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DALLAS, TX- In the first three rounds of the 2002 NCAA tournament UCLA made a statement that its high-powered offense was poised to blow opponents off the field en route to a national title.

The Bruins scored three and four goals respectively in their first two games, and then exploded for a seven-goal destruction of No. 15 Penn State in the national quarterfinals.

Needless to say very few people thought it would be UCLA’s defense would carry them to a national title.

That, however, is exactly what happened. Zach Wells, Scot Thompson and company gave up only one goal in two games, and shut out arch-rival Stanford for the third time this year in final.

“We’ve played Stanford twice this year so we knew what they were going to be doing a lot of the time and that helped,” defender Leonard Griffin said. “We were solid back there and played like we have all year.”

Stanford came into Sunday’s championship averaging 1.81 goals and 6.0 shots on goal per contest. On Sunday they failed to find the back of the net, and were limited two shots on goal, none of which came in the final 67 minutes of play.

“UCLA did a great job of keeping numbers back,” Stanford head coach Bret Simon said. “They kept three defenders home almost the whole game and kept our forwards covered very tightly.”

On Sunday Griffin Thompson and Tony Lawson made a habit of picking the pockets of potent Stanford scorers Roger Levesque and Johanes Maliza. UCLA’s terrific trio beat the two all Pac-10 first team selections in multiple one-on-one situations that could have easily resulted in shots on goal for Stanford.

“We have three brilliant marking backs in Tony (Lawson), Leonard, and Scot,” Wells said. “They keep everything in front of them.”

While Lawson, Griffin, and Thompson clearly make up UCLA’s defensive nucleus, Sunday’s effort received heavy contributions from several other sources. Wells, the defensive MVP of the tournament, was superb in controlling the middle and intercepting Stanford crosses.

“It was very important for Zach to take charge of the box and take everything in the air,” UCLA head coach Tom Fitzgerald said. “Stanford is the best team in the country in the air, and if you don’t take charge of the box they make you pay for it. Credit not only to Zach but to all the defenders who did a tremendous job of marking defenders who were in some cases six to eight inches taller than they were.”

Wells only had to make seven saves on the weekend, but such a statistic is not indicative of the how active Wells was in the defensive effort.

The UCLA midfielders were also active in clearing balls out of the box, despite the significant height disadvantage mentioned by Fitzgerald.

Stanford’s starting front line features two forwards who are 6’2”. In addition, defender Taylor Graham who often participates in offensive set pieces is 6’4”. Several UCLA players who kept the ball away from Stanford’s giant front line, including Mike Enfield, Ryan Futagaki, and Jimmy Frazelle, are under 5’10”. Griffin, Thompson, and defender Aaron Lopez provide height in back, but none of them are taller than 6’1”.

Frazelle came up with arguably the defensive play of the tournament for UCLA in the 7th minute. He stopped a sure goal on the goal line with his body following a Stanford corner kick.

Despite constant pressure from the Stanford offense, the UCLA defense showed resolve in continuing to make big plays, even towards the end of the game when fatigue was clearly a factor.

“Even though they bent today, they never broke,” Simon said. “That’s to their credit.”

Sunday’s victory over Stanford marked the end of another chapter in the biggest soccer rivalry on the West Coast. It is a rivalry that UCLA has certainly controlled this season, holding Stanford scoreless in all 272 minutes the clubs played this year en route to three victories.

“(Beating Stanford three times) is a great feeling,” Griffin said. “To beat a team twice is hard enough and to beat a team three times is ridiculous.”

While the two regular season wins were tremendous high points in this dream season, it was the ridiculous third win- a clinic in resilient team defense- that secured UCLA’s place in history as the best collegiate soccer team in the land this season.