 Pac-10) and Sunday against Cal (10-4-1, 4-2 Pac-10), the Bruins found themselves down two goals midway through the second half. In both games, forward Maxwell Griffin was able to bring the team back to within one, but in both the games, UCLA was unable to equalize.
At Stanford, the Bruins found themselves outworked early with the Cardinals applying a lot of pressure, and getting multiple opportunities on goal. Goalkeeper Brian Perk had a good showing, keeping the game level until late in the first half. With the Bruins having trouble clearing the ball from the box, Stanford’s Bobby Warshaw was able to blast a shot past Perk with just over two minutes remaining in the half.
A little more than three minutes into the second half, Stanford midfielder Kyle Hency lobbed a shot over Perk to give his team a cushion.
UCLA turned the momentum late when an errant Stanford pass in the 66th minute put Griffin in a one-on-one and he placed a shot into the bottom left corner. But the Bruins’ opportunities to equalize would come up short.
“We had a ton of opportunities to tie the game,” Salcedo said. “Probably even enough to win it, but over a 90-minute game on the road, you have to be good from Minute 1 to the end. We weren’t.”
The Bruins have had trouble starting out with high intensity in recent games, not scoring in the first half during the losing streak, and not seeming to apply much offensive pressure until the team is trailing.
“We wait too long for that desire to get to the goal,” Griffin said. “We wait until too late to start it up.”
On Sunday it cost the Bruins again. Trailing by just one goal after Griffin’s goal, it was the Bears who would strike again. In the 82nd minute, midfielder Andrew Jacobson put the nail in the coffin on the Bruins’ road trip when he beat Perk on a bouncing shot from the top of the box.
The Bruins have one chance left to turn the season around so the team won’t be remembered for the wrong reasons.
“We have to win the last game to be above .500 to get into the tournament,” Salcedo said. “So we’ll prepare for that and hope that it’s good enough for the committee.”