Bruins Fall Short in Semifinal, 4-1 : Soccer: Indiana rolls to victory over UCLA, will face Virginia for championship.

This time there was no comeback.

The UCLA Bruins will be back in Los Angeles as Virginia and Indiana play Sunday for the NCAA men’s soccer title.

Unable to mount the kind of last-minute heroics for which they have become known this season, the Bruins were beaten, 4-1, by the Hoosiers in the semifinals Saturday in front of a record 11,848 at Richardson Field on the Davidson College campus.

In the earlier--and far more entertaining--semifinal, three-time defending champion Virginia came from behind to beat Rutgers, 2-1, to reach the final for the fourth successive year.

UCLA was never in it, falling behind in the fifth minute, fighting back to tie in the 19th minute, and then yielding three goals without reply. It was not the Bruins’ finest hour and a half.

Coach Sigi Schmid acknowledged as much afterward.

“Obviously, I think the game tonight is not a reflection of how we can truly play,” he said. “I think we played under par a little bit. Indiana came out and played very well. They established a tempo early in the game. They were very aggressive. I thought they wanted the ball a little more in the early parts of the game and, as a result, they had a deserved halftime lead.”

Indiana, the nation’s top-ranked team, dominated throughout, overpowering the Bruins physically and tactically. The Hoosier midfield, in particular, was clearly superior.

UCLA was 15-0 in games in which it scored the first goal. So things went awry early when Todd Yeagley, son of Indiana Coach Jerry Yeagley, curved a free kick toward the net in the fifth minute and teammate Tim Hardy sprinted in to deflect it past UCLA’s freshman goalkeeper, Matt Reis.

The Bruins fought back, capitalizing on a free kick of their own 15 minutes later when Greg Vanney’s shot across the Indiana goal mouth was redirected into the lower right corner of the net by teammate Eddie Lewis.

After that, it was all downhill for UCLA. A couple of minutes before halftime, the Hoosiers regained the lead when a shot from Caleb Porter screamed into the net from about 20 yards, giving Reis no chance.

“For the first 15 or 20 minutes of the second half, I thought we did a pretty good job of trying to grab the game back,” Schmid said. “We had some chances.”

Unfortunately, Indiana had more and took advantage of them. When Hoosier midfielder Brian Maisonneauve broke free in the 50th minute, UCLA sweeper Kenny Wright moved in to tackle him, but his attempted clearance kick rebounded off Maisonneauve, who fired a shot past Reis.

Indiana’s final goal came with 1:26 to play when Maisonneauve again eluded the defense and went in one on one against Reis, beating him with relative ease.

Reis was filling in for Chris Snitko, the Bruins’ usual starting goalkeeper who had been given a red card in the quarterfinal victory over Charleston. Schmid said he did not blame his backup keeper for the loss.

On a bitterly cold evening, UCLA’s play matched the weather. Having won eight games this season in the last 10 minutes, including three playoff games, the Bruins had come to be known as the “Cardiac Kids.”

Virginia came from behind to win its match against a Rutgers team that played very well in defeat.

The Scarlet Knights surprised the Cavaliers with a headed goal by defender Kevin O’Connell off a corner kick by Andreas Maier in the 10th minute.

The Cavaliers tied it in the 23rd minute when Damian Silvera scored from about 15 yards off a pass from Tain Nix. Virginia’s winning goal was scored in the 54th minute, when Billy Walsh scored from close range.