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UCSB Seizes Two WWLL Championships With Wins Over Chapman and Cal Poly SLO B

Box Score

Apr. 22, 2012

Santa Barbara, CA - UCSB won their third WWLL Division One Championship in five years with a 10-4 victory over Chapman University. Earlier in the day the UCSB B Team won the WWLL B Division Championship with a 12-5 win over Cal Poly SLO B. That success there reversed two losses to the Mustangs during the regular season.

The score was 4-2 in favor of the Gauchos in the first half of the Division One Championship and UCSB steadily pulled away from the Panthers after halftime, winning the second half 6-2. The UCSB defensive effort stymied the Chapman offense time and time again while the offense was too efficient for Chapman to get many quality chances. UCSB outshot the Panthers 25-21. Chapman had put up big numbers in their semifinal win over UCLA, taking that one 18-9 on Saturday. UCSB scored on 10 of 21 shots on frame and won back the other 4 shots that went wide, 2 of them, or hit a pipe, another 2 of them. UCSB had the ball for most of the game and made the most of it. 

"We have some basic game plans in place we can apply for different opponents and we went to the basics for this game," said UCSB head coach Paul Ramsey.

"But it was the players on the field performing well in our game plan that made this happen for us."

The WWLL Championship is the fifth overall for UCSB under Ramsey over two different coaching eras and it doesn't seem to get matter of hand for him. Asked after the game how it felt he said, simply, "It feels fantastic."

The UCSB defense contained dangerous Chapman players Abby Messmer (Tustin, CA) and Tory Wilkinson (Atherton, CA) and held the pair to all four of the goals the Panthers scored. Junior defender Emilia Norlin (Mill Valley, CA) again drew mark-up responsibilities on Wilkinson and the entire defense traded off on Messmer. Senior Jeni Centner (Tustin, CA) had 10 saves in front of the UCSB net for a monster game at 71.4% on stops. Her clearing game was spot on as well and UCSB was 12 for 14 on clears.

Different UCSB offensive players stepped up and goals came despite Chapman matching up well with UCSB leading scorer Katie Mitchell (Lafayette, CA). The junior kept the Panthers busy worrying about her and five of her teammates got in on the action. Junior Lindsay Remigio (Syosset, NY) and sophomore Blair Evans (Salinas, CA) scored 3 goals apiece. Senior Maegan Cruse (San Diego, CA) had 2 goals and 2 assists while freshman Lindsay Alex (Tustin, CA) had 1 goal and 2 assists.  Freshman Skylar Brown (San Diego, CA) put one in early in the game on a feed from Cruse and it was obvious Chapman had more to worry about than Mitchell. UCSB played the entire game at a championship level and put it away over the final ten minutes of play never letting Chapman see daylight.

With the win the 2nd ranked Gauchos improved to 14-2 overall and won the WWLL automatic qualifier spot in the WCLA National Championship Tournament.  Fourteenth ranked Chapman dropped to 13-4 and is on the bubble for an at-large spot in the 16 team WCLA Tournament. Eight conferences have automatic qualifiers.