The field next to Harder Stadium is looking as crowded as Isla Vista on Halloween night.
The practice pitch for the UC Santa Barbara men’s soccer team has been swarming with a horde of students — 36 to be exact. They all, however, are wearing the same costume: the uniform of the Gauchos.
“I look around at practice and I’m like, ‘Are we running a camp thing here?’” coach Tim Vom Steeg mused, referring to the largest roster in Gaucho soccer history.
The situation is a side effect of the COVID-19 crisis. The numbers impacting his program, however, aren’t infections but repetitions.
With a larger pool of top-flight players, UCSB coach Tim Vom Steeg has adopted a fast-paced style of play. “It’s a very tiring game to play but the other team also has a very tough time staying with you if all the pieces are moving,” he says. (UC Santa Barbara photo)
Seniors were allowed to return for another year after the pandemic wiped out their 2020 season. The NCAA also permitted larger rosters, raising the previous limit of 9.9 scholarships per team.
“For the first time in 23 years, I know what it feels like to have 13 scholarships,” said Vom Steeg, who has his son, Carson, William Gillingham and Ameyawu Muntari back for an extra season. “For the first time, I submitted a roster before a game that had two pages.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever had to staple a roster together before a game.”
The two-sided Gauchos used that depth to gain a lopsided result on Thursday, with 22 Gauchos contributing to a 7-1 rout of the University of San Diego.
It helped Vom Steeg keep his starters fresh for Sunday’s 7 p.m. home contest against powerhouse Cal. Depth is especially vital in college soccer, where teams play two matches a week.
“Those are players you wouldn’t normally have on your squad,” the veteran coach said. “Carson and Will and Muntari are three really, really good players, and they add to the other 14, 15 players that you were counting on.”
Sunday’s contest figures to be an important one for UCSB’s NCAA tournament résumé.
“We’ve got Cal, Stanford and Oregon State on our schedule, and all three can compete for a championship,” he said. “Those games are circled on your calendar. You pick up wins against Pac-12 schools, you can really set your course for the rest of your season.”
UCSB’s depth was most evident on Thursday’s score sheet. Five first-half goals were scored by five different Gauchos, beginning with Vom Steeg’s son in just the fourth minute.
Muntari’s two goals during the second half gave them the highest team total ever scored during a regular-season contest in Vom Steeg’s 23 seasons as coach.
Carson Vom Steeg (5) is one of three Gaucho seniors who returned for an extra season after the 2020 campaign was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic. (Felipe Garcia / Noozhawk file photo)
He knows, however, that a two-sided roster can become a double-edged sword. It will be a challenge to keep everybody happy with playing time.
“We’re bringing Rigo (Barragan, a senior defender) in with 19 minutes left, and I think Rigo starts for most Division 1 programs,” Vom Steeg said. “It’s a great luxury to have. We just need to keep growing.”
His list of available players will soon grow even larger. Two key Gauchos — junior midfielder Sam Fletcher and freshman defender Ramses Martinez — didn’t even suit up for Thursday’s opener. Fletcher broke his foot during the spring season while Martinez won’t be eligible until he completes summer school.
“The scary part is that Sammy got cleared to play (on Sunday), so that’s another huge pickup,” Vom Steeg said. “And then we’ll get Ramses the first week of September, and he was very impressive for us last spring.
“You look at our overall talent from one to 22, and it’s very competitive and everyone competes and everyone cares. But more than that, I think there’s a mutual respect, and that’s the only way can you navigate with all the numbers. The players appreciate the fact that we have a lot of us.”
He has had to make several accommodations for the larger roster, beginning with the grocery list for the preseason team barbecue at the Vom Steeg house.
“We ended up having to cook nine tri-tips,” he laughed. “And when we set up our pregame meals, we now need to make reservations for 40.
“Our locker room is built for 32 people, so we’re doubling up at some of the lockers. It’s all across the board. But as I said, there is a mutual respect and we all understand that this is a good team with lots of good players, and I think the guys have been very accommodating.
“If it means grabbing a couple of extra chairs out of the back because even our team meeting room doesn’t have 36 chairs, then that’s what we have to do.”
Vom Steeg has been making hockey-like line changes even during the workouts to maintain cohesion. It helps to have six forwards who all have a knack for scoring.
“We’ve never had anything like that before,” he said. “They’re very familiar with each other because I bring three of them in at the same time — the same three forwards who have been playing together during the preseason.”
The accommodations for the larger roster have extended all the way to UCSB’s style of play.
“In order for me to put in 19, 20 or even 21 players, we basically introduced a system of play that requires us to just move the ball,” he said. “It’s actually less of a system and more of a philosophy, and that philosophy is, ‘Everyone on this field moves, everyone on this field runs.’
“It’s a very tiring game to play but the other team also has a very tough time staying with you if all the pieces are moving.”
He admits that it’s requited a “bit of a culture change.”
“Most of the players we get, let’s be honest, like being on the ball,” Vom Steeg said. “They’re skillful players. But our motto now is, ‘Can we do everything we’re doing now with less touches? If you can complete the pass with one touch or two touches, then don’t take the four.’
“It’s a work in progress, of course, because you’re trying to change a mentality.”
Although this is his deepest team ever, his last squad before COVID-19 also had a luxury of numbers. That team bounced back from an early season, 3-0 loss to Cal and advanced all the way to the NCAA quarterfinals with a 15-5-4 record.
Gillingham, a defender from New Zealand, is the only starter back from that team, although many of this year’s stars did come off the bench that season.
UCSB, which hasn’t beaten Cal since 2003, will try to snap a five-match losing streak to the Golden Bears.
Those defeats include a controversial 2-1 defeat in the second round of the 2010 NCAA tournament in which All-American Luis Silva received a questionable red card. His ejection left the Gauchos a man short for the last 75 minutes.
“At this point, we should learn a lot more about ourselves this weekend,” Vom Steeg said.
Red cards notwithstanding, he figures to have plenty of hands on deck for the task.
— Noozhawk sports columnist Mark Patton is a longtime local sports writer. Contact him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook. The opinions expressed are his own.
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