The No. 6-ranked Tritons clearly have their eyes on becoming the No. 1 seed in the conference, as their hard-fought 1-1 tie in the California Collegiate Athletic Association game on Oct. 29 at Cal Poly Pomona vividly indicates.
Despite the stiff competition that resulted in an injury for Triton midfielder Megan Mendoza, the players “”battled hard,”” according to head coach Brian McManus.
UCSD rallied in the 83rd minute of the game, when Shannon Harrelson brilliantly blasted the ball into the Broncos’ goal to tie Cal Poly Pomona in an especially difficult away game.
The Broncos had a 16-3 edge over the Tritons in shots, a 5-3 lead in corner kicks and a lone goal throughout the early stages of the game, but the Tritons didn’t give the Broncos the chance to follow up their initial advance.
In the words of fullback Kristin Jones, the Triton defense “”stepped it up,”” and this was helped by the fact that most of the shots taken by the Broncos were “”off hard,”” as McManus evaluated his aggressive opponents’ lack of aim.
“”We showed a lot of heart in an overall team effort,”” Jones said. “”If we’re down at any time, [the Tritons] can come back.””
UCSD made its intent of clinching the No. 1 seed obvious when it began to pull together and roared back, wasting little time in transforming a game that had the odds stacked against it into a respectable draw between two of the top women’s soccer programs.
UCSD’s women’s soccer team will be back in action on Nov. 2 with a CCAA game against Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona, that will close out the regular season schedule. The CCAA Championships will begin on Nov. 7.
