{"id":3383,"date":"2009-08-31T06:17:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-31T06:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/lbsu-soccer-bruins-thump-niners\/"},"modified":"2009-08-31T06:17:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-31T06:17:00","slug":"lbsu-soccer-bruins-thump-niners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/lbsu-soccer-bruins-thump-niners","title":{"rendered":"LBSU Soccer: Bruins Thump ‘Niners"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Photo of Leroux’s first goal by Shar Higa<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n

Last Monday, the no. 7 UCLA Bruins were absolutely thumped by North Carolina, losing 7-2.  <\/span>If you’re wondering why that’s relevant to a Long Beach State women’s soccer writeup\u2026well, you probably weren’t at the game.  <\/span>A UCLA team that clearly had something to prove came out aggressive against the home 49ers, and dealt them a 4-0 win, dropping the ‘Niners to 1-1 on the season.  <\/span>“They took out their frustration on us,” said head coach Mauricio Ingrassia, “And we allowed them to.  <\/span>We were just out to lunch.”<\/p>\n

The first half, while short on quality scoring chances for Long Beach, was at least competitive, with great, physical midfield battles erupting constantly as a result of similar possession-based offenses.  <\/span>UCLA, though, won almost every battle at almost every position\u2014they were bigger, stronger and faster, and they looked it, outshooting the ‘Niners 19-7, and forcing Long Beach to commit 13 fouls.  <\/span>The game’s first score came on an absolutely beautiful cross from Summer Williams to Sydney Leroux, who put a header into the far corner of the net in the 22nd minute.<\/p>\n

Leroux, more even than her fellow Bruins, was utterly dominant; the sophomore from Canada spent the offseason winning the Golden Shoe award as the Under-20 FIFA World Championships’ highest scorer.  <\/span>She’s a genuine talent, and she put on a clinic.  <\/span>She had the game’s second goal, just sixteen seconds into the second half, after Kristina Larsen stole the ball from the ‘Niners following their kickoff.  <\/span>She passed it up to Leroux, who made a quick move and dumped the ball in, before half the crowd was even paying attention again.<\/p>\n

That pretty much ended the competitive portion of the evening, as UCLA started putting in the subs, and the life went out of Long Beach’s legs.  <\/span>Lauren Cheney and Liz Zadro added goals for UCLA\u2014the fact that Zadro scored hers with less than two minutes left in the blowout demonstrates exactly how frustrated the Bruins were.<\/p>\n

For Long Beach fans, there was little to be excited about\u2014the rhythm and flow of the midfield was gone, and the 49ers struggled to maintain possession for more than a few seconds.  <\/span>Despite allowing three goals, starting keeper Emily Kingsborough did look good, making seven saves; the Sheriff, Lindsay Bullock, was just as tough and physical as ever, and was the only ‘Niner who seemed to be at the same level as the Bruins when it came to one-on-one battles.  <\/span>There was also a sizable crowd of nearly 1,000 on hand for the defeat, most of them there in support of the home team.<\/p>\n

But Ingrassia summed it up; when asked for positives from the game, his response was, “We got a lot of film.”  <\/span>The ‘Niners will now embark on a grueling four-game road swing through the Midwest and New England with matches against Kansas, Missouri, Harvard, and Boston College, before returning home on September 18th to face Pepperdine at 4pm.  <\/span>Long Beach will have a long, hot week of practice before that first road game, Friday at Kansas.  <\/span>Ingrassia is confident his team will bounce back.  <\/span>“I think they’ll be smart enough to let it go\u2014we’ll be ready for the weekend.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After last week’s promising season-opening victory, the ‘Niners took a step back in a 4-0 loss to the UCLA Bruins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":16963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3383"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3383"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}