SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. - Sixth-seeded defending champion UC Irvine used its strength on set pieces with perfect precision all afternoon and cruised past No. 4 seed Long Beach State, 3-0, in Sunday’s final of the 2022 Big West Women’s Soccer Championship at host Cal Poly’s Mustang Memorial Field Presented by Dignity Health.

A season-best fourth consecutive victory moves UC Irvine to 10-5-6 overall. The Anteaters’ previous two wins were also shutouts, both in overtime, to begin their postseason run. They needed a 4-1 home triumph over Hawai’i on the final day of the regular season, on Oct. 27, just to qualify for the league tourney. Long Beach State’s 2022 campaign comes to an end at 8-7-6. The Beach had taken two in a row coming in.

This is a second Big West Championship title for UC Irvine under 16th-year head coach Scott Juniper, and third in all, with the first one back in 1997. LBSU was looking for its fifth trophy and first since 2018.

With automatic bid in hand, UC Irvine advances on to again represent The Big West in the 64-team 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship. That selection show will air live on NCAA.com at 1 p.m. PT this Monday, Nov. 7. UCI has earned a fourth appearance and second in succession for the second time in program history (2010-11).

UC Irvine grabbed the lead just 7:26 into this one, using the tried and true method of an Amber Huff corner kick. The fifth-year senior midfielder’s attempt from the right side was deflected out by a teammate. Alex Jaquez sent a left-footed shot back in from around 23 yards out. Erin Covey was camped out in the center of the six-yard box and stuck out her right boot to flick the ball through sophomore Beach goalkeeper Zora Standifer’s legs for the game’s opening goal. It was Covey’s third of 2022, and a fifth assist for Jaquez.

In pursuit of an equalizer, Long Beach State got strong shots off from distance that both narrowly missed the target, by Big West Freshman of the Year Cherrie Cox in the 12th minute, and Aimee Medwin in the 13th. Cox’s right-footer from the right diagonal inside the penalty area was parried out for a corner kick by UCI goalie Glo Hinojosa.

Beach redshirt freshman Sara Ybarra had another such effort in the 32nd minute sail above the crossbar.

Just moments later in the 35th, it was 2-0, and indeed yet again from a Huff corner kick. Once more from the right side, this time Suus de Bakker got a clean header on it right out front for a second goal on the year. Huff’s assist was a league-leading eighth. The duo had combined in that same manner for the 95th-minute overtime opener in UCI’s 2-0 first-round decision at Cal State Fullerton exactly one week prior. As a matter of fact, the clincher in the 102nd minute that night was also a direct header, from Destinee Manzo, off a right-sided Huff corner.

Rather incredibly, it was Huff involved heavily again, from a throw-in on this instance, in making it a 3-0 game heading toward halftime at 41:12. Reserve forward Autumn Thompkins got a delicate right-footed flick to Huff’s left-sided throw-in at the near post, and the ball trickled over the line for the true sophomore’s first tally of the year.

Huff had showed off that strong throw less than two minutes earlier, bombing one into the penalty area from the left as well for Thompson to get a head on. Standifer caught that one easily.

Neither team could find the back of the net during the second half.

Hinojosa finished with three stops for UCI, including a nice 70th-minute denial of Elysia Laramie, to pick up a conference-best 10th clean sheet and match a single-season collegiate high from 2021. The fifth-year junior was named The Big West Championship Most Valuable Player following the match. A product of Chula Vista, Hinojosa has played all 1,930 minutes this season, and not allowed a single goal in five career Big West tournament dates, now with 490 shutout minutes for the event. Standifer came up with four saves in the opposite net.

Eight of Huff’s nine assists have come over the ‘Eaters’ past four games, with five in The Big West Championship a new tournament record, surpassing Cal State Fullerton’s Rebecca Wilson’s four in 2015. Four of Huff’s helpers were from corner kicks, and the fifth from a throw-in. A Huff corner also led to UCI’s only other goal in its three tourney games over eight days, to begin Sunday’s final.

UCI had 16 shots for the afternoon, with LBSU at 11. In what marks the likely end of a remarkable college career, 2022 Big West Offensive Player of the Year Lena Silano managed two of those Beach attempts. The fifth-year senior topped The Big West with a career-high 16 goals.

The regular-season meeting in this Black and Blue Rivalry had ended in a 1-1 draw in Irvine on Oct. 9. Covey also provided the 36th-minute opener in that one, with Cox leveling in the 66th.

Sunday marked the fourth time the two rivals faced off in a Big West Championship final. The first three instances all went the way of the Beach, 3-0 at home in 2016, and 1-0 in back-to-back years in 2010 and 2011, both in Irvine. All in all, it was an eighth Big West title tilt for LBSU, now at 4-3-1 in such contests. UCI played in its seventh championship game, with the ‘Eaters 3-4.