In a rare occurrence of first-round pairings for the NCAA men’s soccer tournament, UCSB drew a team from outside of the west region.
The Gauchos (15-4-2) will play host to Wofford University of South Carolina in an opening-round match Thursday night at 7 o’clock at Harder Stadium. This will be UCSB’s eighth straight appearance in the tournament.
Wofford (12-2-3) qualified for the NCAAs by winning the Southern Conference Tournament championship. The Terriers beat Elon 2-1 in the title game. They are having their best season in school history. They finished last or tied for last in the standings in each of the last six seasons.
The winner of Thursday’s game will travel to 11th-seeded University of San Diego for the second round. USD won the West Coast Conference title.
A matchup between teams from different regions is unusual in the first round, but coach Tim Vom Steeg wasn’t complaining.
“I certainly don’t mind Wofford having to travel 3,000 miles in the next two days,” he said.
Vom Steeg, however, was bothered by the tournament committee’s decision to seed UC Irvine 16th and give the Anteaters a first-round bye. They’ll play the winner of Thursday’s game between St. Mary’s and Stanford.
“The way things are … this love affair with Irvine now is just ridiculous,” he said. “I told my staff I can’t even watch (the selection show) because they’re going to give Irvine the 16th seed, although that means they’ll have to play Akron in Akron (if they reach the third round).”
The Gauchos beat Irvine twice during the regular season and finished in first place in the standings. They lost to the Anteaters 4-1 in the tournament championship at Harder Stadium.
“They finished third in our conference and based on one game they get a first-round bye. That part is always a mystery to me,” Vom Steeg said.
As for Wofford, the Gaucho coach said he knew very little on Monday other than the fact the team plays schools from the Atlantic Coast Conference and plays them tough.
The Terriers played one ACC school this season, losing 2-0 against North Carolina State. Their big wins include a 1-0 decision over Davidson and 3-1 victory over North Carolina-Charlotte.
UCSB is 8-1 in NCAA Tournament games at home. Their first loss came last year against Cal in double overtime. The Gauchos have reached the College Cup final twice, losing to Indiana on penalty kicks in 2004 and beating UCLA for the national championship in 2006.
“I say it again and again, at this point of the year, you are always measured from what happens from this point forward and every game takes on a life of its own,” said Vom Steeg. “I like the fact that unlike last year, we are healthier. I think there is a little bit of an edge to our game because we are disappointed about what happened Saturday (against UC Irvine) and we thought we could have played better. We have a chance to play one more game at least and then take it from there.”
