UC Davis, the 24th-ranked team in the nation, advanced to the Big West Tournament's championship game for the third year in a row thanks to a dominating performance over Cal State Fullerton in Saturday's semifinal matchup at Aggie Soccer Field.

Max Arfsten scored his first goal as an Aggie in the 15th minute, which gave his team an early advantage, and erased any momentum the Titans generated up to that point.
 
On one end of the field, the Aggies peppered CSF goalkeeper Paul-Andre Guerin with one shot after another; UC Davis out-shot the Titans 10-2 in the first half, 15-2 in the second, and prevented Cal State Fullerton from recording its first shot of the day for the first 40 minutes of the game.

Two Titan team saves prevented the Aggies from further extending that one-goal advantage, but Adam Mickelson sealed the result for UC Davis by scoring on a 1v1 opportunity in the 56th minute, which pushed his team's lead to a 2-0 margin, the game's final score.

The Big West Tournament has proved to be tricky to navigate for the UC Santa Barbara men's soccer team over the years, but the 15th-ranked and second-seeded Gauchos came up big in their 2-0 defeat of sixth-seeded CSUN on Saturday night at Harder Stadium to qualify for their first conference tournament final in four years and their sixth trip to the championship match in program history.

"It was a really good night for us. I thought that having a week to prepare for this game allowed for a few players to get healthier, and I thought we were fresh. It was very important for us to get goals in the first half. The first goal was big and I thought the second goal was the best one all season. We're excited because we think this does enough for us in terms of [getting into] the NCAA Tournament, but we have a very exciting game at Davis up ahead," said UCSB head coach Tim Vom Steeg following the match.

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