SoCal Tournament: No. 1 USC takes down No. 6 UCSB 15-4 to claim title

The No. 6 ranked Santa Barbara Gauchos streak of beating top five opponents came to an end as they were smoked by top ranked USC Trojans 15-4 at the SoCal Tournament. Had to be tough for UCSB to not jus lose by 11 goals, but also being thoroughly beaten at their home pool.

Their run has to be applauded as they got past No. 2 UCLA Bruins and No. 3 Stanford Cardinal in back-to-back games. USC just happened to be too much for UCSB and the Trojans just ran away with this came early and never looked back.

It did not help that Gauchos head coach Wolf Wigo received a red card in this game. Just a coach standing up for his players.

Despite the blowout loss, UCSB can be confident that they are now a team to be reckoned with after a pair of top-five wins, and when the latest CWPA polls come out on Wednesday it would be a shock to me if they were not the No. 2 ranked team.

No. 4 ranked Cal finished seventh in this tourney, UCSB beat UCLA and Stanford. No. 5 ranked Irvine did get fourth place, and beat Cal in the quarterfinals, but they also got blown out by UCLA 14-8 in the third-place game. In my opinion UCSB did enough to make a case for that No. 2 spot.