UC Santa Barbara Falls in Final

“Hoosier daddy?” asked the UC Santa Barbara fans.

The answer wasn’t long in coming.

After 90 minutes of regulation and 20 minutes of overtime Sunday afternoon, Indiana goalkeeper Jay Nolly came up with two critical saves to lead the defending champion Hoosiers to their seventh NCAA soccer championship.

Nolly threw himself low to his right to deny Tony Lochhead and then dived low to his left to thwart Nate Boyden, turning away UCSB’s final two penalty kicks, and Indiana prevailed, 3-2, in the shootout.

The teams had been tied, 1-1, after 110 minutes of an absorbing match that kept the Home Depot Center crowd of 13,601 involved literally until the final kick.

For Nolly, a senior from Littleton, Colo., the penalty saves capped two remarkable seasons in which he also helped Indiana win the 2003 NCAA title.

“I don’t know what else you could do, going out on top twice; it’s just an unbelievable feeling, especially to have your last play being a save to win the championship,” he said.

The game goes into the record books as a 1-1 tie, with Indiana (18-4-2) winning the championship on penalty kicks, only the third time in 46 years that the title has been decided that way.

For UCSB (21-2-2), it was a cruel ending no matter the manner.

“It’s disappointing because I thought we played so well today,” UCSB Coach Tim Vom Steeg said. “In the second half I thought we had some good opportunities to get the [winning] goal, and even in overtime we kept coming.

“Not even in my wildest dreams did I think we could play that well against that team over the course of 110 minutes. It was a great performance.”

The only place UCSB failed was on its penalty kicks. Two of its best players in the game, forward Drew McAthy and midfielder Ivan Becerra, made theirs, but striker Neil Jones put his shot over the crossbar and Nolly saved from Lochhead and Boyden.

“It was definitely a bad PK,” Boyden said of his attempt. “It was an easy save for him [Nolly]. That’s a PK I take in practice and usually I net it. Today it wasn’t my day. I feel like I’ve let them [the UCSB] seniors down.

“What’s most disappointing about the game is that it had to be decided on PKs. I thought we played well. I thought we dominated. I thought it was our game to win.”

After falling behind in the first half, Santa Barbara played better for most of the second 45 minutes and was rewarded with 8:59 left in regulation when McAthy scored on a shot from the left to cap a period of sustained pressure by the Gauchos.

It was McAthy’s third goal of the 2004 College Cup; he scored twice in a 5-0 rout of Duke in Friday night’s semifinals.

Indiana, which defeated Maryland, 3-2, in the semifinals, had taken the lead in the 27th minute when Jed Zayner floated a cross in from the left. Hoosier forward Jacob Peterson beat UCSB defender Andy Iro to the ball and poked a looping shot over advancing goalkeeper Dan Kennedy.

Kennedy gave way to Kyle Reynish when the game went to penalty kicks, and Reynish did his job, making saves off Indiana’s Drew Moor and Brian Plotkin, but John Michael Heyden, Greg Badger and Mike Ambersley made theirs for the Hoosiers and Nolly did the rest.

Before the latest two, Indiana’s previous titles had been won in 1982, 1983, 1988, 1998 and 1999, all of them under Hall of Fame coach Jerry Yeagley. Former player and longtime assistant Mike Freitag took over this season, but the Hoosiers didn’t miss a beat.