LOS ANGELES – The No. 4-ranked UCLA men’s soccer team potted a season-high five goals en route to a 5-2 win over Liberty on Friday night at Wallis Annenberg Stadium.
The Bruins’ (3-0-0) five scores were their most in a single game since Milan Iloski’s historic five-goal performance in a 5-2 win against San Diego State on Oct. 6, 2019.
Senior midfielder Riley Ferch was UCLA’s offensive standout on Friday, notching career highs in points (five) and goals (two). He figured in each of the Bruins’ first three scores.
UCLA never trailed in a back-and-forth first half that featured six goals combined by both teams.
Ferch opened the game’s scoring in the 13th minute, making a run through the middle of the 18 and arriving just at the right time to tap in a Jose Contell cross after it took a slight deflection off a Liberty defender and ended up on Ferch’s left foot.
Liberty’s Seth Clark knotted the game up in the 27th minute with a solid strike from above the box that stayed just inside the left post. It was the first goal allowed this season by UCLA in three games.
The 1-1 deadlock proved to be short-lived, as Ferch and junior forward Andre Ochoa teamed up for a go-ahead goal just 50 seconds later. Receiving a ball near the UCLA bench and behind the center line, Ferch hammered a long ball over the top for Ochoa, who out-raced his marker and beat the keeper to the ball just before a second bounce, finishing into an empty net.
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