Deja Hoosiers for UCLA Soccer

When the UCLA men’s soccer team plays Indiana in the semifinals of the Final Four on Friday, the game will take on extra meaning for Coach Sigi Schmid and his seniors.

When the Bruins last appeared in the Final Four three years ago, it was Indiana that knocked them out, denying UCLA a chance to play for its third national championship.

The revenge factor will play a big part for both teams.

“We beat [Indiana] last year, 1-0, so I’m sure that’s going to be sitting in the back of their minds,” Schmid said Saturday after his team defeated Clemson, 2-1, to advance to the Final Four for the ninth time in school history.

“But what will be sitting in the back of our minds, especially the seniors’, is the fact they beat us in ’94. So we definitely owe them for that one.”

Senior goalkeeper Matt Reis remembers that game well. Reis was making only his third start of the season in place of Chris Snitko, who had received a red card in the quarterfinals and had to sit out the Indiana game. Reis, then a freshman, gave up four goals in Indiana’s 4-1 victory.

“This is a chance for us to show where we are now, a chance to show how much we’ve grown as a team,” Reis said. “We were a little younger then, and I think we were taken aback by the whole situation of being in the Final Four.”

Indiana (23-0) is the top-seeded team in the tournament at Richmond, Va., and is coming off a 6-0 win over South Florida in its quarterfinal game.

But Reis says fifth-seeded UCLA (20-2) doesn’t seem intimidated by the Hoosiers’ perfect record.

“It’s the Final Four, records don’t matter that much anymore,” he said. “The game will be decided right there on the field. We will live or die in that game.”

Reis, who has given up only 12 goals for an 0.74 goals-against average, will make his 18th start of the season, but another starter is questionable.

Sophomore midfielder Pete Vagenas’ status will be decided Friday. Vagenas suffered an ankle sprain in the second half of the game against Clemson. Against the Tigers, Vagenas scored UCLA’s first goal on a penalty kick.

Adjusting to injuries is nothing new for the Bruins.

UCLA lost its captain for the season when sophomore Sasha Victorine suffered a torn knee ligament. But the Bruins kept winning.

“That’s why this team is so great, because we are so deep,” Reis said. “Most teams will lose one [key] player and that’s it, their season is over. But that’s not the case for us.”

The Bruins’ semifinal game will be televised by Fox Sports West at 12:30 p.m. If they win, they will play the winner of the Virginia-St. Louis semifinal on Sunday.

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Bill Nevel, the Washington women’s volleyball coach, compared the Huskies’ comeback victory over Pacific in the second round of the NCAA tournament to a “back alley fight.” He doesn’t expect things to get any easier this weekend when Washington (20-9) plays Long Beach State (31-1) in the third round. USC (23-5) plays Nebraska (26-6) in the other third-round match Friday at the Pyramid.

Long Beach State, the nation’s No. 1 team, cruised through its second-round match with a three-game victory over Loyola Marymount.

Playing in front of its home crowd, USC got a second-round scare from San Diego. Already down two games, and trailing, 12-9, in the third, the Trojans went on to win the final three games, the fifth, 16-14, to advance.

“We were very fortunate to survive and move on in the region,” Coach Lisa Love said.

The USC-Nebraska game starts at 5:30 p.m. Long Beach State-Washington will follow at 8. The winners will meet in the Pacific Regional final at the Pyramid on Saturday at 7:30 p.m., to determine who will go to the Final Four in Spokane, Wash. on Dec. 18.

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The Pepperdine men’s water polo team won its first NCAA championship after defeating USC, 8-7, in overtime, Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in a game that featured the two top-ranked teams in the nation. Senior Andy Bruininga scored the winning goal with less than a minute left in the second overtime. The Waves finished their season at 25-3.

“It was probably one of the top three greatest moments for me at Pepperdine and definitely the best moment as a coach,” said Terry Schroeder, who has been affiliated with Pepperdine for 16 years, four as a player and 12 as coach. “One of the biggest rewards for a coach is when your team plays well. It was very satisfying.”

USC (21-7) had taken over the No. 1 ranking after it won the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship. The Trojans, who have never won a national title, have lost in the championship game six times.