Golden Goal by Willumsen sends UCSB past UCLA in the first round of the NCAA Tournament

WESTWOOD, Calif. - Nicolas Willumsen snapped a scoreless tie with a goal less than 3 minutes into overtime to lift UCSB past UCLA 1-0 in a first round NCAA Tournament game in Westwood.

(Courtesy NCAA/ESPN +).

"What an exciting win for the program," Gauchos head coach Tim Vom Steeg said. "We went from not thinking we would be in the tournament after a very disappointing loss to be able to rebound and play arguably our best game of the year against a quality opponent."

"We took a lot of lessons from the last game …. We made a concerted effort from our last game to this one to make UCLA have to defend for long stretches. It's very hard to take them off the ball, so when you get the ball off of them, the last thing you need to do is turn around and give it right back to them. Credit to the players, we talked about the game plan, we talked about staying on the ball as much as you can, but overall, it comes off of good performances. Each of the players, and you can go through everybody that played tonight, they worked hard to stay on the ball and that was a key part, I thought, for the game."

The Gauchos advance to play at #16 Stanford on Sunday at 5pm in the second round.