Maryland men’s soccer loses 6-0 to UCLA in first round of Big Ten Tournament

Photo courtesy of Ashley Ray/Maryland Terrapins

Maryland trailed 2-0 after one half and were pushing numbers forward for an equalizer in the 50th minute when Colin Griffith headed to an open Luca Costabile in the box. The junior defender swung his leg but failed to make contact with the bouncing ball, squandering a golden chance. 

Just three minutes later, the Terps failed to mark Andre Ochoa right in front of the goal and he easily rolled his shot into the net to extend the Bruins’ lead to three. 

No. 3 seed Maryland men’s soccer was defeated 6-0, by No. 6 seed UCLA on Thursday in the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament at SeatGeek Stadium. The Terps suffered their largest margin of defeat since 1984 and the largest under manager Sasho Cirovski. Maryland also conceded the most goals under Cirovski since also giving up six in his first season as head coach in 1993.  

UCLA took a quick throw-in in the 34th minute to Philip Naef. The sophomore passed to Jose Contell, who smashed his shot from a tight angle to the side of the goal past goalie Laurin Mack to open up the scoring. 

The Bruins handled Maryland’s high press extremely well, using tidy passes to avoid careless turnovers at the back. UCLA evaded the Terps’ front line again less than a minute before half-time and worked the ball out wide to Nicholas Cavallo, who found an open Naef on the back-post for a tap-in goal. 

The Terps switched to a 3-5-2 formation in the second half with Chris Steinleitner dropping back to join Bjarne Thiesen and William Kulvik in the backline. The change initially allowed Maryland to ramp up the offensive pressure with Costabile nearly scoring.

But the push for a goal left the Terps exposed with too many numbers up the pitch and the Bruins were able to counter-attack. Ochoa scored his second goal of the year and the rout was on from that point.

UCLA continued the onslaught two minutes later when the Terps’ defense again failed to mark an open Bruins player in the box. Nikolai Rojel lofted a pass to Edrey Caceres, who calmly volleyed his shot past Mack. 

Maryland’s backline was forced to defend without much help as the midfield pushed high to try to somehow ignite a comeback. This allowed UCLA to take up dangerous positions like in the 67th minute when Sveinn Hauksson whipped a shot around Kulvik to effectively seal the victory. The Bruins showed no mercy as Artem Vovk smashed in a sixth goal in the 76th minute. 

Cirovski started to sub off many key players after the fifth goal to save their legs for the NCAA tournament, including replacing Mack in goal with backup Hudson Blatteis.

The Terps will now await the NCAA tournament selection on Nov. 18th to see if they will earn an at-large bid. Maryland currently has an RPI ranking of 17, which should be good enough to get into the tournament.  

The NCAA tournament starts Nov. 21st which will give Maryland time to heal up as several key players are still not at full strength. Star midfielder Leon Koehl did make a short nine-minute appearance at the end of the first half after missing the last three games with an injury. The sophomore leads the country with six penalty goals and will be crucial to the Terps making a long run in the postseason.