NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin Stephanie
Rigamat (r) struggles with ASU opponent Patrice
Feulner as Nandi Pryce looks on.
UCLA d. Arizona 2-0 UCLA d.
Arizona St. 3-2
By Michelle Coppolella
Daily Bruin Reporter
Starting off the Pac-10 season with a bang, the No. 2 UCLA
women’s soccer team lengthened its undefeated record over the
weekend with a 2-0 win over Arizona Friday at Spaulding Field and a
3-2 win over Arizona State Sunday at Drake Stadium.
Despite numerous missed opportunities resulting in a scoreless
first half Friday night, the Bruins geared into action in the
second half when senior midfielder Mary Frances Monroe capitalized
on a loose ball in the box in the 58th minute, putting UCLA ahead
1-0.
“It’s tough when you go up against a team
that’s got 10 players behind the ball,” UCLA head coach
Jillian Ellis said. “But in the second half, we played with
winged midfielders, so that allowed us to free up our forwards to
go at them.”
Go at them they did. Just three minutes after Monroe’s
goal, senior forward Stephanie Rigamat chipped a ball passed by
sophomore Whitney Jones over the Arizona goalkeeper’s head to
ensure the win for the Bruins.
But UCLA cautiously entered Sunday’s game with the all too
fresh memory of last year’s game against ASU, when the Sun
Devils defeated the Bruins 1-0.
Their fears proved to be all too real when for the first time
this season the Bruins trailed their opponent after ASU forward
Antoinette Marjanovic launched a shot from 30 yards out and beat
senior goalkeeper CiCi Peterson in the sixth minute to give the Sun
Devils a 1-0 lead.
Twenty minutes later, confusion in the Bruin defense resulted in
the Sun Devils’ second goal after Stephanie Peel chipped the
ball over Peterson’s head, putting ASU up 2-0.
“Our first half was the worst half of soccer we’ve
played the whole year,” said sophomore Nandi Pryce, who
started her first game this season for the Bruins after a
season-ending leg injury early last year. “Going down two
goals is definitely a disappointment, but I think it shows the
character of the team to pick ourselves up again and know the
better team will prevail.”
Monroe helped the Bruins prevail after she gathered a loose ball
in the box and laid it into the back of the net to cut the Sun
Devil lead to 2-1 going into halftime.
“UCLA kept being relentless and worked their way back in
the game. You gotta give them credit,” ASU head coach Ray
Leone said.
Freshman midfielder Kendal Billingsley scored her first goal as
a Bruin in the 49th minute when Rigamat passed her the ball and she
rocketed a shot to the upper-left-hand corner of the net.
Finally in the 77th minute, Rigamat launched a shot from outside
the box to capture the win for the Bruins.
Despite having to come back from a 2-0 deficit early in the
game, the Bruins dominated play and outshot the Sun Devils 3-2, a
statistic which Ellis feels echoes a valuable learning lesson for
the Bruins.
“We’re taking ten shots to score one goal, and what
we need to be doing is taking three shots to score one goal,”
Ellis said. “We just need to stay calm, play with urgency but
not panic, and continue to possess. And the goals will
come.”