No. 7 UC Santa Barbara faced the reality of playing without center midfielder Machael David earlier than they expected to.
The Gauchos will be without David for their first three potential postseason matches, and lost the midfielder to a leg injury in the first half Saturday night against UC Irvine. Santa Barbara also lost the match 2-0 to the No. 8 Anteaters at Harder Stadium to drop to 0-2 in the Big West.
The two top-10 teams justified their rankings in the first half, and were evenly matched. The ball stayed mostly in the middle of the field, with neither team able to establish possession near their opponent’s goal.
Just 15 minutes into the match, David was unable to play, and attacking midfielder Luis Silva had to drop into his injured teammate’s position.
“By dropping Silva back, we lose an attacking weapon, and it just changes everything we do a little bit,” UCSB coach Tim Vom Steeg said.
Silva had been aggressively winning balls in the center of the pitch and was the catalyst behind the little offensive output the Gauchos had at the beginning of the game. He has been the maestro of the offense the entire season.
Nic Ryan, who normally plays on the wing, stepped into the space voided by Silva, and was unable to apply the same kind of pressure on the Irvine back line.
The Irvine midfield was extremely quick to the ball, allowing the Gauchos little space to move the ball forward.
“We knew we had to close down quicker than normal,” Anteaters head coach George Kuntz said. “We had been talking about it, we had been working on it the last couple weeks.”
With the defenses and midfielders playing well, the half ended 0-0.
UCSB's Fifi Baiden trails UC Irvine forward Miguel Ibarra who would go on to score the Anteater's first goal.
The trend continued into the second half and the frustrated Gauchos started to rely on playing the ball over the top of the Irvine defense, but were unable to create many chances.
In the 66th minute, the Gauchos looked to break the game open as forward Dom Sarle had a one-on-one opportunity with Irvine goalkeeper, Andrew Fontein. Sarle chipped the ball but Fontein was able to get just enough of a touch on the ball the push it over the crossbar.
The Gauchos were unable to create a chance off the ensuing corner kick, and were slow to transition back into their own half after losing possession. Irvine midfielder Miguel Ibarra was able to get space going toward the Santa Barbara goal and fired a shot that took a slight deflection and landed in the back of the Gaucho net for a 1-0 lead.
On the next play after the kick off, defender James Kiffe was able to make a run down the left sideline and cross a ball into David Opoku for the best chance of the evening for Santa Barbara. Opoku was inside the six-yard box with little pressure on him, but pushed the ball wide of the goal.
“What really hurt us was the fact that we stared at the goalkeeper three times and did not slip anything in,” Vom Steeg said. “We just can’t do that, and we’ve done it too many times.”
Irvine continued to pressure the Santa Barbara midfielders and scored again when Marco Franco found Lester Hayes III’s head on a cross to all but end the game.
A game that had been physical but not dirty threatened to get out of hand as defender Gaucho defender Tim Pontius and Hayes engaged in several scuffles within the final minutes of the match.
The game ended without any major incident and in a 2-0 win for Irvine who improve to 1-1 in conference play.
The Gauchos (6-3-1, 0-2) play next on Wednesday against defending national champion Akron.
