Four UCSD Men Recognized by CCAA

November 7, 2014

TURLOCK, Calif. - Four UC San Diego men’s soccer players were recognized by the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) when 2014 postseason awards were announced during a banquet Thursday night on the Cal State Stanislaus campus ahead of Friday’s semifinal round of the CCAA Championships.

Brandon Bauman was one of four midfielders on the 11-player All-CCAA First Team. Newcomers Sean Pleskow and Kuba Waligorski each made the 11-player All-CCAA Second Team. Junior goalkeeper Cameron McElfresh earned All-CCAA honorable mention. All four Tritons were first-time selections.

Bauman, a senior captain out of Huntington Beach (Huntington Beach HS) who completed his second season at UCSD following a transfer from Orange Coast College, started all 11 CCAA matches. He led the Tritons offensively from his playmaker position with three goals, including late game-winners in key 1-0 road wins at rivals Cal State L.A. and Chico State, and five assists for 11 total points. Bauman also had team bests of 20 shots and 10 shots on goal in league play.

Waligorski is a redshirt sophomore transfer from Division I Dayton who hails from Szczecin, Poland. The center back was the only UCSD field player who was on the pitch for all 1070 minutes over 11 league games, six of them shutouts, adding one goal offensively in a 2-2 tie at Humboldt State on Oct. 26.

Pleskow is a true freshman out of Culver City and Loyola High School who came off the bench in nine of the 11 CCAA contests on the right wing. He provided three goals to match Bauman’s total, and one assist for seven total points. All three of his shots on goal in league play, wound up in the back of the opposing net.

McElfresh, like Waligorski, played every minute of UCSD’s 11 CCAA matches. One of two goalkeepers garnering honorable mention, the Palo Alto native out of Henry M. Gunn High School posted six clean sheets over the 11 league games, with a 0.67 goals-against average, 23 saves and a .742 save percentage.

UCSD earned its second straight CCAA Championship berth in 2014. As the No. 3 seed, the Tritons battled sixth-seeded Cal State Stanislaus to a 0-0 draw through 110 minutes of soccer in La Jolla last Sunday, Nov. 2, before being eliminated via penalty-kick tiebreaker, 5-4.

The Tritons were rated No. 7 in the third installment of the official NCAA West Region poll released on Wednesday. The top six make the NCAA Championship field, which will be unveiled this coming Monday, Nov. 10. With no further involvement in the CCAA Championship this weekend, UCSD does not have the ability to play its way into the NCAA tournament, but it awaits Monday’s announcement nonetheless to learn its ultimate fate.

UCSD completed the 11-game conference slate at 5-2-4, and is 10-4-5 overall.

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