This post was updated Sept. 28 at 10:29 p.m.
Redshirt junior Sebastian Rincon raised his pointer fingers to the sky. Ice water was poured over Jack Wagoner’s head in the locker room.
Even though the midfielders were on opposing sides of the pitch, their first goals of the season elicited equal excitement.
And both the Bruins and the Hoosiers had plenty of opportunities for post-goal celebrations during Friday night’s match, which featured six goals off 38 combined shots.
UCLA men’s soccer (2-4-2, 2-1-0 Big Ten) fell 4-2 to No. 3 Indiana (7-2-1, 2-2-0) in Bloomington, marking the Bruins’ first conference loss.
“I was really pleased with our overall performance,” said coach Ryan Jorden. “To fight back from three now down and put yourself in a situation where honestly I thought we could have won the game, I couldn’t be more pleased.”
The Hoosiers unleashed a scoring frenzy to open the match, notching goals in the 6th, 16th and 19th minutes. Indiana’s opening attack reflects a pattern of high-scoring Big Ten performances, including two- and four-goal showings against Michigan and Penn State, respectively.
Although the Bruins have yet to establish a steady attack this season – after opening the 2025 campaign with the program’s lowest number of goals across their first five games since at least 1967 – Jorden’s squad managed to get on the scoreboard early after an initial 3-0 deficit.
“A lot of teams just quit, and we didn’t do anything of the kind,” Jorden said. “Our fight back was really, really good. Soccer is an interesting sport. You make a bad mistake, you get punished at this level, and we made a couple, and they scored an incredible goal.”
The answer came from redshirt sophomore forward Sergi Solans Ormo, who scored in the 27th minute. Receiving a cross into the box, Ormo drove a shot toward the lower right corner. The ball bounced off the post before Indiana goalkeeper Holden Brown deflected it into the net.
It is hard to overlook Ormo’s increased productivity on UCLA’s frontline, as he has contributed to six scores in four games – even if his latest attempt was deemed an own goal.
The Bruins held the score steady at 3-1 at the half despite a barrage of shots from the Hoosiers across the first frame.
And UCLA’s defense allowed 13 shots across the second half to round out a total 27 allowed.
Five saves from freshman goalkeeper Ryan Tiltack – en route to a career-high six – held off an aggressive Hoosier offense that has averaged 2 goals per contest in conference play.
An arcing ball off the foot of Rincon – just shy of the top crossbar – kept the Bruins’ comeback chances alive. The Culver City local’s goal in the 54th minute was his first of the season and just his second career tally, after sitting out the 2024 season because of a leg injury.
UCLA’s likelihood of an equalizer disappeared when Indiana midfielder Jack Wagoner hammered the nail in the coffin – a penalty-kick goal in the final five seconds, marking the fourth time this season that UCLA has allowed a goal in the final five minutes of a match.
“I told the guys after, I was like, ‘I’m not worried about that piece of it at all,'” Jorden said. “It’s more about the fact that we had chances to be able to score the equalizer probably in the 15 minutes before that and unfortunately didn’t get it done.”
The Bruins will continue their stretch of Big Ten road contests with Monday’s game against Ohio State in Columbus.
Comments are closed.