Titans Ousted in NCAA Soccer Play : UCLA Stretches Unbeaten Streak to 39 With 3-0 Decision

History wasn’t on the side of Cal State Fullerton soccer Coach Al Mistri Sunday, but it was definitely on his mind.

Mistri planned his strategy for Fullerton’s NCAA Tournament game against UCLA knowing that it had been 11 years since the Titans last beat the Bruins and 11 days since UCLA defeated Fullerton in a nonconference game, 6-0.

Facing such improbable odds, Mistri hoped that the Titans could conserve their energy by slowing the game in the first half and then going all-out in the final 45 minutes to create some breaks and a goal.

The second phase of Mistri’s plan worked fairly well. Fullerton applied heavy offensive pressure throughout the second half and had several excellent scoring opportunities.

But, phase one didn’t work so well.

The defending national champion Bruins scored twice in the first 11 minutes to take control of the match and fought off the Titans in the second half on their way to a 3-0 first-round victory in front of 1,003 on the UCLA campus.

UCLA improved to 16-0-5 and ran its unbeaten streak to 39 games, the longest in the nation. The Bruins will face Fresno State, a 1-0 winner over the University of San Francisco Sunday, in the Far West Regional final. The date and site of the game will be announced today.

Although Fullerton (8-10-2) had its chances to cut the lead in the second half, the Titans couldn’t convert those opportunities into goals. They finally succumbed to the Bruins after UCLA forward Jeff Hooker scored his team’s third goal on a breakaway with 13 minutes remaining.

“They’re obviously a stronger team, so we tried to take away the first half,” Mistri said. “We can play with teams of this caliber, but only for about 45 minutes. I told (the players) that if it was 0-0 at halftime, we’d have about a 40% chance of winning.”

UCLA’s Peter Pelle took care of those percentages. He sent a header off Shaun Del Grande’s free kick past Titan goalie Bobby Ammann just 2:45 into the game to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead.

About eight minutes later, Lucas Martin, spoiling an attempted offside trap by the Fullerton defense, took a pass from Paul Caligiuri in front of the penalty box, dribbled past Ammann and sent his shot into an open net for a 2-0 lead.

“They were trying to slow the game and take our steam out in the first half,” Bruin Coach Sigi Schmid said. “But the two early goals blew those tactics out of the water.”

UCLA couldn’t blow Fullerton out of the game, though. The Titans began gambling in the second half, pushing their defenders upfield and bunching their offensive players closer to the goal.

Bruin goalie Anton Nistl had to dive to stop Ben Macaluso’s shot 18 minutes into the second half. Two minutes later, Titan defender Don Crevoiserat, from 35 yards away, fired a shot that glanced off the right post.

With 15 minutes left, Jeff Willard turned a Scott Robbins inbounds pass into a header that Nistl barely knocked over the crossbar.

“We had three great chances in front of the goal,” Mistri said. “If any of those went in, it would have been a new game.”

But as Fullerton poured all of its energy into offense, the Titans’ defense became vulnerable and the Bruins had four breakaway opportunities in the final 20 minutes. Ammann kept Fullerton in the game with some outstanding saves until Hooker’s final goal.

“We could have taken a lot of pressure off ourselves when we had all those breakaways and missed, but we finally cashed in at the end,” Schmid said. “Until we got the third goal, they wanted the game more than we did.”

Considering the circumstances, the differences in the two programs and Fullerton’s past performances against UCLA, Mistri, the sixth-year coach, was pleased with the way the Titans played.

“There are at least eight people walking on this campus (UCLA) who didn’t make their team who could start for us,” Mistri said. “It’s incredible for us to be playing at this level. Our intensity was considerably higher than it was in our first game against UCLA.

“If you take away the first 10 minutes, this was a real good game.”