Pepperdine Women’s Soccer defeated No. 3 UCLA Bruins on Sept. 1 at Tari Frahm Rokus Field in a 1-0 victory. Head Coach Tim Ward also celebrated his 300th career win, which were all in his time as a Pepperdine coach.
The Waves have a 3-2-1 overall record and have grown from past games to get to the performance they showed against the Bruins.
“We’ve been struggling the past few games and everyone knew just how important this game was to me,” graduate student defender Megan Edelman said.
Edelman played at UCLA where she received her undergraduate degree. She is continuing her soccer career at Pepperdine this year. She said she was excited to play her past teammates and ultimately beat them on her new home field.
“I still love them and have no hate towards them,” Edelman said. “But to beat them and kick their butts was just a great feeling.”
Edelman had a high level defensive performance this game along with the rest of the team as they pressed the Bruins up and down the field to stop the previously undefeated team from scoring a single goal.
“I felt like our spacing and our organization defensively has just been the best it’s been all year,” Ward said. “That’s why we were able to pick off a lot of balls because everybody was close enough to help each other out.”
Ward was not focused on his own personal milestone of 300 wins on Sunday, but rather the growth of his team and what they can do the best against the Bruins.
“We told the girls today with all due respect to our opponent, let’s try to focus on our journey,” Ward said.
Over the past few games, the Waves have drawn against Arizona 1-1 and lost 1-3 against USC, but these games gave the Waves the push they needed to come out even stronger and improve on their shortcomings.
“I’m just really proud of the team and proud of our growth and bouncing back from results we haven’t wanted and continuing to perform together,” sophomore defender Peyton Leonard said.
Although the game was handled with defense, Leonard’s goal at minute 69:08 brought the team the end result they wanted.
In a quick action by graduate student defender Victoria Romero, the ball was moved to the right wing to create space in front of the goal. As a result, there was a weak spot where Edelman assisted Leonard for the first and only goal of the game.
“As soon as I hit it I knew it was going in,” Leonard said. “They [coaches] weren’t expecting it and they always say just know what you’re doing on the ball and make your plan.”
Although the goal was unorthodox, it showcased the Waves’ work on offense and decision making on the ball.
“We’ve been doing a lot of 1v1 [drills] to work on our confidence on the ball and it’s really been paying off,” Leonard said.
The Waves had a total of nine shots and five corner kicks in their effort against the UCLA defense. Another performance that stood out on the stat sheet was freshman goalkeeper Jillian Medvecky with six saves.
“We have two amazing goalkeepers,” Ward said. “Jill has been hot and if someone has that mojo you have to stay with it.”
The second half brought a defensive effort to finish out the game on top. The Waves were able to keep the ball on their end and get early stops on defense to prevent any possible Bruin goal.
“That second half we could not let our guard down or make mistakes since UCLA would capitalize on any mistake we made,” Edelman said.
With ten minutes remaining, UCLA had 11 attempted shots compared to Pepperdine’s nine, even leading them in corners as well. The last few minutes were a fight to the finish where defensive plays from Edelman and Romero led to far drives by junior midfielder Tatum Wynalda and graduate midfielder Tori Waldeck to keep the ball away from the Waves goal and near the corners.
With one more failed attempt by the Bruins in the last minute, and an effective hold on the ball by Waldeck in the left corner, the Waves took the game handing UCLA their first loss of the season.
“Our schedule gives us opportunities to have tremendous results and today is a perfect example,” Ward said. “You can’t have great victories if you don’t play great opponents.”
Pepperdine Women’s Soccer will play Fresno State on Sept. 20 at Tari Frahm Rokus Field.
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Email Megan Harkey: megan.harkey@pepperdine.edu
