Overview:
UCSB defender Calle Mollerberg, goalkeeper Owen Beninga, and forward Donovan Sessoms were all selected by the United Soccer Coaches for their national preseason ‘Watch Lists’
UC Santa Barbara plans to rock Harder Stadium this fall by celebrating a pile of milestones during its 50th season of men’s soccer.
They include the 20th anniversary of the Gauchos’ Cinderella run to the 2006 NCAA championship.
UCSB will also celebrate the 60th year of the stadium itself. It opened its gates for the first time for a football game on Nov. 12, 1966.
And then there was Tim Vom Steeg’s birth just three weeks before the stadium’s unveiling.
He began his quest to remodel the 17,000-seat facility into a college soccer showplace — worthy of hosting the College Cups of both 2010 and 2018 — when he returned to his alma mater as head coach in 1999.
But Vom Steeg is looking to the immediate future, not the past, as he approaches his 60th birthday.
“We’re the best we’ve ever looked,” he told Noozhawk on the eve of his 27th season with the Gauchos.
That’s saying something considering the 15 times he’s taken UCSB to the NCAA tournament.
Those postseasons include eight trips to the Sweet 16.
Vom Steeg guided the Gauchos all the way to the College Cup Final Four in both 2004 and 2006. They were one win away from returning there in 2019.
He plans to take the first step back to NCAA glory when UCSB opens its season on Friday with a 7 p.m. home match against San José State.
The Gauchos return three of their top four scorers as well as the backbone of a stellar defense that carried them to last year’s Big West Conference regular-season championship.
The league’s coaches picked UCSB as this year’s league favorite last week.
“Calle (Mollerberg) was the league’s defensive player of the year,” Vom Steeg said of his junior center back.
“And Owen (Beninga) is, in my opinion, one of the top five goalies in the country.”
The United Soccer Coaches agree, listing the 6-foot-4 sophomore as one of eight players on this season’s national “Goalkeepers Watch List.”
Mollerberg, a junior center back, is one of 20 on its “Defenders Watch List.”
The offense features senior midfielder Kaden Standish and junior forward Zac Siebenlist from last year’s All-Big West First-Team. Returning midfielder Steinar Bjornsson was the Big West Freshman of the Year.
But it’s the additions from the NCAA transfer portal, plus the revamped training schedules which brought them all onto campus last spring, that are raising Vom Steeg’s expectations.
“Basketball and football have been dealing with it for a couple of years now, but everything hit for soccer last January,” he said. “We were told, ‘OK, you can have a roster of 28, and spend as much money as you want.’
“More than 2,000 players wound up transferring … and I’m actually happy about it, to be honest.
“Yeah, it’s a little crazy and out of control, but we’ve done well in the transfer market.”
New and Improved
Seven newcomers are contending for starting positions on a team that already returned nine of its prime-time players.
Also new was Vom Steeg’s ability to bring them together with two months of training and four practice matches last spring.
“What’s life-changing for us, and obviously for me personally, is that we didn’t have to wait until August to address our problems and add players,” he said. “We got our system in place so that when we returned this fall and rolled out the ball, we just picked up where we left off.
“I actually enjoyed my spring … and I enjoyed the preseason, too, because now we don’t have to start from square one.”
The “headliner,” as Vom Steegs describes him, is Sacramento State transfer Donovan Sessoms, a second-team selection on last year’s United Soccer Coaches All-Far West Region squad.
That organization also recently listed the senior striker among the 21 players on its preseason “Watch List” of forwards.
Sessoms was a First Team All-Big West choice — and San Diego FC’s third-round choice in the 2024 Major League Soccer SuperDraft — after he scored 10 goals as a sophomore two years ago.
The Gauchos got a good look at him that season — and a bad result in the process.
Sessoms crowned them with a hat trick by scoring all of Sacramento State’s goals in a 3-1 victory.
“I was like, ‘Who’s this player?’” Vom Steeg said.
He found out in the 20th minute of Friday’s exhibition match against Loyola Marymount. Sessoms ripped a 30-yard shot into the right corner of the goal for UCSB’s lone tally in a 1-0 victory.
San Diego FC owned his rights the last two years. Sessoms twice declined to sign a contract, however, after the club insisted that he convert into a left back.
“He met Manu (Duah) down there,” Vom Steeg said, referring to the former UCSB star who was picked No. 1 overall by San Diego in the 2024 MLS SuperDraft. “He also had a relationship with Buba (Fofanah), who was on our team last year — they played together on the Ventura (County) Fusion.
“He’s familiar with our conference and our players, and he knows our team. Obviously talking to them really helped.
“He figured, ‘You know what? I think I could have a monster season with them.’”
Vom Steeg estimates that between 75 to 100 schools pursued Sessoms during the offseason.
“He became our top priority, our number one, our everything,” Vom Steeg said. “A lot of money was being thrown around.
“At the very end, it came down to us and Virginia.”
Getting Defensive
Vom Steeg also picked up junior Viggo Gustavsson, a 6-3 defender from Grand Canyon.
He made the Western Athletic Conference All-Tournament Team last year for a squad that advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16 with wins over UCLA and ninth-ranked University of San Diego.
The Gauchos pursued him when junior defender Andrew Kamienski was selected to attend the MLS Combine.
“But Andrew came back, as did Calle, and now we’ve got Viggo back there, too,” Vom Steeg said. “He and Calle actually both played for AIK in Sweden and won their youth national championship together.
“I don’t want to say we’re changing our shape for these players, but it’s hard for me not to have those three guys all on the field.
“That’s what we were working on all spring.”
That depth should help UCSB survive the absence of Kamienski in Friday’s San José match.
The Gaucho back must serve a one-game suspension for the two yellow cards that earned him an ejection from the 2-1 loss to UC Irvine in last year’s Big West tournament final.
UCSB’s defense also will be bolstered by the return of Peleg Brown, a sophomore who suffered a season-ending knee injury in last year’s Blue-Gold scrimmage. He made the Big West All-Freshman team in 2024.
Another key addition to the back line is Simone Ferrieri, a right back who played for Varese FC in Italy’s Fourth Division last year.
UCSB’s NIL (name, image and likeness) investment also helped it recruit Kalle Rahbek, a junior from Wofford College. He made the All-Southern Conference First Team after getting four goals and six assists for the Terriers.
“I was on a quest to find an attacking mid,” Vom Steeg said. “I watched his two games against Wake Forest and thought he was the best player on field.
“But again, it’s you against 200 other schools.”
A stroke of luck, however, gave UCSB an edge in landing the Danish star.
“I get him on the phone, and he says, ‘You know, my parents just so happened to be visiting California, and they told me that Santa Barbara is the most beautiful place in the world that they’d ever seen,’” Vom Steeg said. “And then he told me, ‘I’d love to be in Santa Barbara playing for you guys.’
“It was over in a second … Recruited … Done.
“He’s now been here since spring, and he broke the record for our fitness test.
“Kalle is a great kid, great attitude, great approach, tireless worker.”
Vom Steeg also got a fortunate call from Bryan Byrne, one of the stars of his 2006 NCAA championship team who now coaches the Placer United Soccer Club in Rocklin.
Byrne got an assist in the Gauchos’ recruitment of Ty Branigan, star midfielder of Woodcreek High School in Roseville.
“Byrnie told me, ‘Look, I’ve got a really, really good player up here,’ so we made a trip to see him play … and he was beyond better than advertised,” Vom Steeg said. “He’s the piece that we were literally missing last year when we lost Manu (to the 2024 MSL SuperDraft).
“Ty is probably one of the best freshmen that we’ve had come to UCSB.
“He reminds me a lot of (former Gaucho All-American) Luis Silva with the way he carries himself on the field.”
Frosh Approach
Vom Steeg had another promising freshman, forward Gunnar Franke, simply show up on his doorstep.
“He came with his dad to the West Coast and attended like four ID camps … at USD, Stanford and I think UCLA,” he said. “He looks like the closest thing we’ve ever gotten to Belgium (Nick Perera, the center forward for UCSB’s NCAA championship team of 2006).
“He’s 6-3, 200 pounds, athletic and has a really good first touch with his left foot.
“I’m trying to figure out this package … Where is he from?”
Franke explained to his new coach that he was born in Sweden, moved to Spain with his family as a youth, and now lives in England.
“So he kind of has the trifecta, incorporating all three of those styles,” Vom Steeg said.
“And we’ve got a number of other exciting, younger players,” he added.
Jakob Methvin, a freshman defender from Edwards, Colorado, didn’t back down when the younger Gauchos played their elder teammates in UCSB’s recent Blue-Gold scrimmage.
“He’s this athletic specimen — 6-1, 6-2, 190 pounds, and he runs like a football fullback,” Vom Steeg said. “He picked up a ball at midfield and dribbled — ran with the ball, actually — the entire field.
“He pushed two guys off him and scored the goal. Obviously, it becomes a conversation piece when you let somebody run 70 yards down the field.”
The older Gauchos needed Bjornsson’s two goals to pull out a 2-1 victory.
Vom Steeg also got a laugh while singling out Martin Odegaard, a promising freshman midfielder from Norway.
“He’s got a lot to live up to,” he said in a reference to the Arsenal and Norwegian World Cup star of the same name.
But all the Gauchos have a lot to live up to this season.
Vom Steeg has challenged them with home matches against 17th-ranked Marshall on Aug. 27, No. 18 San Diego on Aug. 31, and No. 19 Oregon State on Sept. 20.
UCSB will also take a three-game road trip in early September to Cornell, which is receiving votes in the coaches’ poll; Rutgers, and Grand Canyon’s Sweet 16 club.
Vom Steeg has set his sights high this season.
“You beat Marshall and San Diego, and your RPI is pretty much in the top 20 for the rest of the year,” he said. “The schedule is set up really well for us.”
He’s got more milestones to go before he sleeps.
