Meg Boade returned to her home field of four years.

Only this time, the graduate student midfielder was the opponent.

UCLA women’s soccer (11-2-2, 6-0-1 Big Ten) traveled to Chicago as part of its two-game road stint, securing a 1-0 victory over Northwestern (5-7-3, 0-5-2) on Thursday night.

Boade – a Northwestern transfer – experienced a homecoming of sorts.

“There’s a lot of emotions,” Boade said. “It was so good to be able to see my old friends, my old coaches and just to be able to be in a familiar space again. It was special to be able to play in that field again.”

During her senior season with the Wildcats, Boade was selected for the United Soccer Coaches All-North Region second team and the All-Big Ten first team for a second straight year. She set a Northwestern single-season record with 14 assists and ranked second in the nation with 0.78 assists per game.

Boade had a deep understanding of her former team’s playstyle, offering UCLA a unique edge through her insight during the match.

“I do think it is a little bit of an upper hand, just knowing the kinds of tells of other people and how they like to play in their style,” Boade said. “I was able to help us out a little bit this week with our scout and figuring some different things out.”

UCLA’s lone goal came in the first half when junior midfielder Sofia Cook’s initial shot was blocked by Northwestern goalkeeper Reiley Fitzpatrick. On the follow-up, graduate student midfielder Maya Evans capitalized by sending the ball into the top of the net, securing the score for the Bruins.

“In the past few games I hadn’t scored and I wanted to score,” Evans said. “I stole the ball, I cut it off and then I just shot it.”

Evans – who only played for 30 minutes – proved instrumental in tonight’s win.

“Maya is just one of those athletes that you know, 90 minutes is going to be asking a lot,” said coach Margueritte Aozasa. “She’s very powerful, she’s very quick, and the way that our two front plays, which is the ground that she needs to cover there, it’s more of can she make the most of the minutes that she has.”

The Bruins fired 10 shots – four on target – in the first half, while the Wildcats recorded none.

Northwestern flipped the script in the second, however, racking up four shots to UCLA’s goose egg. Corner kicks followed the same story, with UCLA issuing four in the first and none in the second, while Northwestern had none in the first and three in the second.

Although the Bruins have been winning, Aozasa isn’t quite satisfied.

“I thought we did a decent job overall,” Aozasa said. “I still don’t think it was necessarily our best performance. We had some good glimpses, the goal was incredible, so I thought some really good individual performances.”