CSUN Posts 4th Straight Shutout, 1-0

When John Tronson left the UC Santa Barbara soccer team in 1982, he left no friends behind.

Evidence: UCSB’s team ganged up on Cal State Northridge’s Tronson Friday night, flooring the junior forward eight times--not nicely.

But the Gauchos centered too much attention on CSUN’s leading scorer, who three years ago was cut by UCSB. The Matadors proved to be the rougher of the two and posted their fourth straight shutout, 1-0.

The CSUN win, which evened loser UCSB’s record to 1-1, also marked goalkeeper Phil Heaver’s fourth shutout.

“It feels so sweet to beat those guys,” said Tronson, a former All-Southern Section player for Crespi High. “We won it clean, even though that’s not the way they played. They’re a very physical team and we had to be a little rough, because they were.”

In the middle of the first half, while the Gauchos were pestering the 6-4, 200-pound Tronson, midfielder Andy Torres found some daylight.

“The coach told the defense that if we had a one-on-one situation out on the wing, then we should go for it,” said the 5-10 freshman Torres. “We practice that run all the time.”

Practice paid off for the former Simi Valley High star. He took the ball from a handful of Gauchos and dashed 70 yards, breaking three tackles along the way, for an unassisted goal. It was Torres’ first score of the season.

“It feels great because this was our fourth game and the defense hasn’t been scored on yet,” Torres said.

“Hey, they played physical and we played physical,” CSUN Coach Marwan Ass’ad said. “They’re Division I, so we had to play like a Division I team. It’s really something, you know, for this team to beat those guys.”

CSUN could have beat them worse. Besides Tronson not scoring--he had four goals in three previous games--the Matadors’ offense slacked off in the second period. Oddly enough, UCSB played better offense in the second half, even after Gauchos’ midfielder Charles Bryant drew a red card, was ejected, and forced UCSB to play a man short for most of the second half.

“When a team is a man short, the other players tend to play harder,” Ass’ad said. “We had a lot of chances to score in the second half, but just couldn’t get it in. We’ll be working on that the next time we practice.”