Storybook Closes on a Successful Fall Season
UCSB Men’s Soccer, Women’s Volleyball, and Westmont Women’s Volleyball Come Up Short
Midway through the first half of the UCSB-Wake Forest match in the NCAA men’s soccer quarterfinals Saturday, a resounding cheer erupted in Dargan’s Irish Pub. The TV screens, which had been blacked out because of connection issues, finally lit up with the action.
Not since the Women’s World Cup last summer had the restaurant been so packed with soccer fans. They were hoping to see the Gauchos spring an upset against the No. 4–seeded Demon Deacons and become the only unseeded team to reach the 2019 College Cup, as they did in 2006 when they won the national championship.
Newlywed UCSB graduates Tim and Jenny Deakyne had followed the Gauchos to St. Louis that year and witnessed their improbable triumph. They won a penalty-kick shootout over Wake Forest in the semifinals and scored a 2-1 victory over UCLA in the title match. “We look back at ’06 as a great Gaucho moment,” Tim Deakyne said.
