UCLA shuts out Trojans to avenge tie
By Daily Bruin Staff
Nov. 12, 2000 9:00 p.m.
 PATIL ARMENIAN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Senior midfielder
Venus James tries to escape a Trojan defender in
the second round of NCAA tournament play. UCLA 10
USC 0
By Jeff Agase
Daily Bruin Contributor
Last time, the tie felt like a loss. This time, the win felt
like domination.
The sixth-seeded UCLA women’s soccer team avenged a
regular season tie by defeating USC 3-0 Saturday before 1,104
people at Drake Stadium. They now advance to the third round of the
NCAA Tournament.
“Obviously this is a tremendous result for us,” UCLA
head coach Jillian Ellis said. “Not only is it an advancement
to the third round, but it’s a victory over USC, and it
doesn’t matter at what point of the season it
comes.”
The Bruins (16-3-1 overall, 6-2-1 Pac-10) came out of the gates
running. Midfielder Breana Boling got a clean look at the goal
after a pass from senior Tracey Milburn. Boling fired a shot from
just outside the penalty box right past Lauren Arase, the Southern
Cal goalkeeper.
Just 2:14 into the game, the Bruins were dominating their
crosstown rivals.
“To be honest it makes me nervous to score that early and
that easily because you then become the hunted throughout the whole
game,” Ellis said.
If the Bruins were the hunted, the women of Troy (14-6-2, 5-3-1)
must have left their ammunition back at the Coliseum. UCLA
controlled the game for most of the half, continually seizing
opportunities, including a rocket from senior Venus James that
clanged off the crossbar.
USC didn’t register a shot until the 23rd minute and
struggled to get in sync throughout the game.
“We came out and we were flat today and why, I don’t
know,” USC head coach Jim Millinder said. “When
you’re playing on the road and you go down and take a goal
two minutes into the match, it takes the wind out of your
sails.”
The Bruins, on the other hand, continued to ride the gusty,
circling winds in the second half. Immediately following an offside
call that thwarted a USC scoring chance, freshman Sarah-Gayle
Swanson muscled the rebound from junior Stephanie Rigamat’s
blast and drove it home to put the Bruins up by two.
Less than 15 minutes later, after another offside call negated a
Trojan goal, Venus James raced down the field to loft a shot from
six yards out into the corner of the net. The score was 3-0, and
once again the Bruin defense made goalie CiCi Peterson’s day
fairly painless by completing its 13th shutout of the season.
“I think that we work really well as a unit,” senior
defender Karissa Hampton said. “It’s our goal to have
no goals scored against us ““ we have a thing called NGP, and
it’s “˜No Goal Patrol.’ If one person gets beat,
we want to be there to cover for that person.”
In their Oct. 8 contest at the Coliseum, the Bruins outshot the
Trojans 30-14 but mustered only one goal. Saturday in Westwood,
UCLA outshot USC 25-4 and capitalized on scoring opportunities.
“In the other game we dominated in all aspects except the
finishing, so it was good to finally do the last thing, which was
to finish,” James said.
The win also marked the continuation of the Bruins’ home
undefeated streak, which dates back to November of 1998.
Their third-round matchup with Texas A&M will take place
Sunday at 1 p.m. at Drake Stadium.
Should the Bruins win this weekend’s showdown, they could
meet up in the quarterfinals with third-ranked Clemson, which beat
UCLA 1-0 in both teams’ season openers.
USC head coach Jim Millinder was impressed with what he saw.
“I think (UCLA) has got what it takes to go deep in the
tournament,” he said. “They’ve got a lot of
qualities the rest of the field doesn’t have. They’ve
got great athleticism and they have tremendous speed. They
don’t make many mistakes in the back. They just keep hitting
you and they wear you down.”
