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One play made the difference in the No. 3 UCLA men’s soccer team’s victory over Penn State even though the Bruins won by a lopsided score of 7-1, to advance to the College Cup in Dallas and play No. 2 Maryland Friday.

Twenty-five minutes into the game, the Nittany Lions were leading 1-0, and outshooting the Bruins 3-2.

Then the momentum changed.

UCLA junior forward Cliff McKinley had a breakaway, and Penn State’s senior goalkeeper, Ryan Sickman, rushed forward to try to prevent a goal. Sickman ran into McKinley, knocking him down in the process and earning himself a red card. And the game was never the same.

“Absolutely not (was that a red card),” Nittany Lion head coach Barry Gorman said. “Yeah, it was a yellow card, he tripped him. But officials are like players, they can have nightmares.”

Not only did the red card give the Bruins a penalty kick, which junior midfielder Adolfo Gregorio drilled into the back of the net, tying the game, but Penn State had to play the rest of the game with only ten players instead of the normal 11.

“The game opened up,” UCLA junior forward Matt Taylor said. “The holes were huge. We’re the kind of team where if you give us an inch, we’ll take a mile.”

And they took more than a mile – although not right away. With the one-man disadvantage, the Nittany Lions seemed to be doing fine for the 26 minutes after the red card, not allowing the Bruins to score and creating scoring opportunities for themselves.

Then, UCLA senior forward Tim Pierce scored off a pass from Taylor, dribbling around two defenders to get the shot off.

Down 2-1, Penn State had to play aggressive, and Gorman had one of his backs play up front, even though the Bruins outnumbered them.

This opened up even more holes for UCLA, and Pierce scored again five minutes later on a breakaway, after Penn State was trying to set up a shot on goal.

“That was the goal that broke our backs,” Gorman said.

The Bruins went on to score four more goals on backup goalkeeper Ryan Moate, who entered the game after the red card. Sickman, the starter, had recorded two straight shutouts and hadn’t allowed more than one goal in a game since Sep. 15 against American. Moate had allowed five goals in the last two games he had played. Moate ended up allowing seven goals and recorded only two saves.

“We would’ve scored anyway (if Sickman hadn’t knocked McKinley down),” Pierce said. “But we wouldn’t have scored seven goals.”

Despite the red card, it was UCLA’s talent – shown by the fact that the Bruins made more goals in the NCAA tournament than anyone – that allowed them to score seven goals. After the red card, the Bruins outshot the Nittany Lions 19-1.

“Hats off to UCLA,” Gorman said. “They are a good team. We wish them well in the College Cup.”

Giving a good team that is offensively on fire a man advantage can prove deadly, as was shown Saturday night.