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In the spirit of Halloween, I give you the scariest sports story on campus.

They involve spells, witchcraft, black cats and primarily a curse – a curse far greater than the curse of the Bambino, the curse of the Billy Goat or the curse of Steve Lavin (wait, he was just bad):

The curse of the UCLA women’s soccer team.

How else do you explain the following:

• UCLA lost a playoff game last year despite giving up 0 shots, 0 shots on goal and 0 corner kicks.

• UCLA lost a playoff game the year before that after allowing three shots compared to taking 28 themselves.

• In 2000, the Bruins were leading North Carolina in the NCAA championship game, 1-0, but gave up two goals in the final 27 minutes, the second being an own goal. The team has a history of critical players getting hurt before critical parts of the season (Jill Oakes, 2002; Lindsay Greco, 2001; Nandi Pryce, 2000; Tracey Winzen, 1999).

Are they cursed, or is it bad luck?

“I hope we’re not cursed,” coach Jill Ellis said. “Soccer is such a high-speed and high-contact sport. I don’t think we’re cursed despite all the adversity.”

You might attribute all of it to mere flukes.

I was not a believer in the curse either, until the past two weeks.

Consider the team’s goalkeeping situation, the most important position on any soccer team.

Oct. 19 – Starter Sarah Lombardo suffers a season-ending injury. Freshman Arianna Criscione was named the starter, and the team has only one active goalie.

Oct. 21 – Third stringer and walk-on Jaclyn Harwood returns to the team as a backup goalie. Harwood had taken time off to study for LSATs, and returned to the team after they had tried out midfielder Whitney Jones at goalie. Jones hadn’t played goalie since she was seven.

Oct. 23 – Criscione shows up to practice wearing a boot. Luckily, it was only because of a mildly sprained ankle.

Oct. 26 – Harwood breaks her middle finger in warmups, leaving the team with one goalie again.

Tuesday – Softball catcher Emily Zaplatosch joins the team as the new backup goalie, even though she hadn’t played soccer since high school.

Granted, Zaplatosch was a soccer star in high school, compiling 52 shutouts – 17 in a row. But when you’re on your fourth goalie of the year (she played in Wednesday’s match), something is going on.

“My teammates are great,” Zaplatosch said Wednesday, after meeting them for the first time an hour before the game.

Not only did she not meet any of her teammates until an hour before the game, that’s when Zaplatosch received all of her equipment.

If the team didn’t have anything of Zaplatosch’s size in storage, they would’ve had to make an emergency shopping trip.

All this for a fourth goalkeeper, a player rarely used.

Some teams do carry four goalkeepers, but seldom use all four, and when they do, it’s not because three were injured.

“I like keeping the position more competitive,” Ellis said. “When you carry four, the fourth never gets any playing time.”

Well, the third hardly ever gets any playing time either.

Harwood had recorded all of two saves in the last two years.

And should Criscione and Zaplatosch go down, Ellis could either use Jones or a couple of students who walked into her office this week and volunteered their services. At this point, I wouldn’t call it unthinkable.

“I’ve played soccer for years and never got injured,” Zaplatosch said Tuesday night. “Knock on wood, it won’t happen to me now.”

Then again, Zaplatosch probably just jinxed herself. For the sake of the women’s soccer team, let’s hope Criscione will not do the same.

Gilbert thinks the Expos are cursed. Youppi!!! E-mail Quiñonez at gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.