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Wednesday, October 1, 1997

Knee injury cuts Victorine's season short

SOCCER: Team hastens to fill leader's spot, stay in contention for title

By Vytas Mazeika

Daily Bruin Staff

Four words never fail to strike fear in the minds of all athletes: anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear. For UCLA midfielder Sasha Victorine, those words became a harsh reality Monday night, when an MRI on his left knee revealed a tear.

Victorine, a sophomore, is now forced to sit out the rest of the men's soccer season after undergoing surgery on the knee Monday night. The injury is a great blow to the national-title hopes of the Bruins, who must now scramble to find a replacement for one of their most valuable players.

"The whole team is built around a player like (Victorine)," junior forward Seth George said. "A player like an outside fullback or an outside midfielder is replaceable, but a center midfielder such as Sasha in the position that he plays is a huge loss to our team and is going to take some rebuilding."

Although the No. 3 Bruins (7-1) possess a lot of depth this season, no one is capable of simply stepping in and replacing a player as talented as Victorine. One of the co-captains, along with seniors Josh Keller and Nick Theslof, Victorine provided the team with a defensive midfielder capable of creating many scoring opportunities with his skills and decision-making abilities.

Senior defenseman and co-captain Josh Keller himself suffered a knee injury last year which knocked him out for the season in the 12th match. Keller is well aware of not only the physical hardship which Victorine will undergo, but also of the mental anguish which both the team and Victorine are now forced to confront.

"(The loss is) definitely hard to deal with," Keller said. "It's the middle of the season, we've been playing real well together, we were just starting to get in our groove. And then he goes down, so he's got to be feeling real bad. ... For him it's not the end of the world. Granted it's the end of the season and that's going to be tough to deal with, but he's still got two more years after this so he's just got to rehab and make sure he gets (the knee) strong for next year."

However, the fact of the matter is, Bruin coach Sigi Schmid cannot think about next year just yet. For now, he has several options for how to approach the situation at hand. The most obvious option at the moment seems the possibility of dropping sophomore Pete Vagenas to a more defensive midfield position. Vagenas appears to be the most comfortable player at Victorine's position. Vagenas' absence in the attacking midfield position could be filled up by true freshman Shaun Tsakiris.

Another option Schmid has is dropping Theslof from his current forward position to an attacking midfield position, which he played last season. Then players such as sophomore Martin Bruno or true freshman McKinley Tennyson Jr. could fill the vacated forward position. Finally, Keller could go into the middle of the midfield.

"(Victorine's injury) is a setback for our team," Schmid said. "But it's an opportunity for our depth to show itself and for the rest of the team to just add a little thing to their game and we'll be able to carry it the rest of the way without (Victorine). It's definitely a hurdle for us, but I think we're a good enough team to overcome it."

Within the next three to five games Schmid will likely decide on the new outlook for UCLA's starting squad. After the lineup changes are made, time will tell if the Bruins are able to cope with the loss of Victorine and stay in contention for the national title.

PATRICK LAM/Daily Bruin

Sasha Victorine takes control of the ball in Sunday's Fresno State game.

"The whole team is built around a player like (Victorine)."

Seth George

Forward

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