Halfway through the Pac-12 season, the UCLA men’s soccer team is exactly where it wants to be. In fact, it’s exactly where anyone in the conference would want to be.
The Bruins sit in first place in the conference with a perfect record after a 2-0 win over San Diego State this weekend.
“Out of five games and 15 points, we have maximum points in the Pac-12,” coach Jorge Salcedo said.
“It puts us in a good spot ““ we control our destiny going into the second half of the season.”
“The beginning of the year seems such a long time ago and now we’ve won 10 out of 11 so I’m really excited about moving forward,” junior forward Chandler Hoffman added.
UCLA improves to 10-3-1 (5-0) on the season while San Diego State dropped to 8-3-2 (3-2) after last night’s loss.
The Aztecs came off to a hot start, forcing redshirt senior goalkeeper Brian Rowe into two saves in the first 10 minutes of the game.
San Diego State tallied five shots in the first half and Rowe was required to make three saves in the first half alone.
“The first half was pretty difficult,” sophomore midfielder Victor Munoz said. “They kept the ball pretty well and they understood the rhythm of the game.”
San Diego State was unable to capitalize while it had the ball that half and the teams entered halftime with deadlocked at 0-0.
Unlike San Diego State, UCLA was able to create much more dangerous opportunities in the second half.
The Bruins had two goals called-back after the linesman deemed players to be offsides.
“It was unlucky. We try to do all we can on the offensive part of the field and they had a good defense that knew we wanted to put balls behind them so they’re also smart and that’s why we had a couple of offsides,” Munoz said.
UCLA executed one of its chances in the 63rd minute to break the deadlock. Slightly over half field, sophomore midfielder Kelyn Rowe threaded the ball between two San Diego State defenders to find Hoffman at the top of the box who rocketed the ball past the keeper to set the score at 1-0.
“We were combining and getting a lot of passes in the midfield so that opens up a lot of space for me and that’s when I work best ““ when I can make the runs in behind and we have players that can find me,” Hoffman said.
Hoffman wasn’t done just yet as he added his 11th goal of the season in the 83rd minute. Munoz beat two players skillfully and found Hoffman open who put the ball in the back of the net with the help of a deflection. The insurance goal put the Bruins up 2-0 over the Aztecs.
After not scoring in the past four games, Hoffman tallied his first in-conference goals this season.
“It feels great (scoring again); I had been dying to get back on the scoree sheet so it was great to get two tonight,” Hoffman said.
Although having beaten every team in the conference, UCLA will not overlook any opponents when they meet again.
“Teams are fighting for survival, fighting for a playoff spot, fighting to be looked at by the committee at the end of the year so every game now, the last six games of the season, is going to be a war every time out,” Salcedo said.