Gauchos Eliminated from NCAA Tournament by Stanford on Penalty Kicks

A thrilling journey to the second round of the NCAA Tournament came to a cruel end for the UC Santa Barbara men’s soccer team.

Zac Siebenlist came through with a clutch header off a cross from Filip Basili with 13 seconds remaining in regulation to tie the score at 2-2 and force overtime. But  after two extra periods could not decide a winner, the Gauchos eventually fell short 6-5 on penalty kicks.  

“I’m disappointed for the players that we lost, but at the end of the day, it was PKs to move on, so I don’t even feel like we lost the game,” said UC Santa Barbara coach Tim Vom Steeg. “That was a great effort by the guys in the second half.”

Stanford jumped on top in the first half by capitalizing on two set pieces. In the 33rd minute, a corner kick from Will Reilly found Noah Adnan at the back post, and he converted the chance for the Cardinal to take a 1-0 lead.

In the final moments of the first half, Stanford delivered what appeared to be a backbreaker as Reilly and Adnan connected on a corner kick again  with Adnan sneaking a shot through on the near-side post increasing the Stanford lead to 2-0.

“We came in [at halftime] and we talked about throwing everything on the field,” Vom Steeg said of his team’s performance. “We didn’t think we were playing bad in the game; we just gave up the two goals.”

The Gauchos got a boost from their bench in the second half and dominated the action, outshooting Stanford 14-1. The breakthrough finally came in the 50th minute when reserve center back Haruki Utsumi, who spent much of the second half in the attacking third of the field, got an open look at the top of the penalty area and took a shot that was deflected. However, the rebound came right back to him and he sent a shot into the bottom corner of the goal.

In the 70th minute, the Gauchos had a chance to tie the score on a penalty kick, but Alexis Ledoux’s attempt was saved by the Stanford goalkeeper Rowan Schnebly. 

It appeared that UC Santa Barbara’s second-half dominance would not be rewarded on the scoreboard as the two teams reached the 90th minute, but Basili and Ziebenlist did not give up and delivered an equalizer for the ages to force overtime. 

After the two overtime periods, the two teams were deadlocked in the penalty shootout, but the Gauchos’ seventh attempt was saved and Stanford’s Duncan Jarvie converted it to clinch the victory.

With Sunday night’s result (officially a draw), UC Santa Barbara finishes the season with a 12-5-5 overall record.