One victory away from seizing control of the conference race, the UCLA women’s soccer team once again could not deliver.
The ninth-ranked Bruins, who entered Sunday afternoon’s game with Arizona alone in first place, saw their Pac-10 title hopes melt away in a 1-0 loss to the host Wildcats.
With just one weekend remaining in the conference season, UCLA (12-6, 5-3 Pac-10) now sits in fourth place in the standings. Unless first-place Arizona (14-4, 5-2), Arizona State and Stanford all lose a game next weekend, the defending-champion Bruins have no shot of earning even a share of the Pac-10 title.
Sunday’s match-up with Arizona is not the first time UCLA has failed to capitalize on an opportunity to establish itself as the conference’s premier team. Last month the Bruins dropped two winnable games against Washington State and California, putting themselves in a must-win situation this past weekend against the Arizona schools.
After UCLA kicked off its trip to the desert on the right foot Friday night with a 1-0 victory over Arizona State, the weekend quickly unraveled. Arizona outplayed the Bruins from the outset Sunday, generating a flurry of early scoring chances before finally finding the back of the net in the 41st minute of play.
Wildcat midfielder Althea Jones dribbled the ball through the UCLA defense and pushed a shot past goalkeeper Valerie Henderson to register the game’s lone goal. The Bruins managed five second-half shots, but could not best freshman goalkeeper McCall Smith, who posted her ninth shutout of the season.
“We’ve shown that we are a tough team defensively,” Arizona coach Dan Tobias said in a statement. “When we are organized, we are tough to deal with. I think we created good chances off of the defense and their keeper had to come up with some good saves.”
The loss for UCLA was its first ever against Arizona. The Bruins now hold a 10-1 advantage all-time in the series.
“We are excited,” Tobias said. “This is a great case where a team like UCLA comes in here and we are an up and coming program trying to establish ourselves as a UCLA.”
The loss to Arizona dampened much of the Bruins’ enthusiasm following the team’s dramatic one-goal victory over Arizona State on Friday night. Junior Crystal James scored the game-winner, taking a pass from teammate Danesha Adams in the 89th minute and shooting the ball past goalkeeper Kim Bingham and into the open net.
The victory, however, was by no means total domination. Arizona State outshot the Bruins 12-11 in what was a very evenly played match.
UCLA now has one match left to right itself before postseason play begins later this month – a matchup with crosstown rival USC (9-8-1, 4-4-1) next Sunday. NCAA Tournament pairings will be announced one week from today.