Teams always start the season wanting to enter the record books.
But after UCLA men’s soccer (0-3-2) lost 2-1 at Loyola Marymount (2-2-1) Sunday night, they made history for all the wrong reasons. The Bruins have had their worst start to the season – in terms of both wins and goals scored – after five games since records in the team’s information guide began in 1967.
If they keep scoring at the same rate, it will be their worst-ever attacking season.
“We’ve played some really good football, and we’ve got some very good players, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to get the final piece together,” coach Ryan Jorden said. “We probably have not had a UCLA team that has failed to score goals in this same way.”
UCLA opened the game by forcing two saves from the Lions goalkeeper Philip Hovers and was rewarded for its efforts when redshirt sophomore forward Sergi Solans Ormo slipped behind the opposition back line off a through ball and slotted a shot into the back of the home team’s net.
Graduate student midfielder Sean Sent said he thought the wait for Solans Ormo’s first goal was a matter of if, not when. The forward – whose five shots in the game were all on-target – scored a hat-trick against LMU while playing for Oregon State last year.
“We knew it was going to happen, so props to Sergi,” Sent said. “I’m expecting a lot more from him.”
Solans Ormo, who scored 14 goals last season, saw two other first-half chances saved. Sophomore defender Shakir Nixon had a chance of his own but failed to convert, shooting wide.
“I’m pretty clear with them all the time,” Jorden said. “We make our own outcomes, and for us, we had plenty of opportunities in that game to be up two or three-zero, and we didn’t take it.”
Jorden said his team played too poorly in the second half, passing the ball backwards too frequently and inviting the Lions’ press.
Lions defender Ismail Nieves flicked the ball over sophomore defender Allan Legaspi’s head and finished with a low drive at the edge of the Bruins’ six yard box to level the game in the 61st minute. Loyola Marymount continued to threaten after the goal, forcing freshman goalkeeper Ryan Tiltack to make a strong free-kick save.
Then, with just 74 seconds left on the clock, Loyola Marymount scored again.
“We need to change,” Solans Ormo said. “We need to change the attitude, we need to change our mentality.”
The game marked the third time in five matches that the Bruins conceded in the last ten minutes, with a previous final-minute goal by California also handing Jorden’s squad a loss. Solans Ormo said that the team has to improve their second-half performances before heading into Big Ten play later this week.
“We need to show our quality in the field and start competing, start fighting, because the second half was not enough,” Solans Ormo said. “It was not enough to win, and was not enough to represent these four letters that we have here in our chest. That’s basically the mentality that everybody has right now.”
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