UCLA men’s soccer aims to maintain intensity
Senior forward Reed Williams has emphasized improving the team’s focus as a key to more consistent play.
By Derrek Li
Sept. 26, 2013 2:36 a.m.
At the end of practice Tuesdayafternoon, after the coaches left the field, the players on the UCLA men’s soccer team huddled together to discuss what seems to be on everyone’s minds: avoiding another letdown.
No. 13 UCLA takes on visiting UC Riverside today , and will try to carry over the same focused mentality that helped it take down then-No. 3 Cal State Northridge Sunday night.
Seven games into the season, a trend seems to be beginning to form. After big wins in big games, the Bruins play a letdown game against a weaker team. Coach Jorge Salcedo has noticed.
“We’ve seen this pattern a little bit and we need to make sure that we no longer see this pattern again – of having a great result followed up by a so-so result,” Salcedo said. “We hopefully have learned our lesson in how to prepare and how to come out with the same intensity.”
UCLA lost to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo 3-0 after defeating then-No. 1 Indiana. And after inching out back-to-back one-goal wins against UC Santa Barbara and San Diego, UCLA came out flat in a loss to UC Irvine.
With the coaches and even the players talking about it, UCLA (4-2-1) is hoping all the attention will quash the trend by coming out with the right mentality against unranked UC Riverside (5-0-2).
Redshirt junior goalkeeper Earl Edwards said he doesn’t even want to call it a trend.
“I don’t think it’s a trend, it’s happened to us a couple of times so it’s something that we want to stop early,” Edwards said. “We came out with a good mentality this last game and we just want to keep that going and prevent slow starts and bad losses from happening again.”
Edwards said that he’s going to be focused on keeping practice short and sharp before the UC Riverside game – something the team always wants to do before a game, but does not always accomplish.
Practice was short and sharp before their last game, and the Bruins defeated the No. 3-ranked team in the country. Senior forward Reed Williams said he wants the team to not only carry over the same pregame mentality to today, but also every single game of the season.
“We’re trying to really push ourselves to not treat any opponent different,” Williams said. “We need to treat (UC Riverside) like it’s the biggest game of the year, so that’s how we’re going (into today’s game).”
Despite the concern over a couple of letdown games early on this season, confidence remains high for UCLA.
“If we come out ready to play, I think we can compete with any team in the country,” Edwards said.
