UCLA Blasts Harvard 7-0 in NCAA Second Round
The top-seeded UCLA women’s soccer team rolled past Harvard, 7-0, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday night and will take on No. 4 seed Pepperdine in third round action at UCLA’s Drake Stadium on Sunday at 3pm. Pepperdine advanced to the third round after a 4-0 win over Illinois State.
UCLA (20-0-2) scored just 1:16 into the contest on a Sarah Killion penalty kick after Annie Alvarado was taken down in the box.
Killion made it 2-0 with a header off a Rosie White corner kick at 6:34. The Bruins scored off another set piece at 26:59 when Sam Mewis took an Ally Courtnall throw-in and crossed into the box to Kylie McCarthy. McCarthy chested the ball and then shot past Harvard goalkeeper Lizzie Durack for her seventh goal in as many games. White finished the first half scoring at 43:08 with a shot from far center. Killion and Darian Jenkins were credited with assists.
The Bruins did not let up in the second half. UCLA goalkeeper Katelyn Rowland, who posted her NCAA-record-tying 18th shutout, got in on the scoring action for the second consecutive week. Once again For the second consecutive week, Rowland, after making a save on a shot by Joan Fleischman, hit Taylor Smith with a long ball on a counterattack. Rowland’s booming punt found Smith past midfield, and Smith dribbled up and fired a tough-angled shot past Durack to give UCLA a 4-0 lead at 61:13.
Jenkins and MacKenzie Cerda finished the scoring with a pair of goals five minutes apart. Jenkins scored her sixth of the year at 73:05 with an unassisted shot from the right after reserve goalkeeper Cheta Emba came out, and Cerda scored her first collegiate goal at 78:14 after taking a pass from Kodi Lavrusky and bursting past two defenders before shooting past Harvard’s third goalkeeper, Bethany Kanten.
Rowland made the one save on the night, and the Bruin defense held Harvard (11-5-2) to just two shots in the game. Durack had seven saves for the Crimson, while Emba had one.
The Bruins extend their shutout streak to nine (14th-longest streak in NCAA history). Rowland’s nine-straight shutouts are a school record, as are her consecutive shutout minutes total of 847 (12th-longest streak in NCAA history).
In addition to tying the NCAA single-season shutout record of 18, held by Stanford’s Nicole Barnhart (2002) and Notre Dame’s LaKeysia Beene (1997), Rowland extended her NCAA career shutout total to 54. The Bruins’ unbeaten streak is now at 43 games (sixth-longest streak in NCAA history).
