
It was a short foray into the NCAA Tournament this season as only one team featuring an Australian player reached the Round of 32 before Holly Furphy’s Santa Clara outfit were knocked out in heartbreaking fashion, falling to a 1-0 defeat on a 90th minute North Carolina goal. However, several Aussies were heavily involved, particularly Maine duo Lara Kirkby and Grace Wilson, who were instrumental in keeping the Black Bears in with a shot against Wisconsin.
Santa Clara had their chances to advance to the Sweet Sixteen against a #2 seed North Carolina team in its first season without famed head coach Anson Dorrance. The Broncos were perhaps on top in the first half, forcing three saves to one, but one of those three saves from UNC goalkeeper Clare Gagne came on a 34th minute penalty as the teams went to the locker rooms tied at 0-0. The second half saw the Tar Heels utterly dominate proceedings, posting 15 shots to 1, but with time winding down, the game looked set to head to overtime as the Broncos defence refused to waver. However, with just 22 seconds left in the 90 minutes, North Carolina’s Tessa Dellarose found the back of the net to clinch victory in an utterly nail-biting match that unfortunately did not see Furphy feature for the Broncos.
Games involving Aussies more or less went to chalk in the opening round but the one match that saw an unseeded team grab a victory went the way of Furphy and the Broncos as Australians went 1-3 on the first weekend. In a match that just two seasons ago was a matchup of West Coast Conference heavyweights, Santa Clara travelled to BYU. As expected, the game was on a knife-edge throughout, with BYU putting four shots on target to Santa Clara’s three despite the teams combining for 28 shots. However, a 70th minute strike was enough to send the Broncos through to the second round in a game that saw Furphy help with clean-up duty, playing a seven-minute cameo in the latter stages.
Maine competed admirably with Wisconsin throughout the majority of their opening round contest, but unfortunately, a slow start severely dented the Black Bears’ chances. Wisconsin banged home two goals in the opening four minutes, putting Maine on the back foot as the Badgers outshot the team from Orono 9-0 in the first half.
However, the second half was remarkably different as Lara Kirkby found the back of the net just 77 seconds after the break to halve the deficit. Wisconsin responded nine minutes later, but Grace Wilson kept the Black Bears in the contest with a stunning save on a penalty to keep the score at 3-1 with 25 minutes to play. Unfortunately, although Maine were more or less Wisconsin’s equals for much of the second half, they were unable to rescue the 2-goal deficit as their highly impressive campaign came to a first-round end for the second season in succession, bringing the curtain down on Kirkby’s highly impressive college career.
Lilly Bailey and Natasha Tanner travelled to Winston-Salem as Morehead State battled Wake Forest in the opening round, and much like Maine, fell victims to a first-half barrage from their more fancied opponents. The Demon Deacons opened the scoring in the second minute on their way to a 4-0 lead inside half an hour, with Bailey given little chance by the Wake Forest attackers on each occasion. The freshman did come up with four saves before a halftime switch, whilst Natasha Tanner played 28 minutes for the Eagles as they too made a first-round exit in back-to-back years after making a remarkable run to the Ohio Valley Conference championship game to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
In a first round that saw a perhaps unusually high number of blowout wins for high seeds in comparison to previous years, Southern were unfortunately one of the victims, falling to a 7-0 loss to #1 seed Mississippi State. The Bulldogs opened the scoring in the ninth minute, and scored at regular intervals as they outshot the Jaguars 38-0 and put 16 of those shots on target. Unfortunately, as has been the case for the entire campaign, Yazmin Baird-Watson was unavailable for this game.
Complete Results
Maine (Lara Kirkby, Grace Wilson)
First Round: lost 3-1 to #5 Wisconsin
Grace Wilson played the full 90 minutes in Maine’s opening-round defeat to Wisconsin, making nine saves including a second-half penalty. Lara Kirkby also started, scoring Maine’s lone goal with her only shot of the contest as part of a 67-minute outing.
Morehead State (Lilly Bailey, Natasha Tanner)
First Round: lost 4-0 to #2 Wake Forest
Lilly Bailey played the first half of Morehead State’s loss to Wake Forest, making four saves. Natasha Tanner also started, playing 28 minutes.
Santa Clara (Holly Furphy)
First Round: defeated #7 BYU 1-0
Second Round: lost 1-0 to #2 North Carolina
Holly Furphy came off the bench to play a seven-minute cameo in Santa Clara’s first-round win over BYU, but did not feature in the defeat to North Carolina.
Southern (Yazmin Baird-Watson)
First Round: lost 7-0 to #1 Mississippi State
Yazmin Baird-Watson was unavailable for Southern’s loss to Mississippi State.
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