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Division I NCAA women's tournament Adams strikes four times; UCLA rolls over Virginia 5-0 to semifinals.
With Adams increasing her season's goals total to 20 and becoming the second Bruin ever to score four goals in a game, UCLA (21-1-2) advanced to the Women's College Cup in College Station Tex. and will meet Florida State (20-3-1) in a Friday semifinal. Florida State advanced to the Final Four, defeating No. 2 North Carolina 5-4 on penalty kicks after the teams played a 1-1 draw in Chapel Hill, N.C. UCLA has outscored its opponents 21-0 in four NCAA tournament matches. "(Danesha) is the fastest kid in the country I believe," said UCLA coach Jillian Ellis, who has now guided four Bruins teams to the College Cup. "Her pace is always a factor in the game. It was just a great team effort. The defense played fantastic, the midfielders were unbelievable. I'm just extremely happy with our performance this evening because Virginia is a great team." UCLA jumped out to an early 1-0 lead after 3:28 when Adams sneaked behind Virginia's back line to gather a ball sent through by senior striker Iris Mora. Adams' right-footed shot went just under Cavaliers junior goalkeeper Christina de Vries, who dove to her right trying to stop the shot. UCLA expanded its margin to 2-0 at 54:23 when Adams knocked home a rebound of her own shot. Adams' initial shot was deflected by de Vries with the ball going high into the air. Before de Vries could catch it, Adams headed into net. Adams' third goal of the night came at 61:05 after she ran onto another through ball, this time sent in from freshman midfielder Christina DiMartino. Freshman forward Kara Lang got into the act at 72:09 when she scored from about eight yards out on the right side with DiMartino and Mora credited with assists on that goal. Lang, who has seven goals and an assist, finding net in each of the four NCAA tournament outings, has 16 goals for the season. Adams completed the scoring for the Bruins at 81:13, converting a through ball from freshman midfielder McCall Zerboni. It marked the third time in the match that Adams was able to get past the Virginia defense to create a one-on-one opportunity against de Vries. "Give UCLA credit, they played better in every phase of the game and deserved to win," Virginia coach Steve Swanson said. "We picked a bad time to have an off-night, as this wasn't the same team I have seen all season. This is a tough end to a very positive season. We had a lot of success this season with a very young team, and our seniors did a terrific job leading this year." UCLA outshot the Cavaliers 16-6 with de Vries making two saves and sophomore Valerie Henderson stopping four shots for the Bruins. UCLA set a new school record for victories in a season with 21, replacing the old mark of 20 set in 2001 and 2003. |
