Women's Soccer Team Receives NCAA Tournament Bid
11/10/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Nov. 10, 2008
EAST LANSING, Mich. -
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The Michigan State women's soccer team will take on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the first round of the NCAA Women's Soccer Tournament on Friday at 5:00 p.m. in South Bend, Ind. It is the Spartans' third NCAA Tournament appearance in program history, all having come since 2002.
"More than anything else, I'm happy for our team," said MSU head coach Tom Saxton. "They had a great, great year and I was really nervous today about where we would end up in this. I really felt like we deserved to be in, but you never know. I'm really happy for them that they got a great reward out of a very hard-fought season."
The winner of the MSU/UW-Milwaukee game will take on the winner of the Notre Dame/Toledo matchup. Notre Dame is the No. 1 overall seed in this year's 64-team field.
Friday's match will mark the eighth meeting between the two teams with MSU holding a 6-1 all-time advantage. This season, the Panthers are 18-2-2 and currently ranked No. 19 in the latest NSCAA/adidas poll.
MSU's 13 wins this season are the most since the 1994 campaign when they won 14 games.
The game will also feature a matchup of the nation's two top-scoring freshmen in UW-Milwaukee's Sarah Hagen and the Spartans' Laura Heyboer. Heyboer, who was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year as well as conference Freshman of the Year, has 47 points, which ranks in a tie for third nationally, and 19 goals, which is good for second in the nation. Hagen leads the nation with 54 points.
The Spartans' last made the NCAA Tournament in 2005 when they got their first-ever tournament win, defeating Bowling Green, 4-0, in South Bend, Ind.
