UPDATE | Amidst pizza, soda and cell phones, the newly minted Big West Soccer champs from Long Beach State didn’t have to wait long to get their NCAA travel plans displayed on ESPNU. On the first screen up, the 49ers (14-5-2) saw their pairing with West Coast conference at-large #14 Santa Clara (12-6-2) set for 4:30pm this Friday at Stanford’s Laird Q. Cagan Stadium. Stanford (18-0-2) received a top seed in the 64-team NCAA women’s soccer tournament and plays Sacramento State (9-9-1) at 7:00pm.
So how does the host team see the Beach? Well, not too favorably. On their website, the Cardinal have already played the tournament on paper: “If the seeds hold, Stanford would play Santa Clara in the second round, Central Florida in the third, Florida State, Portland in the semifinals, and North Carolina or Maryland in the final.” Fortunately for the Cinderella Beach girls, they play on grass and not paper.
The NCAA press room offered the following capsule of the Niners match:
“Santa Clara advanced as an at-large after finishing in a tie for second in the West Coast Conference. The Broncos enter the tournament having lost three of their past four matches, including their final two (at Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine). Goalkeeper Bianca Henninger, the United States’ starter in July’s FIFA Under-20 World Cup, has a 0.64 goals-against average. Anessa Patton is the team leader in goals (9) and points (20). UC Irvine made the 64 team field and will host, playing Arizona State in their first game.
CHESS ON GRASS: LBSU CHECK-MATES CSUN & IRVINE FOR BIG WEST TITLE & NCAA BID
For Beach soccer the post-season chess match began Thursday in the nearly 100-degree temps at George Allen when master movers Mauricio Ingrassia of LBSU hooked up with CSUN’s Keith West. Anybody with the weather channel could have told you it was going be hot, but in the pre-match pleasantries West needled his old buddy Mauricio that the heat was imported from the valley to help the Matadors melt the Niners. “Yeah he mentioned that to me,” Mauricio said, “because he knows we practice at 8:00am and they live in that stuff.”
The break for the Beach was that the home girls were able to wear their crisp white uniforms and the visitors their heat absorbing black. Fashion and fabric aside, the best asset for the Beach was their gritty defense anchored by The Sheriff Lindsay Bullock with enough offense by steady Shawna Gordon and opportunistic Nikki Myers to go ahead 2-0 and then hold on for the 2-1 win. Down the road UCI was tied by the Tigers of UOP but UCI got a lucky bounce when the ball went off a defender and over the goal line for an own goal putting the Eaters up and over 2-1.
Those two outcomes setup a showdown on Sunday when the Niners and the Anteaters played for all the marbles. Ironically, last year’s ‘Niner spot-starter goalie Emily Kingsborough carried her team through a nervous ninety minutes and then toted the BWC MVP trophy to the post game party. It was the Long Beach State women’s soccer team’s first-ever Big West Tournament championship and payback for the marsupials. “It’s great to be Big West champions,” head coach Mauricio Ingrassia said. “It’s a good feeling. The girls earned this and worked very hard to get to where we are today.”
The W helped LBSU improve to 14-5-2 overall, tying the school record for victories and was the first time UCI has been shut out this year. They also shredded the preseason polls where they were picked a lowly sixth. Drama, well from 5-11-3 and no tourney in 2009 to number one in 2010 is sort of like that rhyming response, from worst to first.
Unlike their semifinal test with CSUN, temperatures in the title game never cracked 70 degrees and Kingsborough didn’t allow the 11th ranked Eaters to enter the LB net. Senior Bo Rael got the game-winning goal in the 53rd minute, with a nice throw in by junior Nicole Sweetman who spotted the double player coverage on Bullock and went on top to find Bo who, well, Bo knows. Kingsborough registered a season-high six saves en route to her fifth shutout and oh yes, allowed her school to tie up at 8-8 the almost-famous Black and Blue rivalry with UCI.
The win automatically puts Long Beach in this year’s NCAA Tournament. Seeding will be announced today around 1:30pm and we will update this story when the bracket is unveiled.
EXTRA HARDWARE DEPT. Bullock a math education major, is well known for both her brain and brawn on the pitch but with the lingering injury to Chantal Hubbard the Niners needed the back line work of Alex Balcer, who her coach told the media had played the best game of her collegiate career. Fittingly, last week both players won COSIDA/ESPN Academic All-District honors. Balcer is a sophomore defender who has started every game this year and help to anchor a 49er backline that has posted six shutouts. Balcer is majoring in biology-physiology. To be eligible for CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District honors, a student-athlete must maintain a minimum 3.30 grade-point average, be a significant contributor to the team and must have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing. Check, Check and Check.