UCSD Soccer Teams Advance in Playoffs

Life’s lessons are fun when they end like they did Sunday for the UC San Diego men’s and women’s soccer teams.

The lessons were harder for Cal Lutheran, which UCSD eliminated from the NCAA Division III regional playoffs in a doubleheader Sunday at UCSD.

The Triton women shut out the Regals, 2-0, in the West Regional final before the Triton men won a see-saw 3-2 contest in the first round of the North Central-Far West Regional.

Both UCSD teams featured playoff veterans--the men won the national championship in 1988, the women did the same a year later--against Cal Lutheran. The school was an NAIA member last year.

Brian McManus, UCSD women’s coach, was impressed with the Regals and suggested an entire region be on the lookout for Cal Lutheran.

“They’ll be the team to beat in Southern California in the next two to three years,” McManus said. “We had a little bit of experience that they lacked.”

After a scoreless first half, the Tritons’ Karin Lindsay and Cheryl Parker dumped two shots past freshman goalie JoAnn Vanderwall, who stopped nine of 11 shots on goal, but didn’t get much support from her offense.

“We played well today, but UCSD played a lot better,” she said.

Cal Lutheran forward Vanessa Martin was hurt in the first half and taken to Scripps, where she was diagnosed as having a concussion and neck strain. She rejoined the team after the game.

“We wanted to win it for Vanessa,” said Vanderwall, “but it’s just going to take more work as a team. We’ve come far from when we first played them, but so have they.” The Tritons (15-1-2) defeated Cal Lutheran (17-4-0) earlier this year, 1-0, on a penalty shot.

The victory gave the UCSD women their fifth Final Four appearance in the last seven years.

“It was our best game this year,” said Lindsay. “We’ve had a notoriously easy schedule (this year) and our coach got worried for awhile about our attitudes. But we went hard at everything today.”

The Cal Lutheran men (14-5-1) took a 1-0 halftime lead before UCSD (14-4-1) sent the Kingsmen reeling with consecutive goals by sophomore defender Alex Spain and junior forward Chris Romey, all within five minutes in the second half.

“We’ve had a hard time fighting back from being one goal down,” said Spain, whose goal was his first this season. “But not when (your season’s) on the line.”

Said Romey: “It just demoralizes the other team when you scored two quick goals like that. That really was the key.”

Cal Lutheran scored again to knot it 2-2 at 63:33, but Romey scored the winning goal on a rebound outside the left post. It came with less then 12 minutes remaining.

“There were two great teams, but the better one won,” said Willie Ruiz, who scored both Cal Lutheran goals. “They were much better in the air and we were better on the ground, but sometimes we made mistakes and gave them opportunities.”

The UCSD women will find out today where they will play defending champion Ithaca on Sunday. The men will play Wisconsin-Oshkosh this weekend at a site to be determined.