In a cakewalk, you can’t lose unless you don’t put one foot in front of the other.

Thus far in Big West play, the #1 UCSB Men’s Soccer Team (11-0-1 overall, 4-0-0 Big West) has stayed the course. One game at a time, they’ve dispensed with four inferior Big West foes; Riverside (5-6-0, 2-2) being the latest square on the Gauchos march for that delicious Big West Championship cake.

“It’s tough to play Riverside when you have Northridge to look forward to on Saturday,” Senior goalkeeper Danny Kennedy said. “But we got it done and now we can put it all aside and get excited for the Northridge game cause that’s the game we’ll be emotionally pumped for.”

With last year’s cake-eaters, Northridge, on the schedule Saturday, Santa Barbara made sure Wednesday afternoon all the pieces would be in the right place for the showdown by shutting down the minimalists from Riverside, 3-0.

“We’re always happy about winning, especially since we jumped on them a little bit and got those goals, so it was a good result for us,” Head Coach Tim Vom Steeg said.

The jumping began for the Gauchos in the 21st minute when senior defender Tony Lochhead lofted a corner-kick that would find junior midfielder Nate Boyden, who wedged his way through the Highlander defense to head in the first goal of the afternoon.

The goal was Boyden’s first on the season, while the Gauchos would go on to get contributions from more unlikely places. Freshman defender Myles Davis recorded his first assist of the year on a service ball to senior striker Neil Jones for the Gauchos second goal on the day. Freshman Andrew Proctor tallied an assist on a cross to junior midfielder Tino Nu