JEFF ANTENORE Senior forward Staci
Duncan dribbles past a fallen Florida defender Sunday at
Drake Stadium. Florida 1 UCLA 0
By Jeff Agase
Daily Bruin Staff
Twenty-eight shots weren’t enough.
Neither was holding the nation’s leading scorer to three
shots.
Or ball control for most of 120 minutes.
But when Florida’s Monica Hayles fired a deflected shot in
the last minute of the second overtime for a 1-0 win over UCLA in
the NCAA quarterfinals at Drake Stadium, all of it just
didn’t matter.
As the ball sat behind the goal line, the Gators (21-3-1)
bunched together, leapt in unison and made plans for this
weekend’s trip to Dallas for the College Cup.
The Bruins (20-3-0) just fell to the turf. It didn’t seem
fair. This wasn’t what happens to teams that outshoot their
opponents by 20. Not this.
“So goes the nature of our sport,” UCLA head coach
Jillian Ellis said. “That’s what attracted our ladies
to it in the first place. There’s just nothing
guaranteed.”
UCLA found that out the hard way on a crisp afternoon in front
of 1,178. The Bruins saw a home unbeaten streak of 26 games come to
an end more than three years after it began.
A blowout loss, an uninspired effort, then it might be
understandable. But not this, not one of this team’s finest
performances.
Florida played with four defenders in the back and without
senior Keisha Bell, while a spirited Bruin front forced goalkeeper
Jordan Kellgren to play the best game of her career.
Kellgren did. She made 16 saves.
“My goalkeeper coach said to me, “˜Why is it that
every keeper has her best game against us?’ Ellis said.
“She was sure-handed and impressive.”
So impressive was Kellgren that shot after shot, free kick after
free kick was corralled by her outstrected arms. Kellgren cut off
just about every Bruin cross, and when she couldn’t, she
leapt high enough to cut off some tough challenges.
“I told myself we can’t lose if they don’t
score,” Kellgren said.
But it was Florida in the sea of Bruin shots and dominating
possession that had the best scoring chance.
SEC conference player of the year and national scoring leader
Abby Wambach got the clearest look at the goal of any player on the
field, but her shot went straight into the stomach of Bruin
goalkeeper CiCi Peterson in the first overtime.
The Bruins neutralized Wambach from scoring, holding her to just
three shots, but she always gathered a crowd near the goal.
“Abby garners attention,” Florida head coach Becky
Burleigh said. “During the goal, they were looking back-post
for her and Monica got her shot off. Abby was a big reason why she
scored it.”
But this game wasn’t about Abby Wambach, or even a
deflected goal. It was about a team that held control of the game
for 119 minutes and saw the other team win.
“We’ve talked about it all year,” Ellis said.
“You can outplay teams and still lose.”
For a team that is accustomed to outplaying teams and winning,
that last minute made all the shots, all the control, all the wins,
not seem to matter all that much.