Red-Hot Broncos Keep Rolling

By Ryan Marshall

The Waves of Pepperdine came into Buck Shaw Stadium on Friday afternoon undefeated, ranked ninth in the nation and sitting atop the West Coast Conference. On their way out, they were no longer undefeated, and had relinquished the top spot in the conference to Santa Clara after losing 1-0.

The Broncos led the way with 14 of their 17 total shots coming in the first half, while Pepperdine managed only three shots in that time. On a number of occasions in the first half, Santa Clara fans and players on the bench were on their toes anticipating a goal, but the score remained 0-0.  

In the 22nd minute, freshman Sofia Huerta broke away and had a one-on-one with Pepperdine's goalie as she approached from the left edge. Huerta struck the ball, rolling it across the goalie box to the opposite corner, out of the goalie's reach. Almost as soon as the ball left her foot, Santa Clara fans could be heard exhaling at the sight of the ball striking the right goalpost and being fielded by a Pepperdine defender.  

In another similar scenario in the first half, sophomore Julie Johnston's attack was thwarted by a great defensive play from Pepperdine's goalie, Roxanne Barker, who had four saves on the afternoon. Barker boldly challenged the streaking Johnston, kicking the ball out of bounds and saving a potential Santa Clara goal in the 44th minute.

The Broncos would get another opportunity right before the end of the half. With seven seconds left, Bronco senior goalkeeper Bianca Henninger sent a free kick from about midfield up for grabs near the goalie box.

After bouncing off a Bronco player, a Pepperdine foot and the grass all within a few seconds, senior Bridgett Miller was able to obtain possession and immediately sent the ball through the air into the back of the net for what would be the only goal of the game.

Coming at the end of the half, the goal was a particularly good source of momentum; Pepperdine could not counter-attack nor have any chance of immediate redemption. The Waves had to wait for the second half, and were forced to watch the Broncos celebrate as they trotted off the field for the break.

Head coach Jerry Smith, in his 25th season with the Broncos, was particularly pleased with the goal, mentioning that it was an aspect of the game they had been working on recently.  

"We have a couple of things we've really been working on and one of them is to score free-kick goals," said Smith. "We (got) a free-kick goal today in a very timely fashion right at the end of the half, which gave us some good momentum going into halftime."

But Pepperdine came out firing in the second half, out-shooting Santa Clara 8-3 to go along with four corner kick opportunities.

Even so, the Broncos' defensive effort was able to turn the shots that Pepperdine did get off into difficult ones.

"I thought today we did a nice job of transitioning from a zone defense to a marking defense as they got close to our goal," said Smith. "They had a few shots, but far fewer than they normally get in a game, and they didn't have that many shots on goal. I think that had a lot to do with our players doing a nice job of transitioning to a marking defense at the right moment."

What was more impressive about the Broncos' defense, Smith noted, was the fact that Pepperdine is such a good all-around team. There wasn't a single player to which Santa Clara could devote most of the defensive attention. As a result, the Broncos were faced with the challenge of treating every Waves player as a potential threat.  

"I thought Pepperdine was a very tough team," said Smith. "They're kind of a blue-collar, hard-working, physical team and sometimes those are the hardest teams to prepare for. If (our opponent has) one go-to player or a playmaker, sometimes we can do things differently defensively, but when the entire team is just a hard-working, second-effort, scrappy type of team, those are tough teams to play against."

Following the win on Friday, Santa Clara leapfrogged Pepperdine to move into first place in the West Coast Conference. The Broncos came back strong on Sunday with a 4-0 rout of Loyola Marymount to stay atop the conference. The team has now won 10 of its last 11 contests, dating back to Sept. 23.

Santa Clara hopes to carry this momentum into its final regular season game against fellow WCC front-runner, San Diego. A victory would seal the conference championship for the Broncos.

Santa Clara is looking forward to the pressure of the game at USD, a matchup filled with end-of-season implications. Back-to-back WCC Player of the Week Bridgett Miller hopes to continue her success on the big stage.

"We're looking forward to our run in the NCAA tournament, but we know that we have to focus on USD to put us in the best possible position going forward," said Miller. "We know that USD will come out with a hard fight, and we welcome that challenge."

Contact Ryan Marshall at rmarshall@scu.edu or (408) 554-4852.