At NCAA Final, Gauchos Are Odd Men In

The tortillas came sailing out of the stands, sent aloft by the deft wrist-flicks of delirious UC Santa Barbara fans.

The chants drifted out into the night air, too, several of them decidedly unsuitable for repetition here. It was that kind of night.

The most improbable of soccer seasons for UCSB was adding yet another improbable chapter, this one describing a 5-0 rout of not-so-regal Duke in the NCAA semifinals on Friday night, and the Gaucho faithful were in full cry.

“Let ‘em score one,” the fans yelled derisively when Santa Barbara got comfortably ahead, as if the barrage of flying tortillas was not embarrassing enough for Duke’s red-faced Blue Devils.

Unlikely as it might have seemed when the season began, unheralded UCSB (21-2-1) has reached today’s championship game of the 2004 College Cup and will play defending and six-time champion Indiana (18-4-1) at the Home Depot Center at 1 p.m. for title.

Tim Vom Steeg, Santa Barbara’s coach, can hardly believe it.

Mike Freitag, Indiana’s coach, can hardly wait.

If the Hoosiers are the best in breed at Westminster, then the Gauchos are the mutts who sneaked in the door when no one was looking. They are seen as a ragtag bunch of overachievers who crashed the party.

Even Vom Steeg admits as much.

“We’re a team that’s been put together from players who didn’t quite make whatever it is,” he said. “We have some transfers, we have junior college players, we have some international kids.

“They all have one thing in common -- they love an opportunity to go play against somebody who might have a little bit more going for them. That’s when we play our best.”

The Gauchos play “with an edge,” Vom Steeg said, and with “bite,” but he denies claims that the team is overly physical or more robust than necessary.

“We play an aggressive style,” he said. “We attack the other team. We don’t let them play. But it’s always been fair, it’s always been clean. It’s what has gotten us here.... I would say most of the people who see us play appreciate the fact that we play hard and how committed these players are to winning.”

In a sport where size is often discounted, no fewer than 13 of Santa Barbara’s 24 players top out at 6 feet or above, led by 6-4 Neil Jones, a New Zealand international defender who plays as a forward for UCSB, and 6-4 freshman defender Andy Iro of Liverpool, England.

In addition to Jones, other seniors who have had a significant impact in the Gauchos’ rise to NCAA respectability over the last four seasons include left back Tony Lochhead, another New Zealand international; goalkeeper Dan Kennedy of Yorba Linda, who has 15 shutouts this year; and forward Drew McAthy of Huntington Beach, who, with 51 career goals, is one of college soccer’s most effective strikers.

Speed, strength, stamina and a give-it-a-go attitude that saw UCSB put nine of 10 shots on target against Duke, with five shots ending in the back of the net -- that’s what stylish and creative Indiana will face today.

The teams played each other once before this season, in a tournament at Albuquerque, N.M., in September, when the Gauchos emerged with a 1-0 victory in overtime.

“I would like to correct [that] loss,” said Freitag, the Hoosiers’ coach. “I thought it was a game that we played very well and deserved a better result.”