Quincy McMahon sets tone in NCAA women’s soccer championship
By RICHIE HALL
It was one of the most remarkable comebacks ever made: The UCLA women’s soccer team winning the 2022 national championship game on Dec. 5.
The Bruins trailed North Carolina by two goals late in the second half, but blasted back to tie the game, making up those goals in the final 10 minutes. UCLA then scored in overtime, and the national championship trophy was in the hands of the Bruins.
A Guerin Catholic star was part of the victory. Quincy McMahon, a 2021 graduate who led the Golden Eagles to two IHSAA state finals appearances, is now in the middle of her sophomore year at UCLA. McMahon was an integral part of the Bruins’ run, helping the team to a 22-2-1 record and its second national championship; UCLA also won in 2013.
Overtime Experience
By the time the Bruins reached the national final game, they had become quite prepared when it came to overtime contests. UCLA beat Central Florida in a penalty-kick shootout in the Round of 32, then needed overtime to get past Virginia 2-1 in the quarter-finals.
That put the Bruins in the semi-finals, which were played at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, N.C. on Dec. 2. While she is a defender, McMahon got a chance to show that she is solid on offense during UCLA’s national semi-final game with Alabama.
McMahon assisted Reilyn Turner on the Bruins’ first goal, then scored the second goal early in the second half. It was her second goal of the tournament, as McMahon scored a second-half insurance goal to put UCLA up 2-0 over Northwestern in the Bruins’ Round of 16 game. (McMahon had three goals for UCLA during the season, also scoring during a regular-season contest with Washington on Oct. 30. McMahon also made six assists during the season.)
“Quincy brings endless hard work and humility to our group,” said Bruins coach Margueritte Aozasa. “She is relentless in how she plays and her quiet determination drives us forward. On the field, she loves to go forward and join the attack, often creating problems for our opponents. In fact, she played a role in so many of our goals sometimes it felt like she was playing forward!”
“Of all the unbelievable players on UCLA, Quincy is a tone setter,” said Guerin Catholic soccer coach Sean Yau, who coached McMahon during her senior season for the Golden Eagles. “She brings a work rate that has no peers in my opinion.”
Yau said that since McMahon plays the left back position, her primary duty is to defend the opponent’s best player. “But what makes her special is her attacking acumen on the left flank where she is so dangerous going 1v1 and providing an extra punch in the final third,” he said. “There are not many individuals that can do that, and the ones that do, bring this confidence to their team that is so contagious and makes them all play at a high level. She is the ultimate team player. She just happens to do this on a National Championship team.”
With the victory in the semis, the Bruins would take on the Tar Heels for the national championship. The two teams had met during the regular season, with UCLA winning 2-1. Because of that, McMahon said the Bruins were aware of the depth of UNC’s attacking line.
“From a defensive side, it is difficult to continue to defend when they are able to sub in new top-quality forwards every 20-30 minutes,” said McMahon. “With that being said we understood how dangerous they were in both transition and attacking in wide spaces. To their credit in that game, they were brilliant going forward. With a team that good it was important for our backline to understand that mistakes would happen and that we could not dwell on those mistakes but instead move forward as a team and respond positively.”
Flurry of Goals
Neither team scored in the first half of the championship game. The Tar Heels broke through in the 59th minute with a goal by Avery Patterson, and she scored again in the 75th minute to put UNC ahead 2-0. The Bruins were down by a sizable margin, but they remained confident.
“I can confidently say that throughout the whole game, I don’t think anyone on our team thought we were out of the game for good,” said McMahon. “Throughout the course of the season, we had shown that we were capable of scoring multiple goals in under 10 minutes.”
And that’s what UCLA did. Lexi Wright got the Bruins on the board with a goal in the 80th minute, nailing a rebound shot after an initial attempt was stopped by the Tar Heels goalkeeper.
“This experience allowed us to stay confident and when we scored that goal in the 80th minute it solidified to all of us that the game was back in our control,” said McMahon. “There was an extensive buildup to the corner. I felt that as a team those last 10 minutes we were super dangerous in the attacking third.”
The Bruins tied it up with 17 seconds left in the game when Turner took an Ally Lemos corner kick and made a header into the upper left corner of the goal.
“For that reason, the corner just felt like another opportunity we had a good chance of putting away,” said McMahon. UCLA outshot the Tar Heels 20-13 in the championship; McMahon made one shot during the game.
“In regard to that moment, I remember feeling oddly peaceful,” said McMahon. “I understood that this was our last opportunity and if we didn’t score we would lose the game. But I also fully understood that everyone on their team would give everything they could at that moment to score.”
McMahon said that when Turner found the back of the net, no one on the team was surprised. Instead, they were “excited that we would now have the opportunity to go win the game,” she said.
With the score 2-2, the game went to overtime, which consisted of two 10-minute periods with the teams switching goals after the first period. Neither team scored during the first overtime, but UCLA got it done in the second overtime, as Maricarmen Reyes scored a goal that was similar to the Bruins’ first goal: Reyes put in a rebound shot that had been saved by the UNC goalkeeper.
Reyes scored her goal with in the 107th minute of the game. There were still three minutes left to play, but UCLA held on for the win. One of the more compelling moments during that time was Reyes’ emotion after she scored the game-winning goal.
“As a group in the preseason, we came together and decided what our core values would be,” said McMahon. “These values are consistency, family, accountability, and trust.”
And while those are all good values, McMahon said that “none of them could be accomplished without love. Most importantly love for the game and love for each other. Maricarmen is the perfect example of this and she was able to display to everyone the pure passion and love we all have tried to cultivate from our first practice together.”
“For our team, it was not that we won a national championship that meant something to us,” said McMahon. “Instead, it was the way we did it. For this team the last year hasn’t been easy, going through a coaching change and the uncertainty of how that would go. Through everything that happened this team did it together and we did it fiercely with courage and love. So it is not the championship title that meant the most for us, instead, it was showcasing to everyone the love, determination, and fight that we show each other every day and going after something we know we deserved.”
McMahon and the UCLA team were all smiles after their remarkable victory, coming back from a 2-0 deficit late in the second half to force overtime before the Bruins scored in the extra period to win. (Photo provided)
All 110 minutes
McMahon and her teammates definitely worked for that national championship. In fact, McMahon and four other UCLA players were on the field for all 110 minutes of the final. The other four were goalkeeper Lauren Brzykcy, defenders Lilly Reale and Jayden Perry and midfielder Madelyn Desiano.
“Quincy played consistent minutes for us all year but in our run to the championship it felt like we couldn’t take her off the field,” said Aozasa. McMahon played the entire game in five of UCLA’s post-season contests, from the Round of 32 all the way to the championship.
“Not only does this allude to her commitment to her preparation and fitness, it also alludes to her competitiveness,” said Aozasa. She simply finds a way to be successful on the field no matter how tired she is.”
“In a game of that caliber, emotions were high even days before kickoff,” said McMahon. “In the offseason and during the season our coaches were very intentional in preparing us for both these emotions and the pressure of the moment. Coach Marg has always reminded us that we may bend but we will never break. I fully believe this ideology allowed us to not get overwhelmed when things weren’t going our way but instead to own each moment and stay confident in each other.
“Additionally, from an on-field standpoint, we have practiced a million times in situations when we were either up or down a goal for any 10-minute period. During these training sessions, the coaches try to make things as chaotic and game-like as possible. Once the reality of the game turned into a goal with 10 minutes left as a team we knew we had been there before and were prepared to take it on.”
Similarities
Before she got to UCLA, McMahon already knew about being part of successful teams. McMahon played for Guerin Catholic in her freshman and senior years, and helped the Golden Eagles to Class 3A state runner-up finishes both times. During her sophomore and junior years, McMahon played for Valor Christian High School in Highlands Ranch, Colo., leading the Eagles to the state finals.
McMahon said that while the circumstances were “definitely different” when it came to Guerin Catholic and UCLA, “it is funny to realize the similarities between both teams,” she said. “At GC my senior year we had just undergone a coaching change as well as a culture shift similar to what I experienced at UCLA this year.”
The 2022 season was Aozasa’s first year as the UCLA coach, this after having a successful run at Stanford University for seven years, including a pair of national championships in 2017 and 2019. Yau took over the Golden Eagles program during McMahon’s senior year at Guerin Catholic in 2020.
“I am incredibly proud of her,” said Yau. “We text each other regularly to wish each other luck before games. For her to continue feeling that pride for Guerin Catholic while focusing on her UCLA duties, is incredibly humbling for me as a coach.”
McMahon gave more reasons for the similarities between her experiences for the Golden Eagles in high school and the Bruins in college.
“Additionally, for both groups, we had a very strong close-knit senior class that was a great leadership example,” said McMahon. “Lastly, and something I believe is pivotal for a championship team is that everyone was bought into the same idea. At GC we knew we wanted to make it to a state championship and did everything we could to make that happen. Similarly, at UCLA everyone understood that we were capable of competing for a national title and it would take both work and sacrifice to get there.”
That hard work and sacrifice paid off for McMahon and her Bruins team, with a memorable win to deliver a well-deserved national championship