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  BRIDGET O'BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Scot Thompson attempts to head the ball during a game against LMU. UCLA narrowly defeated Santa Clara 1-0 in overtime Thursday.

By Brian Thompson

Daily Bruin Contributor

In this Olympic year, the UCLA men’s soccer season can be compared to Michael Johnson’s running of the 400 meters in Sydney.

The Bruins shot out of the blocks quickly, stringing together a 7-0 record to go to the front of the field and earn the No. 1 ranking in the nation.

But now they’re heading down the backstretch of their season. They know that they must maintain a high level of play since the rest of the pack is hunting them down.

The next team trying to catch UCLA is St. Mary’s College, which comes to Westwood on Sunday for a 2 p.m. game at Drake Stadium.

“I think we’re sitting in a really good position,” UCLA head coach Todd Saldaña said. “Going into the season, we wanted to make sure we challenged ourselves. And we’re at that part of the season where [challenges] come frequently.”

Since the fast climb to the top of the polls, UCLA has maintained its status as the team to beat. While most observers expect this type of play from UCLA, the fact that the team has 14 freshmen on the roster makes this feat even more impressive.

“The freshmen are really stepping up,” junior midfielder Ryan Futagaki said. “I think what’s helping us is the work rate that we’re all putting in. All of the guys are hustling. We have a strong bench and that makes us a better team than last year. Last year, we didn’t have as much depth on the bench.”

Last week, the Bruins downed UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara.

On their home field last week, the Anteaters took the Bruins to overtime, but freshman Adolfo Gregorio scored the golden goal two minutes into the extra frame to preserve UCLA’s undefeated streak.

Last Sunday against the Gauchos, the Bruins started off slowly.

Without playmaking midfielder Shaun Tsakiris, who was out nursing a back injury, UCLA had trouble gaining any rhythm offensively. The Bruins, however, were able to pull away in the second half with goals by forwards McKinley Tennyson, Jr. and Cliff McKinley.

Thursday night against Santa Clara the Bruins again had trouble on the offensive front, as the Broncos kept the game scoreless until it went into overtime. There the Bruins managed to notch their seventh straight win when Tsakiris, who was subbed into the game, scored the team’s lone goal on a penalty kick.

Coming off of Thursday’s big game on the road, the Bruins enter that part of the year when their season comes to a grind. While the team has played well, almost everyone believes that the Bruins’ best soccer is still ahead of them.

“I think we could be doing a lot better,” sophomore defender Scot Thompson said. “Our potential is so much higher than we’ve played.”

UCLA could reach that potential by restoring Futagaki and Tsakiris to the Bruin lineup.

While Futagaki is still more than a week away from returning as he heals his injured knee, Saldaña hopes to play Tsakiris on Sunday.

“Shaun is a playmaker,” Saldaña said. “He can go get the ball off of our defense, pick and choose the right passes. He controls the rhythm for us.”

Thompson agrees that Tsakiris’ addition will help the Bruins tremendously.

“He connects the defense to the offense,” he said. “Without him there, it’s kind of hard to bridge that gap.”

With or without Tsakiris, the Bruins will be ready for the Gaels on Sunday.

While St. Mary’s has a losing record, the Gaels know they can make a name for themselves with a victory at UCLA. They are led by freshman Alex Monsalve, who has three goals on the year. They should also be boosted by the debut of freshman defender John Duffy, who missed the first seven games because of an injury.

Saldaña, for one, is ready for his team to be tested.

“It ís time to find out what we’re really made of,” he said. “We have a tough game every week now.”

“But we’re sitting in the position that we wanted,” he added. “The guys know that we still have a lot of room for growth. I think that’s a good sign. If I was saying right now, ‘We’ve played our best soccer of the year,’ I would be concerned.”

The process of molding his young team into champions continues on Sunday. If the Bruins still want to be at the head of the pack when they come down the homestretch, they will have to maintain and build on the pace they have already established.