Women's Soccer: WVU To Face Virginia In NCAAs
November 06, 2006 05:31 PM | General
November 6, 2006
NCAA BRACKET
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The No. 8 West Virginia women’s soccer team has been selected for the NCAA Tournament and will travel to face Virginia in its first round NCAA tournament game on Friday, Nov. 10, in Winston-Salem, N.C. The Mountaineers have now been selected to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh consecutive season.
No. 3 seed Wake Forest (15-5-1) is serving as the host for WVU’s section of the bracket. The Demon Deacons will take on Old Dominion (17-4-1) in a first round game also on Nov. 10.
Thirty teams received automatic bids for winning their respective conferences while 34 teams were selected at-large. When pairing teams, the committee was restricted by geographic proximity. The final four teams remaining from the 64-team tournament will participate in the 25th annual NCAA Division I Women’s College Cup, hosted by N.C. State, played Dec. 1-3, at SAS Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina.
The BIG EAST tied the ACC for the most schools in the tournament with seven schools selected. Four BIG EAST schools will host first and second round games: UConn, Marquette, Notre Dame and Rutgers, while Louisville and Villanova join West Virginia as league schools that will start the tournament on the road.
West Virginia faced eight teams in the 2006 tournament field this season, posting a 3-3-2 record in those games.
The Mountaineers show a 5-6 all-time record in tournament games since first reaching the NCAA Tournament back in 2000. In 2005, the Mountaineers defeated Hofstra 3-0 in the NCAA first round game before falling to host Penn State 5-2 in the second round.
The Mountaineers (14-3-3) and Cavaliers (10-7-2) battled to a 1-1 tie in Morgantown earlier this season on Sept. 17. The Cavaliers lead the all-time series, 5-1-1, with WVU’s only win in the series coming in Charlottesville, Va., in 2002.
West Virginia’s offense will be led by Deana Everrett who leads the team with 18 goals this season, two shy of tying of the school record. Everrett was recently named a M.A.C. Hermann Trophy candidate and earned first team all-BIG EAST honors this season.
Senior goalkeeper Lana Bannerman, a second team all-BIG EAST selection, sports a 0.53 goals against average to go with a school record 12 shutouts in 2006. Bannerman made 49 saves and posted an .817 save percentage in 20 games.
