I'm not one who normally likes to posture and talk shit, but I haven't seen alot on the net about UCSB's devastating march through the college nationals field, so here goes. I thought our 1996 National Championship team would be the strongest college team I would be part of, especially losing three four year veterans after the season, all of whom made it to club nationals: Andy Crews (Saucy Jack), Mike Namkung (Randall's Island) and John Shelton (Randall's). While we still had a very strong core of veterans and talented new comers, and knew we would be competitive (i.e. win nationals), our team needed an extra edge to put us over the top. So we came to Nationals with an attitude, knowing we would win. This attitude snowballed as we won more and more games. There were alot of talented and skilled teams at nationals, but ours was mentally toughest. Here's what it brought us:
Closest pool play game, 17-7 against Wisconsin-Madison
Closest game by points, 19-12 against Carleton in semis
Biggest deficit, 1-0 in three of our games
Latest tie in a game, 3-3 against Carleton in semis
Biggest runs: 7-0 against Madison, 11-0 against Cornell
There were only five occasions all weekend that teams scored two goals in a row against us: Stanford twice in finals, Carleton twice in semis, and LSU once in pool play.
Total point differential for the weekend, 123-50 (+73)
The Tide will be back again next year, physically and mentally strong. What about your team?
Matthew "Pepe" Lefevre - Black to Black champion