UCSD’s Soccer Team Reaches Quarterfinals

The UC San Diego men’s soccer team advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division III championships Sunday for the third consecutive year with a 1-0 victory over the College of St. Thomas (Minn.) at UCSD’s North Campus Stadium.

UCSD’s goal came 38 minutes 33 seconds into the first half, as Jarret Stevenson, a sophomore midfielder from Bonita Vista High School, took a crossing pass from Mike Gerhardt in front of the box and kicked it in.

The victory delighted a vocal crowd of 350 that turned out to watch the Tritons, but nobody had a better view of the game than Jeff Siegle, St. Thomas’ sophomore goalie. Almost the entire game was played 15 to 50 yards in front of him. Siegle was challenged numerous times in the first half before Stevenson’s goal.

The Tritons (17-2-1) dominated the game with their unusual combination of speed and size--UCSD used 10 players who are 6 feet or taller--and it overwhelmed the Tommies. UCSD got off 16 shots, 11 on goal. Siegle made eight saves. St. Thomas (15-2-2), led by freshman forward Nathan Young, who entered the game with 21 goals and four assists, managed only two shots Sunday, one on goal.

UCSD missed four scoring opportunities in the first 20 minutes and Stevenson had two of them. He missed on a spinning left-footed attempt from in close and sailed a header over the box. But the Tritons seemed to nonchalantly control the ball, and the Tommies’ best shots were soccer’s version of a football Hail Mary pass.

“I just knew it would be a matter of time,” said Gerhardt, who took an initial pass from Mike Lodoen, who also had an assist, and found himself one-on-one with Siegle. “I didn’t have a shot, so I just put it across.”

UCSD next will face South Central Region champion Wheaton (Ill.), which improved to 19-2 with a 4-2 victory Saturday over MacMurray, Ill. The site and time of the game will be announced today. But Tritons Coach Derek Armstrong would like to see his team break out of its scoring slump.

“I think if we’d got another goal early on, it would have been a totally different match,” he said. “Maybe we could have got four or five. Nervousness kept it one-nil.”