IRVINE, Calif. — The No. 23 UC Santa Barbara Men's Soccer team picked up a big three points for The Big West standings on Saturday evening, defeating UC Irvine in Irvine for the first time since 2015. Nicolas Willumsen provided the winning goal while David Mitzner and the Gaucho defense worked their sixth shutout of the season in a 1-0 victory.
 
FROM HEAD COACH TIM VOM STEEG
"We finished a three-games-in-six-days stretch by grinding out a win on the road in a very challenging place," Vom Steeg said. "We certainly need to convert more of our chances, but with our defense playing the way it is right now, we will take the 1-0 road conference win."
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
UC Irvine started the game playing in a low block, with 10 or even all 11 players behind the ball for nearly the entire first half, and Santa Barbara was happy to accept that invitation to attack, out-shooting the hosts 8-2 in the first half and 17-5 on the evening. Only one of Irvine's first-half attempts actually troubled Mitzner, who palmed a headed attempt over the bar to safety in the eighth minute. The Anteaters' only other shot of the half came four minutes later, and their only other threat was a counterattack in the 18^th minute, which Mitzner rushed to shut down with a perfectly timed sliding tackle 35 yards from goal.
 
At the other end of the pitch, the Gauchos peppered the Irvine goal. Alexis Ledoux's 15^th minute attempt was the most threatening of Santa Barbara's shots, a line drive from the top of the penalty area that required an impressive diving save from Irvine's first-time goalkeeper. Zac Siebenlist forced a save in the 20^th minute too, as did Kaden Standish in the 23^rd. Standish also had a shot blocked by the Anteater defense during the 17-minute span in which the Gauchos fired all eight of their first-half shots.
 
After the halftime interval, Santa Barbara kept on hunting their breakthrough, with Eddie Villeda not waiting around. His long, long-range effort did require saving in the 47^th minute, as did Filip Basili's shot from (slightly less) distance in the 51^st. Finally, Willumsen broke the deadlock in the 52^nd minute.
 
While Caden Vom Steeg's long ball didn't quite make it all the way over top of the Irvine defense, it bounced off an Anteater head and landed right at Willumsen's feet to give the Dane a wide-open look at goal. He blasted the ball into the far corner with his first touch to put the Gauchos in front.
 
Three minutes later, Vom Steeg nearly doubled Santa Barbara's advantage directly from a corner kick, looking to catch Irvine's inexperienced goalkeeper unawares with a looped ball toward the back post, but the Anteater netminder managed to swat it away. In the 65^th, the back post was the center of attention again for the Gauchos, with Andrew Kamienski stooping to put a header on goal, but it bounced up too high and over the crossbar.
 
After that header bounced over though, it was time for Kamienski and the Gauchos to get back and defend, as Irvine came out of their low block and pushed forward in search of an equalizer. It was this exact situation — defending a one-goal lead in the final 15 minutes at UC Irvine — that Head Coach Tim Vom Steeg highlighted as an area for the 2024 Gauchos to improve after 2023, and his defense responded.
 
Over not just the final 15 minutes but in fact the entire 38 minutes that they led Saturday's match, the Gauchos outshot the Anteaters, 5-3, limiting UCI to just one shot on target. That lone shot on goal was a long-distance worm-burner along the ground, which Mitzner handled comfortably, despite it coming through traffic. Haruki Utsumi provided some late heroics to bolster the defensive effort after coming on in the 81^st minute, making a diving header to keep a cross out of Santa Barbara's penalty area in the 84^th. He also made a crucial intervention in the 88^th minute to clean up a goal-mouth scramble and clear the ball away from goal.
 
BY THE NUMBERS

• Saturday night's victory is UC Santa Barbara's 40^th win over UC Irvine, the most victories over any opponent other than Cal Poly. It also ends a streak of three consecutive regular-season ties between these two teams.
• Saturday night was the third game of the season (and second in a row) in which the Gauchos recorded 17 shots, their third-highest total of the year. They put seven of those shots on goal, which they have also done two other times.
• With their sixth clean sheet of the season, David Mitzner and the Santa Barbara defense lowered their goals-against average to 0.69 on the season. If they can sustain that rate, it will go down as the second-best season by GAA by both an individual Gaucho goalkeeper and a Gaucho team in program history, behind only Dan Kennedy and the 2004 team.

 
UP NEXT
Santa Barbara returns home for their next match, hosting UC Davis on Wednesday, Oct. 16. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. from Harder Stadium.