The Bruins are off to their best start in program history.

Behind a 4-0 victory over Arizona State (6-2-2, 2-2 Pac-12) on Thursday at Wallis Annenberg Stadium, No. 1 UCLA women’s soccer (12-0, 4-0) kept its undefeated season alive. The blue and gold also eclipsed its previous best start to a season, which took place in 2001 when it assembled an 11-0 start to the campaign.

Coach Margueritte Aozasa – who is in her first year as a collegiate head coach – said she is pleased with the start and happy to see the improvement of her players.

“I’m just living in the moment. It’s incredible,” Aozasa said. “We’ve had a great team the last few seasons, and the players are performing well. They’re playing with a lot of expression, creativity and enjoying themselves more than anything else.”

The Bruins wasted no time getting on the board after a goal from junior Reilyn Turner in the second minute. The forward played a pass from freshman midfielder Ally Lemos off her chest and fired the ensuing shot into the back of the net.

Four minutes later, sophomore forward Lexi Wright would find graduate student forward Ally Cook to put UCLA up 2-0.

After the Bruins started the first few games of the season slow offensively, Aozasa said she is delighted to see how the offense has improved as the season has progressed.

“How we start games has been huge, just getting the momentum,” Aozasa said. “Being clinical in front of goal, that’s the other piece I was really proud of. Twenty shots, four goals is pretty good.”

The blue and gold would come out the second half firing as well, with Lemos scoring her first collegiate goal in the 50th minute. Despite the midfielder’s previous scoring drought, she has played a vital role in the Bruins midfield by collecting 882 minutes so far this season, second only to graduate student goalkeeper Lauren Brzykcy.

Lemos said she has enjoyed every minute of her first college season.

“I feel like that’s every freshman’s goal and dream. You go into college soccer wanting to do that,” Lemos said. “It’s just been really surreal and just having my coaches trust and believe in me, that just means a lot.”

The night of firsts didn’t end there for UCLA. In the 71st minute, graduate student Madelyn Desiano would score the first goal of her collegiate career as well. The defender has been an important asset in UCLA’s offense for the last two seasons, logging nine assists in 2021 and three more so far this year.

After returning from two knee surgeries, Desiano said she was overcome with emotion after the game.

“I can’t stop smiling. This has been a long time coming for me, and I’m proud of myself,” Desiano said. “Overall I’m just super excited and relieved. I had to leave UCLA with a goal, so there’s some pressure off of me now, and I can say, ‘OK, I got one. I got one.'”

With the historic start comes a lot of additional pressure and heightened expectations, something Aozasa said the Bruins are not worried about.

“We honestly don’t talk about it too much,” Aozasa said. “We try to go game by game. We talk a lot about just focusing on the task, staying very clear in our objectives. But yeah, it’s always nice afterwards when we learn these things.”