UC San Diego men’s soccer (2-8-7, 2-2-5 Big West) pulled off a shocking 1-0 win against conference leader Cal State Fullerton (8-6-5, 5-3-1 Big West) at Triton Soccer Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 1. An 87th-minute goal by redshirt junior forward Brian Arens capped off a perfect Senior Night for the Tritons, securing them the No. 6 seed for the Big West Championship. Just two weeks after breaking a program-record 18-game, 371-day winless streak, UCSD is headed to the postseason.
“This is the season that we make it to the postseason, and it’s a great feeling to really just shut those people up and finally be in the postseason,” Arens said in a postgame interview with The UCSD Guardian. “I’m a senior, and I haven’t been there all my career, so it’s great to be there now.”
UCSD walked into its final regular season game with a chip on its shoulder. To secure a place in the Big West Championship, the seventh-ranked Tritons needed a win against Fullerton and for Cal Poly to defeat Cal State Bakersfield.
Before kickoff, UCSD honored its eight graduating athletes in a pregame ceremony with their families.
“You want to recognize the seniors appropriately, but it was also a massively important game with the chance to move on,” head coach Jon Pascale said to The Guardian. “We tried to weigh that balance and decided the best way to honor them was to put in maximum effort all week and into this game.”
The first half saw close back-and-forth play between Fullerton and UCSD. Although the Titans tallied seven shots to the Tritons’ two shots, Fullerton senior forward Mario Carlos was the only player to record a shot on goal. However, a save from Triton redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Nic Thiele kept the first half scoreless. At the same time, Cal Poly had pulled ahead of Bakersfield 2-0 — meaning that, if the Mustangs’ lead held, a Triton win would put UCSD into the Big West Championship.
The second half completely changed pace as both teams pushed forward. Triton sophomore forward Ryan Namdar opened the second half with a shot at the bottom center of the net, but Fullerton freshman goalkeeper Asger Hemmer made the save.
For the next 20 minutes, the Tritons and the Titans traded shots. However, both goalkeepers stayed sharp all night as Hemmer made three saves to Thiele’s four.
The tide of the game shifted in the 66th minute as the Tritons gained full control of the ball. Their relentless attacks were fueled by shots from sophomore forward Kai Oppenheim and freshmen midfielders Adam Dunbar and Masa Fujita.
After five straight shots from UCSD with no answer from Fullerton, the Tritons finally converted for the winning goal. Arens scored the game-winning goal, a right-footed shot to the bottom lefthand corner of the net on Dunbar’s first career assist.
“It was just a counterattack,” Arens said. “My winger, Dunbar, went inside, and I just kind of overlapped outside, and he played me a nice ball, and I tried to put it across the goal, and it went right off the post and in.”
With just four minutes left in the game, the crowd’s chants of “defense” filled the atmosphere. If the Tritons could keep Fullerton scoreless for the rest of regulation, they would earn their first-ever Big West Championship berth.
The Titans made two more scoring attempts — including an 88th minute shot from inside the 6-yard box that was played away just in time by redshirt sophomore defender Keenai Braun. Surviving Fullerton’s last-gasp efforts, the Tritons held on for a 1-0 victory. Two hundred miles north, Bakersfield lost 2-0 to Cal Poly to confirm the Tritons’ hopes — the Senior Night victory had pushed them to the postseason.
As the Tritons prepare for the Big West Championship, set to begin this week, the message from Arens was, “You know we are coming.”
No. 6 UCSD will travel to San Luis Obispo to play No. 3 Cal Poly on Wednesday, Nov. 5, in the first round of the Big West Championship. The winner will advance to the semifinal match against No. 2 seed UC Irvine on Saturday, Nov. 8.
