STOCKTON — No. 6 UC Santa Barbara (16-10) traveled to Stockton to compete in this year’s MPSF Championship. Drawing the sixth seed, UCSB was slated to face off against No. 3 UCLA (28-2). The Gauchos were dropped by the Bruins by the score of 11-8, and are now set up for a match against the seventh seed Long Beach State (19-13) tomorrow, at 11:30 a.m.
UCLA got off to a hot start, tallying two early goals from Aimone Barabino. Junior attacker, Eric Van de Mortel, got the Gauchos on the board with a 3:21 goal of his own. The Bruins went on to dominate the first period, scoring a total of five goals compared to two scores for UCSB.
Holding a 5-2 lead, the start of the second period could not have been better for the Gauchos. With three unanswered goals from Eric Van de Mortel, Matt Gronow and Kevin Cappon, UCSB tied the game up, 5-5. The Bruins scored a goal to take the 6-5 lead, but the Gauchos once again answered with its own score from Derek Shoemaker. At the end of the first half, UCLA held a slim 7-6 lead.
With his fourth goal of the match, Eric Van de Mortel once again tied the game up with a 7:14 goal. From then on, the Gauchos ran out of steam in the third period; allowing the Bruins to score three straight goals at the end of the period.
With an uphill battle, the Gauchos needed to capitalize on every chance they got. Unfortunately, the deficit was too much, as the Bruins went to win an exciting match, 11-8.
UCSB will now face off against the seventh seed Long Beach State tomorrow, at 11:30 a.m. after the 49ers suffered a defeat against the third seed Stanford Cardinals.
UCLA 11, UCSB 8
1 2 3 4 Final UCLA 5 2 3 1 11 UCSB 2 4 1 1 8 UCLA Goals: Danny McClintick (2) Aimone Barabino (2) Chancellor Ramirez (2) Anthony Daboud, Ryder Roberts, Chris Wendt, Gordon Marshall, Cristiano Mirachi
UCLA Saves: Garrett Danner (15)UCSB Goals: Eric Van de Mortel (4) Matt Gronow, Bryce Miller, Derek Shoemaker, Kevin Cappon
UCSB Saves: Chris Whitelegge (7)
