UCSB wrap-up: Gauchos soccer dominates Riverside
Mike Klan
UC SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT). –
Men’s Soccer: UCSB 3, UC Riverside 0 UC Santa Barbara Men’s Soccer Head Coach Tim Vom Steeg was not quick to call it momentum, but his team is at least on a winning streak now. The Gauchos convincingly defeated UC Riverside on Saturday night, 3-0, to continue their unbeaten start to Big West play. Buba Fofanah scored his third goal in the last four games and Zac Siebenlist got himself back on the scoresheet to put Santa Barbara ahead by two inside the first 15 minutes, then Kaden Standish put the cherry on top with a stunning free kick goal in the second half.
FROM HEAD COACH TIM VOM STEEG”I don’t know if two (wins) give you momentum, but I think three or four does,” Vom Steeg said. “We kind of knew what they were going to do, and we took advantage on those first two goals, especially on that right-hand side. We took advantage of that, and then the problem is, you go up 2-0, they came out at halftime and of course they’re going to adjust, and at that point we talked about, ‘look, we’re going to have to weather the storm for 15, 20 minutes.’ We said, if we can just get even two goals, that’s more than we’ve been scoring all year. Our emphasis going forward all year is going to be our defense. I was really happy with how we played offensively, finally got going a bit, but we also had two or three chances to score in the second half and we didn’t hit frame.”
Women’s Volleyball: UCSB 3, UC San Diego 2 UC Santa Barbara Women’s Volleyball clinched a win over UC San Diego Saturday night to preserve its undefeated record versus the Tritons. The Gauchos are now 10-0 all-time against UC San Diego and 3-1 in 2025 Big West play.
HOW IT HAPPENEDThe Gauchos ran away with the first set, wrapping it up 25-12. They had three separate six-point scoring runs that led them to a swift victory.
During the beginning stages of the second set, Eva Travis had 12 total kills while no other player on the court had more than three. Mid-second, she had more total kills than UC San Diego combined. UC San Diego managed a better effort during the second, though the Gauchos still claimed it 25-21.
UC San Diego regained their footing during the third and defeated the Gauchos 25-20. The teams traded random amounts of points, as neither gained much ground in any direction until UC San Diego had a couple of scoring runs that brought them the set. The fourth set was heavily favored towards the home team, as the Tritons flipped the script to win it 25-15.
The toe-to-toe fifth set was ultimately clinched by the Gauchos, who surpassed the Tritons 16-14. After establishing a tie at 10-10, Santa Barbara had their work cut out for them. Emma McDermott made the point advantage with a kill to make it 15-14, and the Gauchos won on an attack error by the Tritons.
Travis matched, broke, then re-broke her career-high kills for a match during the fifth set. Finishing the contest with 27 kills, Travis set the league high for kills made in a 2025 conference match. She also picked up a double-double, providing ten digs. Her streak did not end there, as she also put up seven block assists and hit .415.
Men’s Water Polo:
The No. 16 UC Santa Barbara Men’s Water Polo ended their trip to the Bay Area on a very high note, earning their biggest win of the season so far against No. 6 San Jose State in the Spartans’ home pool Saturday afternoon. Not only was the 13-12 upset the Gauchos’ highest-ranked win of the season, but it was a tremendous bounce-back effort after Santa Barbara had suffered a one-goal loss to LMU, 10-9, earlier in the day. Brock Zamanian had five goals to lead the Gauchos past the Spartans, giving him six on the day. Charlie Johnson had four, two in each game.
No. 16 UC SANTA BARBARA 9, No. 11 LMU 10The Gauchos got on the board first, through Johnson’s penalty shot, but trailed by two at the end of the first quarter of play. A 3-0 scoring run helped put the Lions up, with Luke Redoutey scoring to break it up and keep Santa Barbara close. LMU engineered another 3-0 run after that goal though, stretching from the end of the first quarter into the early stages of the second. Tyler Roller scored the only Gaucho goal in the second quarter, making it a 6-3 margin at halftime.
After the break, Santa Barbara started to fight back, out-scoring the Lions in each of the final two quarters, just not by enough to overturn the result. Redoutey was involved again, scoring on the Gauchos’ first possession of the half. LMU responded with two goals to go up, 8-4, but Kai Ross scored twice himself in the final stages of the quarter, making it 8-6 with eight minutes left to play. With a goal from Johnson sandwiched between two Lion scores, it was 10-7 with four minutes left. Danilo Dragovic scored with 2:34 on the clock, giving Santa Barbara two minutes to get two goals, and they were still on the right pace when Zamanian dented the twine with 1:26 left in the game. However, they were not able to find that crucial 10th goal to force overtime.
No. 16 UC SANTA BARBARA 13, No. 6 SAN JOSE STATE 12The afternoon game started as a good old-fashioned barn-burner, with both teams putting up four goals in the first quarter. Again, it was Johnson to get the scoring started, and the teams traded goals from there. After San Jose State tied the game, Dragovic put the Gauchos back on top. The hosts tied it again, then it was Sam McKenzie’s turn to put Santa Barbara in front. San Jose State scored next, then again to take a 4-3 lead. Ryan McManigal responded, and it was 4-4 heading into the second. Dragovic scored first to put the Gauchos back on top as neither team was able to get more than a one-goal lead. That rule held through the second quarter, with goals from Camren Simoncelli and Zamanian both being answered by the Spartans. The home side then scored just 16 seconds before the interval to carry an 8-7 lead into the break.
The Gauchos made quick work of that lead after halftime. Zamanian scored three goals in the third quarter alone, with McKenzie adding one as part of a 3-0 Santa Barbara run that spanned the first seven minutes of the second half, giving the Gauchos the first two-goal lead of the afternoon for either team. When the Spartans got a goal back, it took less than 30 seconds for Zamanian to put Santa Barbara back up by two. Entering the fourth quarter, the Gauchos led, 11-9.
Johnson made that 12-9 less than a minute into the frame, which proved to be the only goal until the two-and-a-half-minute mark. Then, it was time for the Gauchos to hold on for dear life. Zamanian scored Santa Barbara’s final goal of the afternoon with 2:06 left, putting them up 13-10 at the time. Despite two San Jose State goals in 37 seconds making it a one-goal game with 1:23 left to play, Levi Lentin and the Santa Barbara defense kept the Spartans from tying it up and escaped San Jose with the huge upset.
(Courtesy of UCSB Athletics)