All you need to know about the 2006 tournament

By Nina Mandell

In case you missed it, the NCAA's annual tournament to crown the national  champion of men's soccer -- better known as The College Cup -- took place last weekend in St. Louis. If you weren't able to attend, don't worry. SIOC's Nina Mandell was there and has all the important details.

Members of the UCLA Soccer team are all bundled up for the cold St. Louis weather. Photo by Nina Mandell

Biggest surprise: California Santa Barbara. Even their coach left them out to dry halfway through the season after losses to weak sisters such as UC Riverside and Cal State Northridge. Tim Vom Steeg told his wife, "I'm done. I'm I done with this group". On the way back from the UC Riverside loss, the bus bottomed out, a perfect metaphor.

The team then drastically switched its goal from contending for the national title (they were in the finals once -- in 2004, but lost in penalty kicks) to not getting scored on in the first 10 minutes of each game. But the team lost only once after that. Living up to their reputation as rough and unconventional, they amassed 14 cards throughout the tournament, and baffled opponents by switching everything from their players on the field to their setups. "I always said if we could get everyone on the same page, I really liked our team,"  said the obviously mellower Vn Steeg, whose squad is now the first unseeded team to win the tournament since UConn in 2000.

Freshest face: UCLA's walk-on freshman David Estrada. Unrecruited and unnoticed despite scoring 66 goals in high school, Estrada posted a pair of back to back tallies in the semifinals to shut down any hint of competition from soccer dynasty Virginia. He then admitted he was going to cry about it: "I just don't know how to deal with this. I'm very emotional. Every moment I score a goal, it's just unbelievable. My first goal, I thought was the biggest thing in the world. I called my dad and his voice choked up. I'm very shy about it, I'm going to cry. It's just a team come true."

As for pro dreams, Estrada promised to wait at least a year -- presumably to avenge UCLA's loss in the finals.

Most dedicated fans: Cal Santa Barbara's "Gauchos Locos" -- who claim they were the eight non-family members who trekked to the tournament from California, arriving in a place that was declared in a state of emergency last Friday because of a massive ice and snow storm. Bursting into random recounts of the last time that UCSB beat UCLA in the national championship (1979, water polo), the Locos promised to burn couches, get pepper-sprayed and sacrifice, among other things, their dog --- or at least change its name from Casey Keller to Reynish in honor of UCSB goalie Kyle Reynish.

"He'll get it. He'll understand," said Kelly Deakyme of Gauchos Locos, when asked if the name change would confuse her pooch. "The dog's a Gauchos fan."

Sweetest moment (besides the actual championship): The shootout in the semifinal game. Reynish had been in a similar situation two years earlier. Only a sophomore, he had played barely any minutes that season before Von Steeg elected to throw him into goal to block penalty kicks by Indiana in the finals. UCSB lost. Reynish, who has played every game since, said he's been waiting to avenge the defeat. "I definitely had this nightmare that we would never come back [here] and that game would be it," the senior goalkeeper said.

Weirdest strategy: Nick Perera, the College Cup's Most Outstanding Offensive Player, taking himself out of the game. As UCSB was sitting uncomfortably on a 2-1 lead with 10 minutes remaining, Perera elected to leave because of nerves. He had missed an open shot a few minutes earlier and feared that UCLA could come back after its first goal. "I didn't want to scare anyone else, so I subbed myself out," he said.

Biggest losers: The high school club teams who took almost two days to get to the annual tournament next to the College Cup -- a major recruiting spot. The Rochester Rhinos made it to Chicago and tried to take buses to a train station. When the buses couldn't get through the abundance of storm-caused traffic accidents, the Rhinos switched to the Chicago "L" and made it to the station. They then got stuck on Amtrak for 15 hours, making it to St. Louis just in time for the 2:30 a.m. news. The teams -- those that made it -- barely got to play, except for 5-on-5 indoor matches. The Rhinos have one message for the tournament committee: Next year, please hold the damned thing in Florida.