UCLA
Florida State (Quarterfinals)
UCLA Plays at Florida State Friday in NCAA Quarterfinals
November 27, 2019 | Women's Soccer
No. 2 Seed UCLA (17-4-1) at No. 1 Seed Florida State (18-5-0)
NCAA Quarterfinals
Date/Time: Friday, Nov. 29, 2019 โ 2:00 p.m. ET
Location: Tallahassee, Fla. (Seminole Soccer Complex)
Video Broadcast: ACC Network Extra
Live Stats: ncaa.com
Tickets: $8 adults / $3 youth (3-12)
NO. 2 UCLA TRAVELS TO NO. 1 FLORIDA STATE FOR QUARTERFINALS
Second-seeded and seventh-ranked UCLA (17-4-1) will travel to top-seeded and sixth-ranked Florida State (18-5-0) in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament. The match will take place on Friday, Nov. 29 at Seminole Soccer Complex at 2 pm ET/11am PT, with the winner advancing to the College Cup in San Jose, Calif. The match will be aired on ACC Network Extra.
UCLA'S NCAA HISTORY
The Bruins are making their 23rd overall appearance in the NCAA Tournament and are seeded No. 2 for the third consecutive year. UCLA has a 67-18-5 all-time NCAA Tournament record and has advanced to the quarterfinals for the third-straight year and for the fifth time in the last seven years. The Bruins have also advanced to the Round of 16 or beyond in seven of the last eight seasons, including a finals berth in 2017 and a championship victory in 2013.
UCLA AGAINST THE NCAA FIELD
UCLA posted an 8-4-1 regular season record against members of the 64-team NCAA Tournament field this season. The Bruins have wins over every seed in their quadrant - No. 1 Florida State (2-1), No. 3 seed Wisconsin (1-0), and No. 4 Washington (1-0) - along with two other non-seeded teams, Utah (2-0) and Florida (2-1). UCLA's only losses this year have come against NCAA Tournament teams - No. 1 seed Stanford (1-0), Santa Clara (2-0), California (1-2) and Arizona (0-3). The Bruins' only tie was also against a tournament team, Pepperdine.
BACK THE PAC
The Pac-12 leads all conferences with four teams in the quarterfinals - UCLA, USC, Stanford and Washington State, all in separate quadrants. This is just the fourth time in NCAA history that one conference has advanced four teams to the quarterfinals and the first for the Pac-12. The conference had a total of nine teams in the NCAA Tournament, tied for most with the ACC, and a national-best four seeded teams in No. 1 Stanford, No. 2 UCLA and USC and No. 4 Washington. Pac-12 schools went 7-2 in the first round, with Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington, Washington State, Arizona and Colorado advancing to the second round.
BRUINS SEEDED SECOND FOR THIRD-STRAIGHT YEAR
With a No. 2 seed for the third consecutive year, UCLA has been seeded in the NCAA Tournament the last six times it has made the tournament and for the 17th time in the last 18 years. The Bruins were also a No. 2 seed in 2013 when they won their first NCAA Championship.
THIRD ROUND RECAP - BRUINS SHUT OUT WISCONSIN 2-0
After a scoreless first half, UCLA took control in the second half, scoring two goals to defeat No. 3 seed Wisconsin, 2-0. The Bruins came out strong at the start of the second, peppering the goal with a pair of shots in fhe box in the first minute of the half. Mia Fishel broke through in the 49th minute with the go-ahead goal, and Viviana Villacorta doubled the score in the 53rd minute on a stunning free kick bent around the wall and in. The Bruins held the Badgers to just three shots in the game, and goalkeeper Teagan Micah had one save in the shutout win.
SECOND ROUND RECAP - UCLA POUNCES ON CLEMSON, 5-0
UCLA jumped out to an early lead and coasted to a 5-0 win over Clemson in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The Bruins scored four goals in the first half, the first coming from freshman Mia Fishel in the fifth minute. Also scoring in the first half were Lucy Parker on a set piece, Ashley Sanchez and Kali Trevithick. Fishel added her second goal of the game in the 75th minute. The Bruins were able to empty their bench early, with a total of 20 players seeing action. Goalkeeper Teagan Micah made four saves on six Clemson shots to earn the shutout.
ABOUT THE SEMINOLES
Defending NCAA champion Florida State was one of three ACC teams earning a No. 1 seed. The Seminoles lost to Virginia in the semifinals of the conference tournament, 2-1 in overtime. This is Florida State's 20th consecutive NCAA appearance, and the Seminoles will be playing for an 11th College Cup appearance in a stadium in which they are 47-1-1 all-time in NCAA Tournament play. Florida State and UCLA have five common opponents this year. Both have wins over Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado and Clemson, while the Seminoles have a loss to USC, a team that UCLA beat 4-2. Deyna Castellanos is Florida State's leading scorer with 12 goals, 11 assists and 35 points. The Seminoles have five other players in double-figure scoring - Kristen McFarland (9g, 1a, 19 pts), Yujei Zhao (5g, 6a, 16 pts)m Jenna Nighswonger (5g, 5a, 15 pts), Jaelin Howell (5g, 4a, 14 pts) and Abbey Newton (3g, 5a, 11 pts). Goalkeeper Caroline Jeffers has seven shutouts and a 1.12 goals against average.
THE SERIES WITH FSU
UCLA leads the all-time series with Florida State, 3-1. The Bruins won the last matchup on Aug. 29 at Banc of California Stadium, 2-1, on a pair of Jessie Fleming first-half goals. UCLA held Florida State to just five shots in the game. The two teams last met in Tallahassee a year ago, with Florida State winning 4-1 over a short-handed Bruin team that was playing without two All-Americans (Jessie Fleming and Hailie Mace) who were on national team duty. UCLA is 2-0 against FSU in NCAA Tournament play, beating the Seminoles 4-0 in the 2005 NCAA semifinals and 1-0 in overtime in the 2013 NCAA Championship game.
ON A ROLL
Since dropping their first two Pac-12 games of the year, the Bruins have been on a roll, winning 11 of their last 12 games, including eight in a row. UCLA had a similar path a year ago, losing the first two league games before reeling off nine straight wins to close the regular season.
MULTIPLE WEAPONS
Fourteen different Bruin players have scored goals this season, led by freshman Mia Fishel, who has 12, and junior Ashley Sanchez, who has seven. Lucy Parker ranks third with four goals, while Viviana Villacorta, Chloe Castaneda, Jessie Fleming, Maricarmen Reyes and Marley Canales have three each. Kali Trevithick, Kennedy Faulknor and Delanie Sheehan each have two goals; and Karina Rodriguez, Rachel Lowe, and Sunny Dunphy have scored one.
FLEMING SELECTED MAC HERMANN TROPHY SEMIFINALIST, SENIOR CLASS AWARD FINALIST
UCLA team captain and international star Jessie Fleming has been selected as one of 15 semifinalist for the MAC Hermann Trophy and one of 10 finalists for the Senior CLASS Award. The MAC Hermann Trophy recognizes the nation's most outstanding collegiate soccer player, while the Senior CLASS Award honors student-athletes who excel both on and off the field.
Fleming is a two-time World Cup player and Olympic bronze medalist who has already amassed 70 caps for the Canadian Women's National Team. As a sophomore at UCLA in 2017, she was a finalist for the MAC Hermann Trophy and earned first-team All-America honors. During her freshman year in 2016, she led UCLA in scoring with 11 goals and 27 points. In 2018, she missed half the season while on Canadian National Team duty yet still recorded five goals and five assists in just 11 games. This season, she has totaled 10 points on three goals and four assists. Fleming is UCLA's third-ever four-time first-team All-Pac-12 honoree and was Top Drawer Soccer's Freshman of the Year in 2016. She was also just the fourth UCLA freshman ever to earn NSCAA All-America honors. Top Drawer Soccer currently rates her No. 2 in the Top 100 Player rankings.
The Bruins' team captain the last three years, Fleming is also a leader in the classroom, earning honor roll distinction four times and honorable mention Pac-12 All-Academic honors twice in one of the most challenging majors on campus โ materials engineering (with an environmental science minor). This summer, she earned a 4.0 GPA in her summer courses. Additionally, she is volunteering with a company that collects and redistributes extra produce from farmer's markets.
SANCHEZ EARNS USWNT CALL-UP
Junior Ashley Sanchez, along with UCLA alums Hailie Mace (2015-18) and Sarah Killion (2011-14), are one of three Bruins called up to the U.S. Women's National Team Identification Camp, which will take place in Bradenton, Fla. Dec. 9-14. This is Sanchez's second call-up but first since April of 2016. She participated in her first USWNT training camp at age 17 and has since played in the 2016 FIFA U-17 World Cup and the 2016 and 2018 U-20 World Cups. The 2016 U.S. Soccer Young Female Player of the Year was the first American female player to play in both the U-17 and U-20 World Cups in the same cycle. She scored three goals and one assist as team captain for the U-17s, and she scored one goal with two assists for the U-20s. Sanchez most recently played with the U-23s last spring.
McCULLOUGH HONORED AS PAC-12 SCHOLAR-ATHLETE OF YEAR
Senior defender Kaiya McCullough was named the 2019 Pac-12 Women's Soccer Scholar-Athlete of the Year, joining Sarah Killion (2014) as the only Bruins to win the award. McCullough holds a 3.73 cumulative GPA in Political Science and is set to graduate in December. She is a two-time second-team All-Pac-12 honoree, earning honors in 2019 and 2017, and was also second-team All-Region in 2017, a Pac-12 All-Freshman selection in 2016 and a three-time Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week. Under McCullough's watch this season, the Bruin defense has posted 12 shutouts and a 0.72 goals against average. UCLA opponents have been limited to single-digit shots in 17 of 21 games. In the classroom, she is a two-time honorable mention Pac-12 All-Academic honoree and earned CoSIDA Academic All-District honors in 2017. She received the Athletic Director's Academic Excellence Award in 2019 for making the Director's Honor Roll every quarter she has been at UCLA and earned a 4.0 GPA in two of those quarters.
SANCHEZ SETS NEW UCLA CAREER ASSISTS RECORD
In just under three years, junior forward Ashley Sanchez has already broken the UCLA school record for career assists, notching 41 to break Iris Mora's previous record of 38. Sanchez has 14 assists in 2019, just one off the school single-season record she and Mora share. Sanchez also holds UCLA records for single-game assists (four in 2018), consecutive games with a goal or assist (16 from 2018-19), single-season NCAA Tournament assists (seven in 2018), career NCAA Tournament assists (13) and assists by a freshman (12 in 2017). This season, Sanchez earned first-team All-Pac-12 honors for the third time in as many years.
FISHING FOR GOALS
Freshman forward Mia Fishel has made a quick impact for the Bruins in her first year, leading the team in goals scored with 12 and in game-winning goals with six. She ranks second in points with 26. Fishel leads all Pac-12 freshmen in goals scored and points and tops all freshmen in the nation with six game-winning goals. The 2018 U.S. U-17 World Cup player has three multiple goal games this season, knocking in two in the 4-0 win at Hawaii, both goals in the 2-0 win over Utah and two in UCLA's NCAA second round win over Clemson.
CASTANEDA HEATING UP
Redshirt senior Chloe Castaneda is heating up late in the year, recording three goals and four assists in her last six games. Castaneda had a similar year-end surge a year ago, scoring four of her five goals in the last seven games of the season.
HAPPY RETURNS FOR RODRIGUEZ, REYES
After missing the last 11 games of the season last year with a knee injury, fifth-year senior Anika Rodriguez has made it back to the pitch. Rodriguez made her return to competition on Sept. 5 at Santa Clara and earned her first start of the season against Arizona State, recording her first point with an assist. She has started in a total of 11 games this year, all UCLA victories, and has totaled five assists. Against Washington State on Oct. 27, she played a season-high 66 minutes and assisted on both of UCLA's goals in a 2-1 victory. Rodriguez also played in 66 minutes and assisted on the game-winner in the win at Oregon.
Sophomore midfielder Maricarmen Reyes, who had two knee surgeries in the offseason, made her first appearance of the season Oct. 19 at Stanford, playing eight minutes in the second half and recording one shot. One game later, on Oct. 23 against Washington, she scored the game-winning goal in the 87th minute, and then added an assist on Ashley Sanchez's game-tying goal in the win over Washington State. At Oregon State, she recorded a goal and an assist. In just eight games played (and while averaging just 32 minutes per game) Reyes already has three goals and three assists.
FRESHMEN FINDING WAY BACK
Two freshmen who missed considerable time this season are now back in business for the Bruins. Forward Kali Trevithick started the first four games for the Bruins before suffering an injury during the Sept. 1 Florida game that kept her out for over two months. Trevithick returned to the pitch for 16 minutes against USC on Nov. 8 and then scored her first collegiate goal in the NCAA first round vs. Lamar. Against Clemson in the second round, she recorded a goal and an assist. Midfielder Rachel Lowe was in Australia since the beginning of October on national team duty, first playing with the full team, along with Teagan Micah, for national team camp, and then playing with the Under-20s at FIFA Under-20 World Cup qualifying. Lowe played 41 minutes and had three shots in her return against Lamar in the NCAA first round and upped her playing time against Clemson, totaling a season-high 53 minutes.
MILESTONES FOR MICAH
It's been quite a 2019 for senior goalkeeper Teagan Micah. After spending the summer with the Australian Women's National Team at the World Cup, Micah returned for her final season in Westwood and hit several major milestones during non-conference play. She earned her 200th career save in the season opening shutout win over Iowa State, recorded her 50th career win in the shutout victory over Florida, and earned her 30th career shutout against Wisconsin. She also won a Pac-12 record eighth Goalkeeper of the Week award on Sept. 3 and was named the UCLA/Muscle Milk Student-Athlete of the Week on Sept. 17 after making a season-high five saves in the shutout win over Wisconsin. Micah, who has nine solo and one shared shutout and a 0.64 goals against average, has moved into third on UCLA's all-time saves chart with 236 (four away from No. 2 Valerie Henderson, who had 240 from 2004-07) and is third with 60 career wins. With 35 shutouts, she ranks third on UCLA's career shutout list. Micah has not allowed a goal in three postseason games this year.
SWEET 16 FOR SANCHEZ
Ashley Sanchez ran her school record point scoring streak to 16 games after scoring in the first three games of the season. Her streak ran from Sept. 30, 2018 to Aug. 29, 2019, and she totaled nine goals and 16 assists (35 points) during that time. With just over two seasons under her belt, Sanchez already holds UCLA's school record for career assists with 39, and she currently leads the team in points (28) and assists (14).
MAINSTAYS
Four Bruin players have started in all 22 games this season - Kaiya McCullough, Karina Rodriguez, Viviana Villacorta, and Lucy Parker. All four have logged over 1,800 minutes this year. Four other players have played in all 22 games - Ashley Sanchez, Delanie Sheehan, Mia Fishel and Chloe Castaneda. McCullough has made 74 consecutive starts and 90 overall. The only game she did not start came on Oct. 23, 2016 due to illness. Rodriguez has started in 50 consecutive games. Parker started every game at LSU in 2017 and 2018 and has a streak of 64 consecutive starts. She leads the team in minutes played with 1,880.
UCLA DEBUTS
Six Bruins made their official UCLA debuts in the season opener - starters Lucy Parker, Mia Fishel and Kali Trevithick, and reserves Shana Flynn, Rachel Lowe and Brianne Riley. Four freshmen earned their first collegiate appearances at Hawaii on Sept. 22 - Kylie Kerr, Jackie Gilday, Brecken Mozingo and Janae DeFazio. Fishel leads the Bruin freshmen in games played and started with 22 and 18, respectively. Brianne Riley is next in games played with 18. She has also made one start.
SEVEN BRUINS EARN PAC-12 HONORS
Seven UCLA women's soccer players were selected to the All-Pac-12 team, led by first-team All-Pac-12 honorees Jessie Fleming and Ashley Sanchez. Fleming joined Lauren Cheney and Abby Dahlkemper as the only Bruins to earn first-team all-conference honors all four years. Kaiya McCullough, Lucy Parker and Viviana Villacorta were named to the second team, and Chloe Castaneda and Mia Fishel earned third team acclaim. Fishel was also named to the All-Freshman Team.
