Bruins look to avenge prior loss to Bulldogs

Friday, September 26, 1997

Bruins look to avenge prior loss to Bulldogs

At home after road trip, team to work on sustaining
intensity

By Vytas Mazeika

Daily Bruin Staff

For the UCLA men’s soccer team, there’s no place like home.

After a grueling two-week span in which the team played two
matches in St. Louis and two more in the Bay Area, the No. 6 Bruins
(6-1) return home for their first match within the friendly
confines of Spaulding Field.

"I’m sick of traveling," UCLA third-year forward Seth George
said. "I hate traveling first of all, and the fields we’ve been
playing on have been terrible … It’ll be good to be home."

George is the Bruins’ top scorer, with six goals in seven games,
and he also leads the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) in
goals scored. He will spark the Bruins’ explosive offense against a
struggling Fresno State team. The unranked Bulldogs (4-3-1) play
Santa Barbara tonight before coming to UCLA on Sunday.

Sigi Schmid, UCLA’s head coach, is particularly interested in
Sunday’s match against Fresno State because of last year’s loss to
the Bulldogs. In 1994 two teams defeated the Bruins twice in a row:
Indiana and Fresno State. In fact, the Bulldogs achieved their
victories in a span of a week. Fresno State won both the final
match of the season and the MPSF championship match.

Due to last season’s 3-1 Bruin loss at Fresno State, the
Bulldogs may repeat their 1994 accomplishment with a win on
Sunday.

"I think Fresno State last year beat us, and we pride ourselves
in the fact that nobody ever beats us twice in a row," Schmid said.
"Definitely it’s a big game for us because they beat us last year
at their place and we want to make sure that we return the
favor."

The Bruins should be well-prepared for this match-up because of
the one-week layoff between matches. UCLA’s last match came Sunday
in an impressive 6-1 victory against Sacramento State. Before that,
the Bruins downed the San Francisco Dons 3-1 last Friday.

Schmid mentioned that he would use this time to address a couple
of faults his young team is experiencing. In both of their previous
matches, the Bruins have scored a couple of quick goals and then
proceeded to suffer a lack of defensive intensity the rest of the
game. Sasha Victorine, a second-year starting midfielder for the
Bruins, noticed the team’s lack of enthusiasm in the second
half.

"I think we’ve been taking our heads off the game," Victorine
said. "Both games we’ve been up a little bit, so we’ve been
relaxing and everyone is not putting the same effort as they did in
the first half."

Nevertheless, playing sluggish second halves because of an
ability to score early and often is a problem many teams would like
to deal with. Schmid has used a mix of four forwards to keep them
all fresh. In the previous two matches, starters Nick Theslof, a
fourth-year student, and George wreaked havoc on opposing defenses
by creating 2-0 leads early in the first half.

The leads allow Schmid to platoon both first-year McKinley
Tennyson Jr. and second-year Martin Bruno. The ability to provide
experience to Tennyson and Bruno, and the rest that Theslof and
George are able to receive this early in the season, are luxuries
for the Bruins. Because UCLA has been victimized by injuries for
the past few years, quickly decimating the team’s depth, the
experience gained by Tennyson and Bruno is invaluable.

If all goes right for the Bruins on Sunday, the offense will
score several early goals. Once more Tennyson and Bruno will be
able to split time at the forward spot. George seems to think
UCLA’s three-match win streak will become four, as a
less-than-stellar Bulldogs team does not pose much of a threat.

"They’ve been struggling this year," George said. "We should
kill them."

If George’s prophetic words come true, UCLA will avoid losing
two straight matches to Fresno State, and a gleeful Schmid will
maintain both his pride and fresh offense.