UCLA soccer star Sasha Victorine had to take a step back and watch in each of the past two seasons. The senior midfielder is stepping forward and scoring more for the Bruins this season.

Victorine, a Corona resident who is the UCLA team captain, has led the Bruins to the second round of the NCAA tournament. UCLA (17-2) will play at No. 3 seed Saint Louis University Sunday. UCLA, an unseeded team, beat the University of San Diego, 4-1, in the first round of the tournament last Sunday.

The 6-2, 165-pound Victorine was a preseason All-America. He has lived up to the billing by having his best year at UCLA. He recorded career highs in goals scored (10) and assists (8). He's a finalist for the Hermann Trophy and the Missouri Athletic Club Award, the highest honors in college soccer.

In 1997, Victorine was sidelined by a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and could only watch as UCLA won the NCAA title with a 2-0 win over Virginia.

Last year, Victorine was a defense-oriented midfielder who watched forward Seth George lead the team in scoring with 15 goals. Victorine scored two goals and had seven assists in 18 games. He was a third-team All-America, and UCLA lost to Creighton, 2-0, in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

UCLA coach Todd Saldana changed Victorine's role this season, allowing the 21-year-old midfielder to move forward and become a far greater part of the attack. In the past, his primary role was to prevent the other team from counterattacking when the Bruins were on offense.

"The past couple of years, I got to watch everybody else go forward and try to score," Victorine said. "To go forward and create chances to score is a lot more fun."

Victorine's role changed in part because of the departure of George, now a member of the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer. Also, Saldana said he felt comfortable enough with his defense to allow Victorine to play forward at times.

"I think he has offensive instincts but he was used defensively before," Saldana said. "He was willing to do what he needs to help the team."

Victorine's offensive threat, Saldana said, takes some of the other team's defensive attention away from McKinley Tennyson Jr., UCLA's leading scorer with 11 goals.

After UCLA took a 4-1 lead on San Diego, Saldana cleared his bench. He left Victorine in the game to lead the underclass reserves. "He's very good at keeping possession of the ball," said Saldana. "We keep him in there to ice the game."

Soccer has been Victorine's game since he started playing with neighborhood children at the age of 4 in Yorba Linda. "I was a kid with a lot of energy," said Victorine. "I don't know if any other sport could take all the energy out of me. Soccer was the only one."

As a child, Victorine would watch a video of Pele doing a bicycle kick and then go into his back yard and practice the maneuver for four to five hours at a time. He'd come in with his limbs covered with mud. The garage door of his family's home was dotted with marks from balls he'd kicked.

A job change by his father, Kim, caused the family to move to the Sacramento area for Sasha's teen-age years. Kim Victorine went ahead and scouted the club soccer situation for his son. Sasha started at Rio Americano High School for four years. As a senior in 1996, he was named a Parade All-American.

Another job by Kim Victorine caused the family to move in 1997 to Corona, where Kim and his wife, Patricia, could live near their daughter, Katricia, and her two children.

Sasha Victorine is a sometimes rival and an occasional teammate with former Corona High star Joey DiGiamarino, now a member of the Colorado Rapids of the MLS. Victorine and DiGiamarino were teammates on the U.S. team that played in the World Cup under-20 tournament in Malaysia in 1997.

In 1996, DiGiamarino's Cal State Fullerton team beat Victorine's Bruins, 2-1, in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

"He's a great guy and a great player," said DiGiamarino of Victorine. "He's really good in the air. He keeps possession of the ball pretty well."

Victorine said he and DiGiamarino have played against each other on select teams since they were boys. "We talk about how we beat each other at younger ages," Victorine said.

Victorine is majoring in economics and has two quarters to go to earn his bachelor's degree. He said he anticipates being drafted by an MLS team next year and will have to return to UCLA to finish his degree at some point in the future.

He played on the United States team that captured the bronze medal at the Pan American Games this summer. He is a member of the pool of under-23 players being considered for the U.S. Olympic team in the year 2000.

Victorine said his dream is to play for the United States in the World Cup but he might not be mature enough as a player by the next one in 2002.

"My best age is going to be in the upper 20s," he said. "I'm maturing a little slower than other players. I'm not as developed, strength-wise, as other players. By the time I'm in my mid- to upper-20s, I should be on top of my game."

Published 11/26/1999