A Nicolas Willumsen goal just under three minutes into overtime gave UCSB a thrilling 1-0 victory over UCLA in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday at Wallis Annenberg Stadium.
After a 90-minute battle in regulation that ended with both teams knotted up at 0-0, the Gauchos took the early advantage in overtime and Willumsen buried a shot from inside the penalty box to clinch the win.
“What an exciting win for the program,” UCSB head coach Tim Vom Steeg said. “We went from not thinking we would be in the tournament after a very disappointing loss to be able to rebound and play arguably our best game of the year against a quality opponent.
“Credit to the players, we talked about the game plan, we talked about staying on the ball as much as you can, but overall, it comes off of good performances. Each of the players, and you can go through everybody that played tonight, they worked hard to stay on the ball and that was a key part, I thought, for the game.”
With the victory, UCSB will now take on No. 16-seeded Stanford on Sunday in Palo Alto at 5 p.m. The winner will take on either top-seeded Ohio State or Western Michigan in Round 3.
The match got off to a bit of a slow start, but the Gauchos got the first chances at the goal on back-to-back close misses by Alexis Ledoux and Ramses Martinez in the 8th minute of play.
The Bruins battled back and found their first shot on goal in the 15th minute as Nikolai Rojel fired into the bottom of the net but UCSB’s David Mitzner came away with the save to preserve the tie.
The Gauchos then took back momentum and ripped off six shots between the 22nd and 31st minutes. However, they were all turned away by the UCLA defense.
After more back-and-forth defensive efforts, the two sides went into halftime scoreless.
The second half was more of the same by both teams, as Mitzner tallied two more saves while UCLA’s Nelson Wyatt had two saves of his own.
The Bruins secured a corner kick in the final minutes of regulation, but it was turned away by the Gaucho defense.
The late stop forced the game into overtime to set up Willumsen’s heroics and give UCSB the NCAA Tournament win.