Early goals, dominant defense push Kentucky soccer into NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16
Santa Clara men’s soccer head coach Cameron Rast knew what was coming, prepared for it and still couldn’t stop it.
Within 10 minutes of the start of Sunday night’s NCAA Tournament second-round match between Santa Clara and No. 9 seed Kentucky, the Wildcats pounced on a known advantage they had over the Broncos, creating two scoring moments that sent UK through to the round of 16.
Lucca Rodrigues scored on a near-post header from a Mason Visconti corner kick in the fifth minute, and Marcel Meinzer did the same at the back post in the 10th minute, which provided plenty of cushion for Kentucky in one of the most dominant performances by the Wildcats this season.
After Kentucky’s 2-0 victory, Rast said he knew UK’s superior size and weight was an advantage for the hosts on set plays. Defending against this was something Santa Clara focused on in practice ahead of Sunday’s match.
It didn’t matter.
“When they pack the box like they do with that many guys, it just doesn’t allow for good movement from our goalkeeper,” Rast explained. “We’d have to put a number of (our) guys in the box, which only crowded it more and we thought we got it kind of figured out yesterday, and we didn’t.”
Set piece delivery has been a strength for the Wildcats all season, and Sunday it paid off in the biggest moment of the 2021 campaign to date.
“Mason and (defender Robert Screen) do a great job of getting the ball where it needs to go, giving us a great chance,” said fifth-year midfielder Bailey Rouse. “As you can see tonight, we had the players that could finish it.”
“In almost every practice we talk about it, and then right before the game we practice it. We know exactly where we have to be and then we trust our servers,” added Meinzer about set pieces. “We just trust the process. The ball goes where it goes and we’re right there.”
The fifth-minute header by Rodrigues — a graduate student from Brazil who is in his first season at UK — was the third-fastest goal of the season scored by Kentucky. Rodrigues also owns the fastest goal of the season for Kentucky, which came from a corner kick in the second minute against Coastal Carolina to begin the Conference USA Tournament, which Kentucky won.
Starting fast Sunday against Santa Clara was a point of emphasis.
Santa Clara, located in the Bay Area in California, played more than 101 minutes of soccer during its first-round win at Akron on Thursday night before taking a bus down to Lexington, where Sunday’s match took place in cold and extremely wet conditions at the Wendell and Vickie Bell Soccer Complex.
In contrast, UK had a week off before Sunday’s match.
These factors, coupled with Santa Clara’s reputation as a strong second-half team, made scoring early a priority for Kentucky.
“It was a big emphasis for us to make sure we start the right way, to match their intensity and let our qualities show,” Rouse said.
“We’re always talking about dominating from the very first minute, so we make sure we come out with the right attitude, with the right mentality and that we’re on our front foot,” Meinzer added. “We just make sure we’re together as a team, which leads to us dominating and making the game easier for us.”
The two-goal output for the Wildcats also continues the team’s recent scoring streak, as UK has scored two or more goals in five straight matches, all victories.
Once the early 2-0 lead was established, Kentucky saw the remaining 80 minutes out as professionally as possible.
“It’s just those (opening) 10-15 minutes that will haunt us forever,” Santa Clara senior midfielder Juan O’Neill said.
Santa Clara never recorded a shot on target and Kentucky goalkeeper Jan Hoffelner didn’t need to make a save on the way to picking up his 12th clean sheet of the season.
“We spend so much time on defending and making sure that we know how to neutralize the opponent,” UK head coach Johan Cedergren said. “You get 12 clean sheets by making sure that you’re a really, really good team defensively, and everyone knows where they’re supposed to be.”
Hoffelner has allowed just six goals in more than 1,600 minutes between the posts for UK this season, aided by a veteran back line that features two of the players integral to UK’s set-piece routines: Rodrigues and Screen.
There’s a strong chance that Sunday’s match was the final time UK plays at The Bell this season.
Chalk held this weekend throughout Kentucky’s quadrant of the 48-team NCAA Tournament bracket, with all four seeded teams winning: No. 1 Oregon State, No. 8 Clemson, No. 9 Kentucky and No. 16 New Hampshire.
This means that up next for UK is a trip to Clemson, which won Sunday night on a penalty kick goal in golden goal extra time. The Wildcats and Tigers will play at 7 p.m. Sunday at Historic Riggs Field in Clemson, South Carolina, with a spot in the national quarterfinals against either Oregon State or New Hampshire on the line.
But simply still playing is an accomplishment for this UK team, which has now reached the round of 16 for the third time in four years and for the fourth time overall in program history.
Kentucky is now also the lone C-USA school left in the NCAA Tournament after Charlotte, 14-seed Marshall and 13-seed FIU all lost in their opening matches. Marshall was the defending NCAA champion.
Last week, Cedergren said the mark of a successful college team is getting to spend Thanksgiving together because it means a deep postseason run is happening.
On Sunday night, after as complete a postseason performance as he could have wished for, Cedergren again acknowledged that holiday benchmark while admitting he never thought Sunday’s result was in doubt.
“You don’t want to say anything until the game is over, but I just didn’t see how we were going to lose after the way we trained this week and the team that we have,” Cedergren said. “This group, and the staff, we’re really gelling at the right time. I’m proud of them and I’m excited to work with them for at least another week.”
Next game
Kentucky at Clemson
What: NCAA Tournament round-of-16 match
When: 7 p.m. Sunday
TV: TBA
Records: No. 9 seed Kentucky (15-1-4), No. 8 seed Clemson 14-5
Series: Clemson leads 1-0
Last meeting: Clemson won 1-0 in overtime on Nov. 25, 2001, at Clemson, S.C.
At stake: Winner advances to NCAA Tournament quarterfinal match vs. No. 1 seed Oregon State or No. 16 New Hampshire.
