Big West Championship

UCI Men's Soccer team won the Big West Championship for the first time in UCI's history. UCI played against UCSB in the finals in front of a nearly sold out crowd. I ended up with some mediocre action shots but also left with some good reactions and celebration.

With 5 minutes left in the game, UCI was winning 4-2. I knew it was over. I quickly rushed over to my bag and switched my 70-200mm for a 17-40mm. I was thinking that when it was officially over the team would run over to the stands to celebrate with the fans. Almost. Not quite. It actually happened the other way around. I was making my way over to the stands with about 2 minutes left. Then, with 10 seconds left, everybody jumps over the railing and rushes the field. I start sprinting with them. There were tons of fans on every side of me and I was caught in the middle. I couldn't stop thinking how great this was. Everybody is jumping around, yelling, celebrating. I throw my hand with my camera into the air to get a shot, then somebody bumps me...my camera goes flying into the air. I jump up, catch it, get my finger back on the button and fire away. Im not going to lie, it was pretty intense.

Anyways, I didn't want to shoot at ISO 3200 so I brought it down to ISO 1000 and had to slow down the shutter speed. The photos came out with a lot of motion blur due to all the jumping and celebrating. I kinda like the effect because you can get a feel for the energy in the moment, although it would also be nice to have some sharp photos.