Box Score
DAVIS, Calif. – On what was a warm, windy day in Northern California, the UC Santa Barbara men's soccer team and UC Davis played out a 110-minute, double-overtime match as both clubs remained deadlocked in second place in the Big West.
"On one hand, when you don't win a game, there's part of you that wishes you had been able to win the game, but I don't think we could have asked much more of our players. They gutted it out today." said UCSB (10-3-3) head coach Tim Vom Steeg after the draw.
Similar to most of the Big West games that UCSB's played this season, the first half-hour lent itself to cautious play from both teams, making it a tight match in which neither team gave the other much to work with.
At the 38:33 mark, the Gauchos went behind after a misplaced clearance from an Aggie corner kick was returned back into the eighteen-yard box by a Gaucho midfielder into the open foot of a teammate, which redirected the ball into the bottom left side of the UCSB goal.
Just 32 seconds later, UCSB freshman attacking midfielder Finn Ballard McBride equalized from close range.
Senior right wingback Noah Billingsley delivered a ball into the box that senior striker Will Baynham turned into a shot at the near post, but it was blocked and deflected into the path of Ballard McBride, who blasted it into goal to tie things up in the 40th minute.
Ballard McBride's goal was his ninth of the season.
Neither team would get another goal after that, but sophomore goalkeeper Ben Roach kept the Gauchos from conceding another goal or losing the game in overtime several times en route to a season-high nine saves.
"He made some plays, kept us in the game, and got us some points. He came up with some very, very, good saves," added Vom Steeg.
Among his best activity today was a point-blank save at the near post on UC Davis right back Max Glasser in the 55th minute after the defender carried the ball from the middle of the Davis half all the way into the right side of the Gauchos' penalty area, and a rush out from the goal line when forward Emmanuel Doherty had a one-on-one chance early in the first overtime.
The heat and wind were significant factors in the match, with the temperature at 85 degrees at kickoff and the wind blowing 16 miles per hour north-northwest, meaning the Gauchos were shooting into the wind in the first half and first overtime.
The draw keeps both UCSB and UC Davis level on points with 10 apiece, with league leaders Irvine currently playing away at Cal State Fullerton at the time of writing.
Adding to the Gauchos' injury troubles, senior attacking midfielder Thibault Candia went down midway through the first half, though Vom Steeg expects to have several players returning as early as this weekend for the match at CSUN.
The Santa Barbara side, still unbeaten on the road this season with a 4-0-2 record, travels to Northridge to face CSUN in their penultimate Big West Conference matchup. The action begins at 7:00 p.m. and will be broadcast on BigWest.TV and on UCSB radio, and both links can be found on the men's soccer schedule page.
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