This weekend, the No. 2 UCLA (18-0-2, 9-0 Pac-10) women’s soccer team clinched its sixth consecutive Pac-10 Championship with a 2-1 double-overtime win against Oregon State (6-10-2, 1-6-1 Pac-10) and a 2-0 victory against Oregon (9-9-2, 2-6-1).
But it wasn’t easy.
The Bruins were at risk of tying or being upset by Oregon State on Friday night at the Beavers’ Paul Lorenz Field when the game went into overtime with the score at 1-1.
After both teams went scoreless in the first overtime period, senior defender Catherine Calvert netted UCLA’s game winning goal in the 104th minute. Calvert received a cross from junior forward Lauren Cheney and delivered a 7-yard shot into Beaver goal.
“I thought it was fitting the she got the goal for clinching the Pac-10 championship,” coach Jill Ellis said.
In the end, it was two seniors who scored UCLA’s goals Friday night to secure the championship, Calvert and senior midfielder McCall Zerboni.
“All of the seniors are experienced leaders, and we all look up to them because they have the most experience right now,” sophomore defender Lauren Barnes said.
In the 78th minute, Zerboni put UCLA on the board first. Zerboni received the ball off a Beaver turnover, then launched a 35-yard shot towards the goal that deflected off the underside of the crossbar and into the goal.
Oregon State responded by knotting the score at 1-1 10 minutes later. After a UCLA foul, Beaver Courtney Wetzel connected on a 32-yard free kick into the upper right hand corner of UCLA’s net. Then, even though the they had already taken the conference title on Friday, the Bruins still had a game on Sunday against Oregon. If UCLA had lost on Sunday, it would have had to be co-champions with Stanford whom the Bruins had beaten last week.
“We wanted to claim the title outright and wanted to secure the No. 1 seed in the West,” Ellis said. “We felt that if we could win today, we could have a better opportunity to get a seed, a good seed in the West.”
Despite the cold and wet Oregon weather, UCLA downed the Ducks, 2-0, in the season finale.
“We weren’t looking to tie at all,” junior forward Kristina Larsen said. “We decided to leave everything out there. For the seniors it was their last Pac-10 game, so everyone just gave it their heart and worked real hard. We all just wanted to end on a win.”
UCLA’s first goal came at the 56th minute when Barnes served a corner kick into the Ducks’ box. When Oregon goalkeeper Cody Miles went to save it, the ball deflected off the goal post and into the net, registering an own goal.
“It was a break for us because both teams battled really hard,” Barnes said.
Barnes also played a part in the Bruins’ second goal when she launched a long cross into the Oregon box. The ball bounced in the box until Larsen registered a point-blank shot.
Finishing the weekend without a loss, the Bruins can now put their undefeated regular season behind them.
“We all had one main goal,” Larsen said. “We all wanted to win the national championship in the back of our mind. So we took it one game at a time. We all had to give it 100 percent, work hard for each other ““ the result should come if we’re all on the same page.”