Nov. 19, 2004
BERKELEY, Calif. - The 17th-ranked Santa Clara men's soccer team dropped a 2-1 overtime heartbreaker to California in the first round of the NCAA Championship Tournament in Berkeley, Calif. on Friday afternoon. With the loss, the Broncos end their season with a 15-6-0 record.
"I thought it was a good match-up," said head coach Cameron Rast. "A game that we all expected, which was two evenly matched teams that were going to have to play 90 minutes to win. It turned out to be a little more today, the fans really got their money's worth."
Despite being out-shot 9-3 in the first half, the Broncos would strike first as Keith DeVey put Santa Clara ahead at the 13:40 mark. Medhi Ballouchy took the ball down the center of the field before passing to DeVey on the right side. The Kula, Hawaii native re-directed the pass into the bottom of the net for his team-high fifth goal of the season. The assist was Ballouchy's team-high ninth assist of 2004.
Freshman goalkeeper Christopher Moreo continued to impress in only his second collegiate start. The Las Vegas, Nevada native recorded three saves in the first half.
In the second period, the Bronco defense would keep the Golden Bears away from the goal until the 74th minute. A penalty kick was awarded to California in the 73rd minute after a yellow card was issued to defender Ryan Purtell. California midfielder Nick Hatzke would convert the penalty kick to even the score at 1-1.
After 15 more minutes of aggressive play, the teams went into overtime knotted at 1-1. It would not take the Golden Bears long to tally the game-winning score as Carl Acosta found the back of the net less than three minutes into the first overtime period.
Moreo would finish the contest with a season-high seven saves, the highest mark for a Bronco netminder this season.
Following the matches' conclusion, Rast remarked on the 2004 season as a whole. "I see this season as a great period of growth for our team," Rast commented. "We got off to such a good start. Then we ran into some teams in our conference, where we had to figure ourselves out. I think we solved a lot of problems and gained a lot of maturity."
