Senior midfielder Luis Silva was named the Big West Conference Offensive Player of the Week for the second consecutive week it was announced by the league on Monday. Additionally, he was also placed on the Top Drawer Soccer and College Soccer News Teams of the Week, also for the second-straight week.
Silva scored in both of the Gauchos’ victories last week, helping UCSB extend its win streak to four games, which ties its season high. The wins secured the No. 2 seed and semifinal hosting duties for this week’s Big West Tournament.
At Cal State Northridge on Tuesday, Silva scored in the 77th minute on a free kick from 45 yards out to give the Gauchos a 2-1 lead. When the match went into overtime, his shot with 19 seconds remaining led to the game-winning own goal.
Against Cal Poly on Friday, Silva scored his 15th goal of the season to stretch the UCSB lead to 2-0. The midfielder has scored in the last five games and has had at least one point in all but two Big West contests.
This marks the fourth time that Silva has earned Big West Offensive Player of the Week honors and College Soccer News Team of the Week accolades this season. This is the third time he has been named to the Top Drawer Soccer Team of the Week.
UCSB will be back in action on Wednesday when the No. 2 seeded Gauchos host No. 3 seed UC Davis in the Big West Tournament semifinals at 7 p.m. at Meredith Field.
Wednesday’s match-up is the third this season between UCSB (13-5-1, 6-4) and UC Davis (7-7-4, 5-3-2). The Gauchos have defeated the Aggies in each of their previous meetings with a 2-1 overtime win in Davis (Oct. 8) and a 3-1 victory at Harder Stadium (Oct. 26).
The winner of Wednesday’s match will play the winner between No. 1 seed UC Irvine (14-5-1, 6-3-1) and No. 4 UC Riverside (9-5-4, 4-3-3) for the Big West Tournament Championship and the conference’s automatic bid into the 2011 NCAA Tournament. The highest remaining seed will host the championship game on Saturday.
