Bruins look to increase streak
Junior defender Lauren Barnes and the No. 3 Bruins round out non-conference play against Pepperdine today.
By Rebecca Lee
Oct. 1, 2009 10:26 p.m.
The No. 3 UCLA women’s soccer team will have a chance to extend its eight-match win streak when the Bruins travel to Malibu today to play Pepperdine (6-3).
As the Bruins (8-1-1) play their last non-conference game before entering Pac-10 play at home against Arizona next week, they welcome the break from Sunday matches.
“Sometimes it’s planned, usually,” coach Jill Ellis said. “We’ve come through 10 pretty grueling games. After Friday, once they get some rest, their bodies will start to rejuvenate. It’s a big plus for us just to have one game this weekend.”
“We have our practices, we’ve just been taking it day-by-day,” sophomore defender Amelia Mathis added. “We’ve got a lot of bangs and injuries and whatnot. So we’re trying to get healthy through the week, but we’re doing a good job of getting us back together as a whole because there’s bangs here and there, but we’ll be together by Friday.”
The most recent and most serious of the Bruins’ injuries is redshirt senior Kara Lang’s season-ending re-tearing of the ACL in her right knee, which happened in the 21st minute of UCLA’s 2-0 victory against Cal State Northridge Friday.
“People are kind of low in energy,” junior midfielder Taylor Cochran said. “It kind of happens during the season, but I think having the Sunday off is going to be huge for us.”
UCLA holds an all-time advantage of 11-2-1 over the Waves, including a 12-game unbeaten streak.
“Same as every weekend, we go in, we don’t really focus on what opponent it is,” junior midfielder Elise Britt said. “Besides the formations ““ we just know what it is ““ we don’t really focus on, “˜Oh, this is going to be a really hard team or this is going to be an easy team.’ It’s just like, “˜This is our next game, we have to do what we do.’ We have to play our best and keep improving every game.”
Ellis said that Pepperdine’s soccer field is slightly smaller, so the Bruins have been practicing and scrimmaging with a shorter field to get used to the size of the field they will see in Malibu.
Ellis also added that she had been impressed with the freshmen recently. In UCLA’s 3-1 win against UC Santa Barbara last weekend, the Bruins started four freshmen, including midfielder Zakiya Bywaters, midfielder Chelsea Cline, defender Lucretia Lee, and midfielder/forward Ahsha Smith.
“We saw some big strides in some of our freshmen over the course of last weekend,” Ellis said. “I think they’re excited to play.”
According to the coach, if the Bruins can take care of the ball and execute on set pieces, they will be a hard team to defend.
“At this point, the focus is still on ourselves,” Ellis said. “But it’s our last tuneup for Pac-10s, so I think the players are ready. … We’re excited for Pepperdine. It’s a one-game weekend ““ we know it’s going to be a difficult opponent, we’ll need to play well to get the result.”
