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Women’s soccer to kick off season against UC Irvine in home game

UCLA women’s soccer junior defender Brianne Riley is set to take on a starting role for the Bruins once again after ranking second on the team among field players in minutes last season. (David Rimer/Assistant Photo editor)

Women's Soccer


UC Irvine
Thursday, 4 p.m.

Wallis Annenberg Stadium
Pac-12 Networks
Cal State Fullerton
Sunday, 5 p.m.

Titan Stadium
No TV info

By Diego Farinha

Aug. 19, 2021 11:26 a.m.

Following 120 minutes of exhibition soccer last week, results will now count for the Bruins.

No. 5 UCLA women’s soccer opens its season at home against UC Irvine on Thursday before facing Cal State Fullerton on Sunday on the road in its first two games of the 2021 campaign. The match at Wallis Annenberg Stadium against the Anteaters will be the first home contest in front of fans for the Bruins since Nov. 24, 2019.

Junior defender Brianne Riley said playing in front of just over 1,000 fans for the exhibition match versus Pepperdine was an exciting prelude to seeing crowds back in the stands this season.

“We’re really excited,” Riley said. “Just having the great turnout at the exhibition game was super fun to be back in front of fans and play with a ton of people. I think it makes it even more exciting to be back and starting a new season.”

These two matches begin an eight-game nonconference slate for UCLA before it begins its defense of the Pac-12 crown. The eight contests against non-Pac-12 teams are five more than the Bruins faced throughout the shortened spring regular season last year.

“I think the more time we play before the Pac-12 (schedule) gives us more time to sort out any kinks,” said graduate student midfielder Olivia Athens. “Obviously our first goal is to win the Pac-12 – the more prepared we are to do that, the better. And it’s just better because we want to play, so getting to play more games is always fun.”

Unlike the midfield, where there is less ambiguity with Athens and fellow graduate student midfielder Marley Canales returning for their fifth seasons with the program, UCLA’s new defensive backline will make its first official appearance during the opening weekend.

Riley, who played the second-most minutes of any outfield player for the Bruins last season, will not be playing alongside the three defenders she started with.

“I’ve had a good combination of playing with veterans last year like Lucy (Parker), Karina (Rodriguez) and Jacey (Pederson) – all of them,” Riley said. “It was a really awesome experience for me and getting to learn from them. And now playing with younger people, I think they’re doing really well, and it’s fun to see how much they’ve already grown in practice and how well they did in our exhibition game.”

Coach Amanda Cromwell said the defense will be full of young players but also feature upperclassmen who have not had consistent minutes in their first years in Westwood.

“We’ll have a lot of younger players in our defense this year,” Cromwell said. “We definitely have some younger players in Dasia (Torbert) and Lilly (Reale) and then Kylie Kerr – she hasn’t played a lot but she has experience at UCLA. We have Madelyn Desiano back from injury, so we do have some veteran players that just haven’t had the playtime, so hopefully we can see them in there and doing well.”

In addition to the extended regular season, the Bruins will revert to enjoying an extra day of rest on weekend doubleheaders, playing on Thursday instead of Friday – which was customary over the past season – before playing again on Sunday.

“I think it makes a huge difference,” Athens said. “In the spring it was pretty brutal, there were 24 hours before we had to go again. So now an extra day of rest is an extra day to pick our legs up and also scout our opponent – just more time to do everything. And we have such a deep roster that we will be extra fresh with the rotation.”

As the reigning Pac-12 champions and picked to repeat as such in the Pac-12 preseason coaches poll, Cromwell said the challenge to win is just like any other year.

“(Teams) always give us their best shot whether we’re champions or not, (so) that won’t change,” Cromwell said.

Kickoff is at 4 p.m. Thursday while the Sunday match will start at 5 p.m.

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Diego Farinha | Sports staff
Farinha is currently a Sports staffer on the softball beat. He was previously a reporter on the women's soccer beat.
Farinha is currently a Sports staffer on the softball beat. He was previously a reporter on the women's soccer beat.
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