#4 UCLA (9-1 overall) lived up to its notorious reputation last night by subjecting UCSB (5-6 overall) to ninety minutes of ruthless, fast and just plain quality soccer that ended with a tally of 5-0.

Although the Bruins couldn’t make it to Harder on time for the 7 p.m. start of the game due to traffic problems – which postponed the match until around 8 p.m. – things would go their way for the rest of the night against a Gaucho squad devoid of four starters.

“That’s the number four team in the nation and they are awesome,” UCSB head coach Paul Stumpf said. “I think I would have had a lot more fun watching that game had I not been a participant.”

By the numbers, the first half was the more lopsided period of play as the Bruins took 14 shots (nine on goal) and put three into the back of the net while the Gauchos struggled and were unable to put up a shot at all. In the second half of play, things slowed down but basically continued along the same trajectory except for the Gauchos’ three shots – two on goal and both were by freshman forward Genelle Ives.

In pretty much every aspect of the game, the Bruins showed themselves to be the superior soccer machine on paper, but perhaps the scoreboard and the box-score statistics do not tell the whole story.

“I was pleasantly surprised by how well we possessed the ball tonight at times,” Stumpf said. “We played them last year and they beat us 6-1, but it could have been ten. This year, they couldn’t have netted ten on us.”

Senior forward Iris Mora, sophomore midfielder Danesha Adams, junior defender Mary Castelanelli, freshman forward Christina DiMartino, and red-shirt sophomore Stephanie Kron all netted goals for UCLA in the blowout.

The most impressive goal of the night was arguably Kron’s rip from 20 yards out that curved outward into the corner of UCSB’s net.

“The score [surprised me],” junior midfielder and team captain Darci Gwartz said. “We thought we could’ve held them at least under three to nothing. But some of the goals were unlucky and unfortunate.”

UCLA offered little mercy to the Gauchos as they continually kicked balls away after free kicks had been awarded to UCSB and in one blatantly brutal move that went unnoticed by the referee – but certainly not the four hundred fans in attendance – as forward Kara Lang appeared to stomp all over UCSB senior defender Katie Cooper long after the ball was cleared from the vicinity.

Such cold-blooded behavior, while surely not preferred, actually offers some kind of consolation to the Gauchos. If no punches were pulled by their superior counterparts, then UCSB’s performance was commendable considering the overwhelming odds, fluky goals, hectic schedule over the past week and their missing starters.

“Our team has set a bar: how hard they can play, how organized they can be, and how quick they can go with the ball,” Stumpf said. “Now that they’ve set that bar, I think they need to keep meeting that over and over and over again; that’s a consistency issue that I don’t know if we have, but we’ll find out.”

UCSB returns to action in Harder Stadium this Friday at 7 p.m. against UC Davis.