Olé.
Olé, Olé, Olé.
Olé, U-C, L-A.
Those were the chants ringing through Stevens Stadium on Sunday afternoon, making the Bay Area home-fieldx advantage sound like it was just another match at Wallis Annenberg Stadium.
And perhaps it also gave the Bruins life.
No. 17 UCLA women’s soccer (2-2-1) came back against Santa Clara (2-1-3) 3-2 on the road to give the Broncos their first outright loss of the year, just days after Santa Clara’s Jerry Smith became the second-winningest head coach in Division I women’s soccer history. The comeback victory came following a 2-0 halftime deficit, after which the Bruins rallied three unanswered goals in a span of 15 minutes.
While the Westwood faithful were cheering every minute of the game – even during a first half in which Santa Clara converted on the only two shots it took – Molly Hale rescued her squad.
After taking just one shot across her previous three games, the freshman defender/midfielder took three against the Broncos, nailing two of them within two minutes of each other to tie the match before securing the lead for the Bruins squad.
In the 75th minute, a pass into the box from junior midfielder Asa Yamazaki led to a cross from senior forward Olivia Woodson, who lobbed the ball up to Hale for a short header that would sneak over Santa Clara goalkeeper Ally Harrison. Then, less than two minutes later, Hale took it up the right wing on an isolation run before yamming another one into the nylon.
“The first one, I saw the ball coming,” Hale said. “I saw I was in a perfect spot, and I was like, ‘I have to get it in. Goals open, keeper’s gone.’ The second one, I was so mad, so I just smashed it. The ball comes out. No one’s in front of me.”
And the shots came at just the right time, with the Bruins out-shooting the Broncos by seven throughout the match. Coach Gof Boyoko’s squad showed it was capable of putting pressure on the pitch with speed and outlet kicks, before falling just shy of the net.
The Bruins ran out of the gate early, pushing the pace and playing at a much faster tempo than they did in the previous shutout loss to Stanford on Thursday. The squad was effective at controlling possessions and relegating the game to the Broncos’ side of the field, consistently trapping Bronco dribblers into tight corners and limiting clean looks at the goal.
Despite UCLA’s own looks and energetic ball movement, it continuously came up just short of converting, with wide kicks and transition plays that sent the ball into deep, contested territory – fueled by Harrison’s three saves.
“For us, it was the intensity and tempo with which we were playing,” said sophomore forward Leena Powell. “It was really slow at first, and we were just trying to find our rhythm. We were just seeing if they would bite, and they weren’t biting. It was just a very slow movement in the back, and then they had two shots on goal, and both went in. That’s just little mistakes that we can tweak out and talk to each other, communicate. We got to bump our runners. We got to check our line.”
The Broncos would secure their first tally of the match in the 26th minute off a breakaway from forward Kennedy Schoennauer – Santa Clara’s leading scorer on the year – and after sophomore goalkeeper Daphne Nakfoor over-helped on the transition attack. Santa Clara would strike again 18 minutes later when forward Jalana Kimber leaked out ahead of the play on a ricocheted ball, before crossing it left to midfielder Adee Goulden, who snaked it in past a diving Nakfoor.
Boyoko said the team switched things up tactically following the 2-0 halftime deficit. He added that he positioned the two designated attacking midfielders wider to give more space in the open field.
And that switch paid off, with Powell initiating the comeback with UCLA’s first goal of the match in the 63rd minute off a deep kick from the left wing that a 5-foot-6 Harrison was unable to reach.
“It’s really to have no hesitation,” Boyoko said. “We had good looks first half, and it’s just when you see the look, to just trust yourself and go for it. That’s what we ask in the second half. … First half again, you take away those two goals, nobody’s panicking, right? Because we have more shots, we have more possession, we have more control of the game.”
And as the Bruins fended off a panicking Bronco attack in the waning minutes of the game, UCLA returned home with the goal of – as Powell said – never enduring those feelings of defeat again, but also not forgetting what they are like.
As the sun cooled down on a fresh Santa Clara afternoon, celebratory chants of “Olé” mixed with stomping on the bleachers echoed through the pitch, putting the final stamp on UCLA’s biggest win of the season.
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