LA JOLLA, Calif. - In the storied history of the women's soccer program at UC San Diego, Saturday's match with Chico State will be the seventh appearance in the NCAA Division II National Championships second round for the Tritons. The Wildcats, on the other hand, will be making their first. In more recent history, CSUC topped UCSD 2-0 in the squads' only meeting of 2009 and the Wildcats are riding the emotional wave of advancing on a 4-3 penalty kick shootout against defending national champion Seattle Pacific.
Looking beyond seasons past and possible momentum, the 7 p.m. contest at Triton Soccer Field between the second-seeded Tritons (14-5-1) and sixth-seeded Wildcats (8-5-9) pits two of the best California Collegiate Athletic Association teams against each other as they play for the right to another week of playoff soccer in November.
Reminiscent of a CCAA Tournament, the four remaining teams in the West Region hail from UCSD's conference. At the other regional site in Los Angeles, top-seeded Cal State L.A. hosts Cal State Dominguez Hills on Sunday at 12 p.m. The two winning squads from the West Region will meet Nov. 20, with the victor advancing to a Nov. 22 quarterfinal against the South Central Region's top team. Both the Nov. 20 and Nov. 22 matches will be hosted by the highest-seeded team in the West Region still alive in the bracket after this weekend.
Representing two interesting styles of play, the Tritons enter Saturday's match with a 13-1 record when scoring first. The Wildcats, after technically recording a tie Thursday while advancing on a penalty kick shootout, have set the NCAA D-II all-time single season record for ties with nine in 2009.
Throughout this season, the UCSD squad has had a knack for keeping its opponents' off the scoreboard, while also preventing shot attempts from even ending up on frame. The Tritons' goals allowed total, 14, ranks second in the CCAA and the UCSD goalkeepers have needed to make the fewest saves in the conference, 68.
With 10 of the Tritons' 11 starters being freshmen and sophomores, the defense is a shining example of the squad's reliance on youth. Sophomore netminder Kristin Armstrong leads the team in minutes played with 1,747, sitting less than 100 of the team's 1,841 minutes played on the bench through the first 20 matches of 2009. Freshman defenders Ellen Wilson (1,739) and Hayley Johnson (1,729) follow closely behind along with sophomore defender Sara Spaventa (1,703).
With CSUC playing out of the CCAA North Division and UCSD competing in the South, the two foes play one time per regular season, in which the Tritons own a 5-4 all-time advantage. The Wildcats and Tritons have also met twice in the CCAA Tournament, both UCSD wins, but never before in the NCAA postseason. Their meeting earlier this season, on Sept. 20, ended in a Wildcats' 2-0 win as Lisa Webster scored two second-half goals in a stretch of under two minutes.
This week's matches in La Jolla represent a sort of homecoming for Ali Sward, CSUC's leading scorer with seven goals and eight assists. Sward, an Ocean Beach native, graduated from Point Loma High School. Last week she was named to the All-CCAA First Team.
