It has been a rough start to the year for the UCSB men’s soccer team, but Saturday’s contest against its biggest rival showed some encouraging signs for the Gauchos as they head into conference play.
In front of a packed, 7,500-person crowd, UCSB freshman goalkeeper Owen Beninga put on a show, registering five saves and earning a 0-0 draw for the Gauchos in a home tilt against Cal Poly SLO.
Despite being against the Mustangs, Saturday’s contest was a non-conference match. The two teams will play again during Big West play on Oct. 18 in San Luis Obispo.
With the tie, UCSB’s record is now 2-4-3, while Cal Poly moved to 3-3-3 on the year. The Gauchos also extended their unbeaten streak against Cal Poly to 12 games.
“Because of our struggles in our non-conference, we are gearing up for conference play because that is our avenue to get in the tournament,” UCSB head coach Tim Vom Steeg said.
“We were hoping that today would be a good step forward for us before we start conference when it really matters, and I thought today was a good experience for us in building our team forward.”
Vom Steeg spoke highly of his freshman keeper, who was making just the second start of his career. He noted that Cal Poly, which he said scores about 90% of its goals on set pieces, was showing its aggression in that department early.
“After the first cross, which [Beninga] kind of watched, he then said, ‘Every ball I can, go get,’ and I think that made the whole difference in the game in terms of our shutout,” Vom Steeg said.
Beninga made a pair of comfortable saves through the first 20 minutes and was active throughout, but his key saves came in the second half. In the 61st minute, he tipped a high shot over the crossbar and two minutes later made a diving stop on a shot to his right.
As a freshman, Saturday was also Beninga’s first time playing in front of a packed UCSB crowd. The 7,447 people in attendance are the largest college soccer crowd of any game this year, beating South Carolina and Clemson’s Palmetto Series crowd of 6,536.
“It was a great experience for sure, definitely not something I’ve experienced before, but I was really happy to get that game under my belt,” Beninga said. “We knew that they were going to be a good team, that it was going to be a hard game, so I think the team did well defensively.”
Santa Barbara’s offense also had its fair share of chances, but it took an act of nature to help bring that out of them.
In the 35th minute of the contest, the game was delayed due to a lightning strike in the area. After 30 minutes, play resumed, and it restarted with the Gauchos on the attack.
After earning a pair of corner kicks and keeping the pressure on, Thomas Noordegraaf and Buba Fofanah played a strong back-and-forth in the 42nd minute, resulting in an open look for Fofanah, who put his shot wide.
Fofanah, a senior forward, also missed a header as time expired in the first half.
“After we came out of the little lightning thing, I thought that we had that segment where we got after it,” Vom Steeg said. “We had a couple of good looks and then halftime hit, so it’s really disappointing that we weren’t able to kind of play that thing out a little bit.”
The second half was a back-and-forth tale. In the first 20 minutes of the second half, it was Cal Poly putting on relentless pressure, hoping to sneak a goal.
Santa Barbara also played with one man forward, hoping that would spark a goal of its own, which led to some scary counters for Cal Poly’s offense. Still, it did lead to some great looks for Santa Barbara.
In the 68th minute, a Fofanah high pass was put perfectly into the box, but no Santa Barbara attacker was able to get their head on it.
Overall, the match ended with Cal Poly registering 10 shots, six on goal, while the Gauchos had 13 shots, only four of which were on goal.
Vom Steeg said the answer to his team’s offensive woes is rather simple: his attackers have to pass the ball more in the final third and be more technical in the box.
“We get the ball up the field, but we don’t really have that final pass right now,” Vom Steeg said. “We don’t have that final combination play. We have individual players with talent, but it’s isolated. We need to be able to play as a collective.”
UCSB will hope to find some goals as it opens conference play at Cal State Fullerton on Wednesday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m.