2018 NCAA Tournament Preview
It’s time for the big one – the NCAA Tournament – and two teams featuring Aussies are among the favourites as Stanford and UCLA look to make return trips to the College Cup.
It’s time for the big one – the NCAA Tournament – and two teams featuring Aussies are among the favourites as Stanford and UCLA look to make return trips to the College Cup.
A whirlwind weekend to end the regular season has left us with four teams and five Australians securing conference championships, with a raft of other teams having either locked up an at-large bid or still very much in the mix. However, the performance of the week came in a game that saw one Aussie help another to a title as Teagan Micah’s performance in goal helped UCLA to a win over USC that delivered Beattie Goad and Stanford an outright Pac-12 championship with a game to spare.
15 teams featuring Australians remain standing heading into the final week of the regular season, and all have a shot of reaching the NCAA Tournament. How close each team is varies wildly, but nonetheless it looks set to be a thriller of a week.
The number of Aussies left standing can only go down from here, but it was a fairly solid week of conference tournament play with a number of teams seeing their way through to next week. However, the news of the weekend was Wyoming clinching a share of the Mountain West Conference regular season title with a final day win over Colorado State.
21 teams featuring Aussies remain in the mix for the NCAA Tournament, and with six of those teams kicking off conference tournaments this week, it’s certainly crunch time for a number of players. Meanwhile, the thrilling fight for conference tournament spots in the Northeast Conference continues with Fairleigh Dickinson and Saint Francis right in the mix coming into the final matchday.
Seniors stepped up when it mattered most as Annika Clayton put Wyoming on her back and Isabel Hodgson scored on her own Senior Night. Claudia Jenkins and Teagan Micah continued their good form between the sticks, whilst Kristy Helmers tallied her second goal of the season.
Jessie Gentle was anything but this week as she put the Wyoming side on her back to be involved in three of her team’s four goals this weekend to keep the Cowgirls in a solid position in the Mountain West Conference. Elsewhere, Claudia Jenkins and Alyssa Van Heurck helped La Salle to a pair of bounce-back wins, whilst Jodie Burchell and Kate Swartwout picked up their first collegiate goals.
It might be time to start calling Caitlin Pickett ‘Cardiac Caitlin’ as the Wyoming freshman came up with the second overtime winner of her first season of college soccer, whilst the return of Teagan Micah to the UCLA lineup following a stint on the sidelines with concussion was a welcome sight for Bruins and Aussie fans alike.
Beattie Goad. Teagan Micah. Stanford. UCLA. Last time this matchup occurred, it was in Orlando and culminated in one of the greatest College Cup games in history, with Goad and Stanford taking final honours in a 3-2 victory. This time, the Cardinal defend their home patch, with Micah and UCLA out for redemption. Back on the east coast, a plethora of Aussie v Aussie matchups are set to shake up conference title races even at this early stage.
One of the biggest weekends for Australians in college in recent memory transpired this week, with four players tallying goals, another six registering assists, and a number of others putting in solid efforts to round out what was a simply mesmerising set of performances across the board.
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