UCI less than full strength

SANTA BARBARA — For the UC Irvine men’s soccer team Saturday night, absence made the heart seemingly disappear.

The Anteaters, playing without 2005 Big West Conference Offensive Player of the Year Brad Evans, as well as leading scorer Matt Murphy, were also devoid of much resistance in a 2-0 Big West Conference loss to UC Santa Barbara in front of 1,841 at Harder Stadium.

Evans, the conference Player of the Week the last two weeks, had six goals and three assists in UCI’s first 11 games.

Murphy, a sophomore, had seven goals and three assists.

The duo had helped the Anteaters (8-2-2, 3-1 in conference) earn the No. 7 ranking in the national coaches’ assn. poll, No. 1 in the West Region.

But both served one-game suspensions after being given red cards in Wednesday’s 2-2 nonconference tie at UC Davis.

UCI Coach George Kuntz said Murphy, who had already incurred one yellow card, was given a second yellow (which prompts an automatic red card) with 15 seconds left in regulation Wednesday for kicking the ball away to cause a delay.

Kuntz said Evans, a senior, then came in and said something to the referee, who responded with a red card and an automatic one-game ban.

“Within a span of five seconds, we lost two guys,” Kuntz said. “We missed them tonight.”

With Evans and Murphy unavailable, UCSB (7-5, 3-1), which defeated UCI in the regular-season finale at home last season to bump the Anteaters from what would have been their first conference championship to third place and an eventual NCAA Tournament snub, was able to focus its defense on senior Anthony Hamilton.

“We shut down Hamilton,” Gauchos Coach Tim Vom Steeg said. “It was a great effort from our entire three-man back line.”

UCI was limited to just two shots, only one of which was on goal. Hamilton, who came in with five goals and four assists, did not get a shot.

The best scoring chance for UCI came early in the second half, when Craig Ettinger passed to Rudy Mondragon at the top of the 18-yard box. Mondragon, standing nearly directly between the two goalposts, fired a rising shot inside the right post. But UCSB goalie Kyle Reynish dived and got his hands on the ball, deflecting it wide.

UCSB, which worked well together to create numerous scoring chances, finished with 11 shots, though just three shots were on goal.

Two of the shots on goal found the net off the foot of sophomore forward Nick Perera. Perera, making only his fifth start of the season, came in with only one goal and one assist.

His first goal came after UCI freshman defender Kevin Santora tried to clear the ball, but had his drive carom off UCSB’s Brennan Tennelle. The ball ricocheted to Perera, who settled, dribbled by one defender and, from near the top of the box, booted the ball into the lower left corner, just out of the reach of goalie Kenny Schoeni.

Perera added insurance in the 69th minute, playing give-and-go with Eric Frimpong, who set him up for an open shot that he chipped past a charging Schoeni, who was left defenseless by his back line.

Kuntz said both goals were assisted by UCI mistakes.

“If the goals had been built, then I’d be satisfied,” Kuntz said. “But there were some defensive miscues. For me, that’s the most frustrating part of them scoring.”

Kuntz was also frustrated by a lack of offensive spark from a team that entered the week ranked ninth nationally in scoring at 2.5 goals per game and had not been blanked this season.

“With [Evans and Murphy] out, we played a lot of young players,” Kuntz said. “And I don’t know if they were used to this kind of game. You’ve got to bring it in these games and it was quite obvious that [the Gauchos] played with a lot of desire tonight.”

UCSB pulls into a first-place tie with UCI (10 points each). Cal State Northridge, which visits UCI Wednesday at 7 p.m., is third with eight points.

Vom Steeg, who guided the Gauchos to the NCAA title game in 2004, but had seen his team — on the heels of a 5-0 loss to Cal State Northridge last week — fall out of the national top-25 polls for the first time in more than three years, said it was a must win for his squad.