Bruins reach soccer final

David Estrada, who only a year ago was an almost unknown youngster playing high school soccer in Salinas, Calif., today has his name on every Major League Soccer coach’s long-term watch list.

Estrada produced two moments of brilliance in St. Louis on Saturday, scoring two goals 67 seconds apart to propel UCLA to an impressive 4-0 rout of Virginia and a place in today’s final of the NCAA men’s soccer tournament.

It will be an all Southern California final because UC Santa Barbara defeated Wake Forest, 4-3 on penalty kicks, after a 0-0 tie in regulation and overtime in the other semifinal.

Sophomore Eric Avila scored the deciding goal on UCSB’s fifth penalty kick as the unseeded Gauchos advanced to the College Cup final.

A victory today would make UCLA the first school to win 100 NCAA titles.

And Estrada, if he has the energy left after Saturday’s heroics, could be the key. His two goals in the 63rd and 65th minutes were exceptional strikes, the joint product of fine teamwork and superb individual skill.

On the first, in heavy traffic in front of the Cavaliers’ net, he exchanged passes with fellow forward Kyle Nakazawa, cutting four defenders out of the play, and then beat goalkeeper Ryan Burke.

On the second, Estrada split two defenders, left a third stranded, and again beat Burke, this time from an almost impossible angle on the left.

It was a performance by an 18-year-old non-scholarship freshman that caused every MLS coach and scout at Robert R. Hermann Stadium to sit up and take notice.

But it was not an eye-opener for Bruins Coach Jorge Salcedo. Even before the game, Salcedo noted how his young striker has blossomed this season.

“Up front, the surprise of all of college soccer, I think, is David Estrada,” Salcedo said. “He’s a kid who was not heavily recruited by the big universities and we were lucky to get him to come down here late in the recruiting process. He scored 66 goals in high school last year.”

His start in Westwood was slower.

“For the first 10 games, he sat on the bench because the speed of thought and the speed of play was too much,” Salcedo said. “But after the midway point he’s done great and now he’s our leading goal scorer.”

And the reason the Bruins (14-5-4) are in the final.

They might easily have trailed by two goals after a nervous opening five minutes that saw Virginia’s Adam Cristman fire a shot just over the Bruins crossbar from close range and German striker Yannick Weyering have a goal-bound shot blocked on the line by the head of UCLA defender Brad Rusin.

After those narrow escapes, the Bruins settled down and gradually their superior speed and footwork, their passing and their sheer hustle brought about the undoing of the physically more robust but unimaginative Cavaliers.

For UCLA, goalkeeper Eric Reed was solid after the early scares. On defense, Greg Folk and Rusin did a fine job containing the 6-foot-6, 205-pound Weyering. Out wide, winger Jason Leopoldo caught the eye and produced the cross from which Chance Myers scored the Bruins’ third goal, in the 83rd minute. In midfield, Tony Beltran and Michael Stephens showed all sorts of flair, and Stephens was rewarded when he scored the UCLA’s fourth goal two minutes from the end.

All in all, it was a first-class performance by UCLA, which has defeated Harvard, Clemson, top-ranked Duke and now Virginia, en route to their eighth final. They lost the first three finals but won in 1985, 1990, 1997 and 2002.

Five-time NCAA champion Virginia (17-4-1) lost a bit of composure toward the end and had midfielder Nico Colaluca red-carded, after which the Bruins scored their third and fourth goals.

Salcedo was left with only 24 hours to refresh his team, the semifinals having been postponed from Friday to Saturday because of snow and sub-freezing temperatures in St. Louis.

The cold did not bother Estrada Saturday.

His goals were his team-high 11th and 12th of the season, an almost paltry amount considering that the teenager scored 11 in one game in his senior season at Alisal High in Salinas as the team went 24-1-1 and rose to No. 2 ranking in the country.

Now, one more win and he can add an NCAA championship to his resume. The final will be shown on ESPN2 at noon.

The final of the NCAA women’s tournament is also today and pits Notre Dame (25-0-1) against North Carolina (26-1) at Cary, N.C., at 9:30 a.m. on ESPN2.

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Jones reported from Los Angeles. Times wires services contributed to this report.

grahame.jones@latimes.com