USD Plays Today for NCAA Championship
The University of San Diego soccer team’s improbable trek to national prominence has reached its last--and tallest--hurdle.
The Toreros (19-4) play top-ranked Virginia (20-2-1), the defending champion, for the NCAA championship at 10:30 a.m. (PST) today at Davidson College’s Richardson Field.
USD, ranked 13th in the nation, shut out the nation’s leading scorer, Rob Ukrop, Friday in a 3-2 overtime victory over the host school. It won’t get any easier today.
“They’re very loaded, talented and knock the ball around well,” USD Coach Seamus McFadden said of Virginia.
The contest will test in the inexperience of the Toreros against the experience of the Cavaliers.
Virginia, making its 14th tournament appearance, goes for its second straight title in its third final in the past four years.
USD is playing in its first championship in only its second tournament appearance.
In 1990, the Toreros advanced to the round of 16 before losing to UCLA. This year in the round of 16, San Diego beat UCLA 2-1.
“We’re the team on the West Coast now,” USD midfielder David Beall said.
The Toreros’ and Cavaliers’ routes to the championship game were vastly different.
USD beat 19th-ranked Davidson 3-2 on Kevin Legg’s goal with 2:26 left in overtime. Virginia blanked 11th-ranked Duke, 3-0.
In USD, Virginia will face a fast, sometimes erratic, but always dangerous team.
In Virginia, USD will meet a poised, athletic, strong-passing team, one that likes to tire its opponents, then keep on constant pressure--just as it did against Duke.
“I thought our team played very well,” Virginia Coach Bruce Arena said. “We could see that in the last 15 minutes they were starting to wear down.”
Arena is confident his team’s style of short passes and ball control will beat a team that relies on long passes and sporadic play.
“In the long run, I think grid soccer prevails,” Arena said. “We play the feet a lot and that’s what got us here.”
Soccer Notes
The final will be broadcast live via satellite at USD’s Hahn University Center at 10:30 a.m. There is no live television; CBS owns the rights to the final and will be taping the contest for a Jan. 17 airing.