Bruins to make final push for NCAA tournament bid
By Daily Bruin Staff
Nov. 8, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 EDWARD LIN/ Daily Bruin Senior Staff Junior forward
Tim Pierce and the men’s soccer team hope to keep
their eyes on the ball as they battle this weekend for a tournament
seat.
By Brian Thompson
Daily Bruin Reporter
Going into this season, the UCLA men’s soccer team has
been to the NCAA tournament 18 consecutive years.
Obviously, the Bruins are keen on extending that streak. But
with inconsistent play early on, it didn’t always appear as
if that would happen.
The Bruins have straightened the ship and found consistency,
going undefeated in their last four contests. While predicting who
the NCAA will pick always involves more guesswork than certainty,
it is likely that UCLA (8-6-4, 3-2-1 Pac-10) will be included in
the tournament should it pick up wins this weekend at home against
Oregon State and Washington.
“I believe if we win our next two games that we’re
in,” Bruins’ head coach Todd Saldaña said.
“It’ll make us a conference winner. It’ll likely
mean that we’ll beat another top-ranked team in Washington. I
think we’d be pretty hard to deny.”
But before the Bruins can worry about their tournament fate,
they must first address the task at hand of beating the Beavers and
the Huskies.
UCLA will first face OSU (5-9-0, 1-4-0) today at Drake Stadium.
The Beavers have struggled this season. They have only one Pac-10
win. That win came at the expense of the Bruins three weeks ago at
Corvallis, when UCLA lost 1-0.
 On Sunday, the Bruins will also look to avenge a defeat
against No. 14 Washington (11-3-0, 3-2-0). The Huskies beat UCLA
3-1 in Seattle last month. Washington is one of the top teams in
the region, picking up wins over Connecticut and Santa Clara, among
others, in an impressive season thus far.
There’s no way around calling this weekend’s
contests big games. Knowing that their tournament fate hangs in the
balance can be a little taxing for the Bruins.
“It’s all we think about,” defender Scot
Thompson said. “That’s the whole season right
there.”
“We’re under a bit of pressure because we know we
need to win these games,” added midfielder Chadd Davis.
But these aren’t the same Bruins that faced the Beavers
and Huskies in mid-October. The Bruin defense has been impenetrable
of late, recording three shutouts in a row. The teams the Bruin
back line has been shutting down haven’t been cupcakes
either, with high-scoring South Carolina and Stanford among those
to succumb to the UCLA defense.
These recent efforts have had a tremendous effect on the mood of
the squad.
“We feel pretty confident heading into this
weekend,” Davis said. “We know we can hold the other
team to zero goals.”
Saldaña agrees.
“We’re going into this weekend having played very
well,” he said. “And we get to finish it off at home.
We are hitting our stride right now. It might be a couple of games
later than I thought, but the timing is still great, finishing
strong and go into the tournament with a really great feeling. The
guys are feeling that there’s nobody in the country we
can’t play with.”
Should the Bruins get the results they are looking for, they
might just get to prove that in the NCAA tournament. All UCLA can
do is beat OSU and Washington this weekend and leave the rest of
their fate to the NCAA committee.
