GHS alum plays starring role in UCSB soccer championship
Gilroy – Alfonso Motagalvan watched University of California-Santa Barbara lose the NCAA Division 1 soccer title game to Indiana in December 2004 during his senior year at Gilroy High.
When he chose to attend UCSB, his goal listed on the school’s Web site was “I want to help the team win a national championship.”
When one considers that the Gauchos had won just one national championship in any sport – in water polo in 1979 – Motagalvan could have been dismissed as an idle dreamer.
As Motagalvan, fighting off a case of food poisoning, sat on the bus returning to the UCSB campus Monday, contemplating the Gauchos’ surrealistic run to the 2006 College Cup, he admitted that he still couldn’t comprehend what had happened in St. Louis over the weekend.
“It’s a dream come true,” said Motagalvan, a sophomore midfielder-defender. “It hasn’t hit me yet. Maybe when we clean out our lockers Tuesday it will sink in. It was kind of like a Cinderella story.”
Nobody could foresee this coming when unranked UCSB was 7-6, coming off a shocking defeat to University of California-Riverside. Coach Tim Vom Steeg was ready to make wholesale changes to shake up his under-performing team. He threatened to do so if the season didn’t change in the next game against Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo.
At the time, Motagalvan didn’t know what to expect. It had been an up-and-down season for the former GHS scholar-athlete, who questioned whether he was at the right school.
“It was not what I expected,” Motagalvan said. “I’d be up (playing) and down (on the bench) and then I stopped playing completely for 6, 7 games. I was about to call it a season. But I couldn’t do it because that’s not the type of person I am.”
Motagalvan stuck it out and waited for his fortune and the team’s to change. When senior defender Jeff Murphy was injured before the NCAA tournament, Motagalvan was moved to the back line. The sophomore played 45 minutes in the semifinal win over Wake Forest and all 90 minutes in the title tilt against UCLA.
In fact, it was almost like old times for Montagalvan who found himself marking high-scoring UCLA freshman David Estrada. Motagalvan was the Central Coast Section Most Valuable Player two years ago and Estrada from Alisal was CCS MVP last year.
“I marked him about three-quarters of the game,” Montagalvan said.
Motagalvan never won a section title at Gilroy. The closest he came was in his junior year when the Mustangs lost to Watsonville in the CCS final.
Despite its lackluster regular season, UCSB gave indications that things would be different in the first tournament game against San Diego State.
“I thought it would be kind of tough because we had beaten them the year before and in preseason this year,” Motagalvan said.
And sure enough, the Gauchos fell behind 1-0.
“Every time we went down 1-0 in the season we couldn’t come back,” Motagalvan said.
But UCSB came back for a 2-1 win. After beating the odds again by defeating No. 3 Southern Methodist University 3-1 in Dallas, the Gauchos were back on the road three days late against Old Dominion. They beat the Monarchs 2-1.
And then came the final home game of the season against Northwestern.
“There were 9,000 fans at the game,” Motagalvan said. “It was not an easy game. We fell behind 2-1, but came back and won 3-2. That made us 7-0 in our last seven home playoff games.”
It also vaulted UCSB into the Final Four. The semifinal games last Friday were postponed because of snow. A bitter cold enveloped Saint Louis University’s Hermann Stadium a day later. First it was UCLA’s turn and the Bruins blasted Virginia 4-0, getting an opportunity to rest their key players late in the game.
Next up was the UCSB-Wake Forest game that would go deep into the night as temperatures continued to drop.
“The coldest I can ever remember feeling at a soccer game,” said GHS coach Brian Hall, who was in attendance.
The game didn’t end until after the teams had traded penalty kicks. It was the worst game the Gauchos played during the tournament.
“We knew that once we went to penalty kicks we were in good shape,” Motagalvan said. “Our goalie (Kyle Reinish) is one of the best in the country at that.”
Motagalvan and the team knew Reinish could handle the pressure. He came off the bench two years earlier to replace All-American Dan Kennedy and made two stops in the penalty-kick portion, lost by UCSB 2-1. This time, the Gauchos outpointed the Demon Deacons 4-3.
“We definitely had to win because we got Under Armour, new jerseys, gloves and cleats for the game,” Motagalvan said.
But there was still UCLA, better rested and already owning a 3-1 win over UCSB earlier in the season.
“We thought they might be a little over-confident,” Motagalvan said. “We just thought we would go hard for 90 minutes and play for ourselves. Even though everything was against us, we were able to win.”
It’s a long way from Gilroy to Santa Barbara, but a journey that Motagalvan has surely enjoyed. Of course, a national championship helps to erase all the bad times, as well as a case of food poisoning.
