That sudden gust of wind Wednesday night at Harder Stadium didn’t come out of the north. It came from the blast hit by Luis Silva’s right foot in fourth-ranked UCSB’s 2-0 win over Cal State Northridge.
Silva capped a brilliant sequence of one-touch soccer with a 30-yard rocket that sizzled into the upper left corner of the goal to get the Gauchos off and running, keeping them in first place in the Big West soccer standings.
“When you knock the ball around like that opportunities will come,” Silva said nonchalantly about his fourth goal of the season. “It was my turn, so I took the shot.”
The goal was like a dagger to heart of the Matadors, who were playing high-pressure defense to disrupt UCSB’s attack.
UCSB's Luis Silva, left, and Tim Pontius swarm a Northridge attacker.
The build-up started with Johnny Zerah bringing the ball up field and passing to Michael Tetteh, who fed Danny Barrera, who pushed it to Machael David, who laid it back for Silva for the exquisite finishing touch at the 15:31 mark.
That brought out the tortillas from the wind-whipped crowd of 2,482.
“I can tell you that was the goal of the year, right there,” said UCSB coach Tim Vom Steeg. “It was the whole build-up and the finish. We do a top 10 at the (end of season) banquet and that one’s going to be hard to beat.”
Asked if he was aiming for the upper V of the goalmouth, Silva shrugged his shoulders and said, “I just had the shot and I took it. Luckily it went upper V. It was a good goal.”
The Gauchos (12-3-1, 6-1-0, 18 points) almost gave up the lead in the waning seconds of the first half. Ruben Rodriguez got free on the right flank and crossed the ball into the middle of the six-yard box, where energetic Mattias Bonvehi was making a run. Bonvehi, however, couldn’t get enough on his diving header and UCSB goalkeeper Sam Hayden gobbled up the bouncing ball.
The Matadors (7-7-2, 2-4-1, 7 points in Big West) were playing for the postseason lives, trying to catch Cal State Fullerton (10 points) for fourth place in the standings.
But they couldn’t break a Gaucho defense that is playing beyond expectations. Wednesday’s result was the 10th shutout of the year.
“I can’t say enough about the fact that is is our 10th shutout,” said Vom Steeg. “We gave up 39 goals last year. I remarked in one soccer magazine that one of the biggest turnarounds of the year is UCSB’s defense.”
The Gauchos have allowed only 12 goals in 16 games and just one in Big West play — a 1-0 loss at Northridge 11 days ago.
UCSB's MIchael Tetteh
“(The play of the defense) gives us a lot of confidence because we know when we get a lead we can play with a lead. You’re not going to give something up, you’re not going to give up something easy,” said Vom Steeg.
The play of Michael Boxall and Martin Hedevag on the backline stymied the Matadors time and again. Even when it appeared they were beaten, they recovered to prevent a clean shot on goal.
It was a play by Boxall that led to the second goal of the game. he tackled the ball away from Bonvehi in the penalty area and cleared it up field to Barrera to start the counterattack. Barrera deftly dished a through pass to Waid Ibrahim, who sped past a defender and easily beat goalkeeper Michael Abalos for his second goal in two games.
Northridge came close to breaking the shutout in the 74th minute but Cameron Sims’ blast glanced off the far post.
So now comes the challenging part of the season for the Gauchos in their quest to win the Big West regular season title and host the conference tournament: road games at third-place and defending champion UC Irvine and co-leader Cal Poly.
“We need to go dig one out on the road,” Vom Steeg said, “and we have the team that can dig one out on the road. It’s not going to be easy.”
The Gauchos play at UC Irvine on Saturday night and at Cal Poly next Wednesday.
