This post was updated Nov. 12 at 11:09 p.m.

A UCLA first was achieved Sunday in striking fashion. 

No. 2 seed UCLA women’s soccer (16-3-3, 9-1-2 Big Ten) blanked No. 5 seed Rutgers (11-4-5, 6-2-3) 5-0 on Sunday afternoon to claim the Big Ten championship and UCLA’s first Big Ten title 100 days after joining the conference. 

“You could just see that everyone who was in those situations, we were hitting shots on frame. We weren’t just trying to hit with power. We were very thoughtful about where we were placing it,” coach Margueritte Aozasa said. “The coolest part of today, though, was we scored a lot of different types of goals.”

UCLA bolted out of the gates against Rutgers, with sophomore forward Val Vargas able to shoot the ball into the net with her left foot while sliding in the seventh minute. 

“I passed it through Kara (freshman forward Kara Croone), and she read my run, and I moved the ball to my left foot,” Vargas said. “I saw the wide open space, and I just shot it.”

The pressure on the Scarlet Knights didn’t let up, with the Bruins taking five corners and continuing to find shots on target.

Vargas said preparation was key in the team’s aggression on the attack.

“In practices, we always work on the shooting,” Vargas said. “We wanted to make a statement.”

Sophomore forward Taylor Cheatham helped UCLA strike again less than 35 minutes later, finding an open path to the goal after her first shot was blocked by a defender.

It seemed as though Rutgers had begun to hit its stride as the half ended, registering its first corner kick and shot on goal in the last five minutes of the half.

Just as the clock was about to run out, however, freshman forward Jordan Geis blasted the ball off her right foot into the net, propelling UCLA to a commanding 3-0 lead entering halftime. 

“I just saw a little bit of open space, and I could hear them counting down the seconds. And I was like, ‘Why not just take a shot?’” Geis said. “There’s really nothing to lose.”

Nothing eased off coming out of the locker rooms – intensity levels among Aozasa’s lineup remained dialed to a maximum as the team was 45 minutes removed from a potentially history-making Big Ten title.

After two UCLA shots in as many minutes to open the second frame, Rutgers responded in kind, nearly drilling in a ball that graduate student goalkeeper Ryan Campbell managed to snatch off the goal line. Her save preserved the shutout and contributed to her 16th clean sheet of the season.

“Our back line, everyone has been great defensively,” Aozasa said. “Today, again, even across the course of the tournament, we did a very, very good job of staying disciplined, staying in our shape, being very thoughtful about how we defended.”

UCLA’s backline not only defended the shutout score but saw its veteran defenders contributing to the attack as well.

Senior defender Lilly Reale powered multiple runs up the field, creating viable opportunities for the Bruin offense, while senior defender Quincy McMahon played up the field as a winger for the attack.

“Not only do we have incredible players coming off the bench for us in numbers, but also in terms of their skill set, and every single person brings something a little different,” Aozasa said. “We’re so fortunate as the staff that we can look out on the field and look in the locker room and see so many solutions to different problems that the game presents.”

The continued efforts yielded more success in the 69th minute, when junior forward Lily Boyden headed in a pass from McMahon. 

The Bruins’ triumphant run was capped off by a fifth – and what would be a final – goal in the 83rd minute, when Geis crossed the ball into the box to sophomore Sophie Reale, who slotted the ball underneath the goalkeeper’s legs. 

Sunday’s overpowering victory not only marked the first Big Ten championship for UCLA women’s soccer and UCLA but was the Bruins’ highest scoring game of a season laden with low-scoring matches.

“It’s super special to be part of UCLA history, to be part of Big Ten history in this way,” Aozasa said. “Today’s win was so emblematic. Five incredible goals by five different goal scorers, it really was something super significant.”

As the clock ran out, the Bruins darted toward Aozasa. 

Gatorade showered the triumphant head honcho as history was made in St. Louis.