PROVO -- Earning itself an automatic bid to the 2010 NCAA Women’s College Cup, the BYU women’s soccer team will play the UCLA Bruins in the first round on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. PT in Los Angeles.
With a 1-0 victory in the Mountain West Conference title game, the Cougars defeated the New Mexico Lobos with a 1-0 final score to win their seventh MWC championship title and earn themselves an automatic bid into this year's College Cup. Midfielder Jessica Ringwood scored the lone goal for BYU and was named All-Tournament MVP.
Action in the 2010 College Cup will be BYU's 13th all-time post-season appearance under head coach Jennifer Rockwood.
The Cougars have had 10 different players score goals for them this year with a 40-goal total for the season. Seven goals from Jennie Marshall leads the team with teammates Carlee Payne, Kassidy Shumway and Jessica Ringwood adding six each to the total.
BYU goalkeeper McKinzie Olson has recorded nine season shutouts in 21 games and 1,913 minutes while only allowing 11 goals. Olson is currently 10th in the NCAA for her save percentage and goals-against average.
First-round opponent UCLA has met the Cougars three times before with a 2-1 series record favoring BYU.
The Cougars last met the Bruins in 2000 with the 6-0 victory going to UCLA on their home field. Before that, the Cougars beat UCLA in 1997 and 1998 with a 3-1 and 2-0 final, respectively. The 1997 meeting was a regular season game and 1998's game was in the second round of the NCAA tournament again on the UCLA home field.
The Bruins are led offensively by junior Sydney Leroux with 12 goals on the season. Teammate defender Lauren Barnes is the next highest goal scorer with five goals. Leroux plays with the U.S./Canadian National Team and Barnes played this summer with the U-23 Team.
BYU is one of two teams from the Mountain West Conference to be selected to play in the post-season tournament. The New Mexico Lobos will play fourth-seed Notre Dame in the first round.
A win over UCLA would advance the Cougars to the second round where they'd play the winner of the match-up between Fresno State and Central Florida. The second-round game would also be in Los Angeles on Saturday at 7 p.m. PT.
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