Senior Travis Boccard couldn’t have picked a better time to score the first game-winning goal of his career.

Boccard found the net in the 68th minute, just 2:22 after coming off the bench, to give Colorado College a hard-fought 1-0 victory over No. 17 UC Santa Cruz on Tuesday afternoon at CC’s Stewart Field. The Tigers also claimed the team title of the 2011 Bill Boddington Memorial Tournament with a 2-0 mark and improved to 4-1-2 overall.

“It was the goal I have been waiting for all season and I’m glad to have scored it and help the team to a great win,” said Boccard while clutching championship plaque. “Our whole halftime conversation was about putting pressure on them from the back all the way through. We did a great job of that. We knew going into the game they were a great team. Our defense was awesome.”

Boccard settled a pass from Andrew Salazar in the center of the box, and his blast went high into the goal after deflecting off of a UCSC defender who arrived a split second too late to completely block the shot.

“There’s no better way to win this game than to have a senior, who has been a quality substitute for most of his career, score the winning goal for us,” head coach Horst Richardson said. “I thought about who I was going to put in to give us that hustle, grit and desire. Travis is that kind of player.”

From that point on, the Tigers relied on their defense to shut the door and record the team’s third consecutive shutout.  

The Colorado College defense was so good that junior goalkeeper Brian Graf did not make a save while extending his scoreless streak to 283:30. Graf improved to 4-0-0 and saw his goals-against average drop to 0.88.

The Banana Slugs controlled play early in the game and had four corner kicks during the opening 7:27, but they never posed a serious scoring threat.

Their best chance occurred during the 65th minute when Cody Pillon’s shot from the top left corner of the box rolled just outside the right post.

CC turned up the pressure at the start of the second half and nearly scored during the first two minutes, but Ben Glass’s shot from seven yards out was blocked and Nate Levinson snared Andrew Worthington’s header that was going toward the upper left corner for one of his two saves.

The Tigers launched 12 of their 16 shots in the final 45 minutes, while UC Santa Cruz took just three of their eight total shots in the second frame.

“It was an emotional game against a ranked team, a quality team,” Richardson said. “What we needed to do in the second half was play less of a stylish game and more of a street-type game. It worked out well. At this level, anybody breaks down if you put pressure on them. That was a wonderful lesson for us on how to succeed.”

Colorado College puts its three-game winning streak on the line at Division II Fort Hays State University on Friday night.

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