In the first team meeting of the season, USD men’s soccer coach Brian Quinn wrote this on the whiteboard:

3+1.

Everyone understood what it meant: Win a third straight West Coast Conference title plus win an NCAA Tournament game.

Mission accomplished. USD got its first NCAA Tournament victory in a decade and first with Quinn as head coach, 1-0 against UC Davis on Thursday night before a large, loud crowd at Torero Stadium in a wild game that featured questionable non-calls in the penalty box and shots slamming off goalposts.

That sends the Toreros (14-2-2) to the airport Friday morning for a cross-country trip to Durham, N.C., where they’ll face No. 10 seed Duke in the second round on Sunday (10 a.m. PST, ESPN+).

“Sometimes you watch video and you have an idea of how teams play,” said Quinn, the WCC coach of the year. “But Davis, to their credit, were probably better than I thought they’d be. They were athletic, dangerous, hard-running and difficult to break down. It took a special goal to win the game.”

That came in the 36th minute, when junior Cesar Bahena stripped an Aggies defender at midfield, took one touch, saw the goalkeeper off his line and then curled a 40-yard chip into the upper left corner of the net as 6-foot-5 Noah Schwengeler frantically, and helplessly, retreated.

You’re a wizard, Cesar! 😱

Bahena with a banger from distance put us up 1-0#GoToreros pic.twitter.com/QvD5fOU3pN

— San Diego Men’s Soccer (@USDmsoccer) November 22, 2024

If the Aggies had watched film of USD’s 3-0 win against San Diego State in August, they would have known that the Escondido High School alum was capable of such an audacious attempt. He did it that night from 40 yards as well.

“The defender messed up,” said Bahena, who sat out the regular-season finale last Saturday with a hamstring injury and came off the bench Thursday. “I saw an opportunity and I had to take it. Thankfully, it went in the back of the net.”

It came 26 minutes after a similar defensive miscue by a USD defender at the top of the box that Toreros goalkeeper Donovan Parisian charged out to thwart.

“That’s capitalizing on opportunities and minimizing your own mistakes,” said longtime UC Davis coach Dwayne Shaffer, whose team lost for the first time in eight games. “Unfortunately, that young man today scored a great goal off our mistake. But it was a great goal. Take your hat off to the young man.”

The Toreros could have just as easily won 5-0. Referee Brandon Stevis twice waved off what replays indicated were strong candidates for penalty kicks. And different USD players had shots hit the post three minutes apart in the second half.

Gifted one reprieve after another, the Aggies (10-6-6) pressed forward for the equalizer and nearly got it in the 78th minute, when the diving Parisian had to reach up to nab a shot that deflected off a defender.

Through it all, Quinn remained calm. Or at least he claims he did.

“With this team and the way they’ve played all year, at some stage you’ve got to be the spectator and trust the guys, and I think I’m at that stage now with this team,” Quinn said. “When you win games 1-0, you have to do a lot of things right. And we’ve won a lot of 1-0 games this year.”

Thursday was their sixth.

Their 14 total wins ties them for most in the nation with Ohio State, Clemson, Penn and Hofstra. The other four, though, all received a top 16 seed and a first-round bye in the 48-team bracket. USD did not, meaning it must play a rested Duke team (and the nation’s No. 1 offense) on short rest after traveling 2,193 miles.

Of the 16 first-round winners that traveling for weekend games, USD is the only one that must go coast to coast. Nearly all the others are bus trips.

At least the Toreros don’t need much time to prepare a scout and familiarize themselves with the Blue Devils. They played them Aug. 22 at Torero Stadium and tied 2-2 after dominating much of the game.

“We tied them,” Bahena said, “but we have a really big belief that we can beat them this time.”

Or as Quinn put it: “Now we have to be 3+1+1.”

Originally Published: November 21, 2024 at 11:22 PM PST