Cal Poly beats UCSB 2-0 for first Blue-Green Rivalry soccer win since 2018

For the first time since 2018, the Cal Poly men’s soccer team beat UC Santa Barbara in the annual Blue-Green Rivalry game, shutting out a nationally ranked Gaucho squad in front of the largest crowd to see a college soccer game this season.

Some 9,657 spirited fans, many decked out in white to cheer on the Mustangs, filled the stands at Mustang Memorial field. It was also Cal Poly’s first time defeating a ranked opponent for the first time since they beat Loyola Marymount in 2019.

Cal Poly wasted little time in seizing an early advantage on the scoreboard, taking a 1-0 lead when senior midfielder and team captain Nate Colley converted a penalty kick in the 11th minute after the Mustangs drew a penalty in the box.

That slim lead then held for an hour of game time before Cal Poly struck again in the 70th minute, when Finn Linas received a pass in the box from Mahoney before Gauchos goalkeeper dove for the ball and was called for a costly foul.

Sophomore Diego Guerra then drilled that penalty kick into the lower left corner of the goal to put the Mustangs up 2-0, a lead that would hold up for the rest of the match.

The Mustangs controlled the pace of the game throughout, outshooting the Gauchos 11 to four. They also tallied eight shots on goal to the Gauchos’ one.

Saturday’s win shows how far the team has come since former head coach Steve Sampson departed in 2022.

The team is in it second season under Head Coach Oige Kennedy, who came here from Stanford as the lead assistant coach prior to last season.

“I think this is where we’ll find out about ourselves because we have to make it more about just winning one game a year or playing against Santa Barbara,” Kennedy said. “The program wants to do more than that. We want to make sure that this is a great reward for all the hard work, but it’s the only the start of what we want to do.”

Where does this game stack up in fan attendance?

The match between the Central Coast rivals is always a packed affair, and this year was no different.

In fact, this year saw an increase in attendance of more than 1,000 fans from last season when 8,128 people turned out.

In the past, the yearly spectacle has been known as much for fans throwing tortillas and other objects onto the field as it has been for the competition.

But Cal Poly has increased security measures around the game since 2021, when it was nearly forfeited due to fans hurling objects onto the field. In 2022, the school even asked local grocery stores to remove tortillas from their shelves.

“I think the fans threw (UC Santa Barbara) off their games more than they would like to admit because those guys looked out of their realm,” Linas said. “They had (nearly) 9,000 people yelling at them, getting them off their game.”

The game saw strong attendance even though the stadium was missing a portion of bleachers, which have been removed for construction of the John Madden Center.

Historically, the attendance number ranks 32nd nationwide for a college men’s soccer game.

A close, but still one-sided rivalry

Even though the Gauchos have dominated the matchup and the Big West conference, the Blue-Green Rivalry game has proved to be a close contest no matter the difference in records coming in.

Twenty-three of the last 31 games between the programs have been decided by one score or a draw.

Overall, UCSB leads the series with 53 wins to Cal Poly’s 20. The teams share 12 ties.

The Gauchos came into the game as a top-15 ranked team in the country with a 6-1-1 record. The Mustangs were 2-3-3 but have won or drawn the last four games.

Last season, the Mustangs fell 1-0. In 2022, UCSB won on a last-minute goal to secure a 2-1 win.