UCLA
Stanford (Women's College Cup Semifinals)
UCLA to Face Stanford Friday in NCAA College Cup Semifinals
December 03, 2019 | Women's Soccer
No. 2 UCLA (18-4-1) at No. 1 Stanford (22-1-0)
NCAA College Cup Semifinals
GAME INFORMATION
Date: Friday, Dec. 6
Kickoff Time: 6:30 p.m. PT
Venue: Avaya Stadium, San Jose, Calif. (18,000)
Television Broadcast: ESPNU
Television Talent: Jenn Hildreth, Julie Foudy
Live Stats: ncaa.com
Tickets: ncaa.com/tickets
UCLA ADVANCES TO 11TH COLLEGE CUP
Second-seeded and seventh-ranked UCLA (18-4-1) has advanced to the NCAA College Cup for the 11th time in school history and second time in the last three years. The Bruins earned their way to the semifinals after a thorough 4-0 defeat of defending champion and top-seeded Florida State in the quarterfinals. The shutout victory was the Bruins' third consecutive in the NCAA Tournament, where they are outscoring opponents, 15-1.
SEMIFINAL MATCHUP WITH STANFORD
The Bruins will see a familiar face in the semifinal, going up against Pac-12 rival Stanford (22-1-0) on Friday, Dec. 6 at 6:30pm in the second semifinal at Avaya Stadium, home of the San Jose Earthquakes. The UCLA-Stanford match will follow the 4pm North Carolina (23-1-1) and Washington State (16-6-1) match. The winners will meet for the Championship on Sunday, Dec. 8 at 5:30pm.
BACK THE PAC
Three of the four teams in the College Cup are from the Pac-12 Conference, marking just the third time in history that a conference has been represented by three teams. The last time it happened was in 2013, when UCLA crashed the ACC party and won its first NCAA title. UCLA is making its 11th College Cup appearance, Stanford its 10th and Washington State its first. North Carolina is the lone non-Pac-12 school in the field, making its 29th all-time College Cup appearance. The Pac-12's four quarterfinal teams was a Pac-12 first and marked just the fourth time in NCAA history that one conference has advanced four teams to the quarterfinals. 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.
BACK TO COLLEGE CUP
UCLA is back in the College Cup for the second time in three years. There are eight Bruins on this year's squad who started at the 2017 College Cup semifinals and final - goalkeeper Teagan Micah; defenders Kaiya McCullough and Karina Rodriguez; midfielders Viviana Villacorta, Olivia Athens and Jessie Fleming; and forwards Ashley Sanchez and Anika Rodriguez. All but Athens, who is out for the year due to injury, have started all four tournament games for UCLA this season. Coming off the bench for the College Cup games in 2017 were Delanie Sheehan, Sunny Dunphy and Marley Canales.
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 68-18-5 all-time NCAA Tournament record and has advanced to the semifinals for the second time in the last three years and for the 11th time overall. The Bruins made their third-straight quarterfinal appearance and fifth in the last seven years. UCLA has 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 recorded 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) - in addition to wins over four non-seeded teams in the field - Washington State (2-1), Colorado (3-0), 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.
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.
ON A ROLL
Since dropping their first two Pac-12 games of the year, the Bruins have been on a roll, winning 12 of their last 13 games, including nine 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.
ABOUT THE CARDINAL
Stanford has steamrolled its opponents en route to its 10th College Cup, outscoring them by a 26-1 clip. The Cardinal is led by reigning MAC Hermann Trophy winner Catarina Macario, whose 87 points scored this season is the third-highest in NCAA history behind only Mia Hamm (97) and Christine Sinclair (88). Two other Stanford players have scored in double-figures - Sophia Smith (14) and Madison Haley (11).
THE SERIES WITH STANFORD
Stanford leads the all-time series with UCLA, 17-11-2. The Cardinal squeaked out a 1-0 win in the last matchup on Oct 19 at Stanford, winning on a first half goal by Maya Doms, who headed in a failed clearance in the box. Stanford limited UCLA to just nine shots, zero on goal. UCLA's last victory against the Cardinal came in 2014, 2-1 in Westwood. The Bruins and Cardinal have met five times in the NCAA Tournament, most recently in the 2017 Championship match, which Stanford won, 3-2. UCLA's lone tournament win over Stanford came in the 2013 Round of 16, a 2-0 UCLA victory.
UCLA VS. THE OTHER SIDE OF BRACKET
UCLA is 18-5-4 all-time against Washington State and 1-11-2 against North Carolina. The Bruins rallied to beat Washington State at home on October 27, 2-1, with Mia Fishel scoring the game-winner in the 85th minute. UCLA and North Carolina last met in the 2018 NCAA Quarterfinals in Cary, NC, with the Tar Heels advancing to the College Cup on penalty kicks. The Bruins' lone win over the Tar Heels came in the 2013 NCAA quarterfinals, 1-0 in double overtime, in Chapel Hill.
MULTIPLE WEAPONS
Fourteen different Bruin players have scored goals this season, led by freshman Mia Fishel, who has 14, and junior Ashley Sanchez, who has seven. Chloe Castaneda ranks third with five goals, followed by Lucy Parker with four, while Viviana Villacorta, 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.
DEFENSE ON LOCKDOWN
UCLA has only allowed one goal in the postseason, a goal in the final minute of a 5-1 first round victory over Lamar. Since then, the Bruins have posted three consecutive shutouts. In tournament play, UCLA's defense, led by the backline of Kaiya McCullough, Lucy Parker and Karina Rodriguez, has allowed an average of 5.5 shots and 2.5 shots on goal. Goalkeeper Teagan Micah has not allowed a goal in the tournament thus far.
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.
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 13 shutouts and a 0.69 goals against average. UCLA opponents have been limited to single-digit shots in 18 of 22 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 big impact for the Bruins in her first year, leading the team in goals scored with 14, points scored with 31 and game-winning goals with six. 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 four multiple goal games this season, knocking in two in the 4-0 win at Hawaii, both goals in the 2-0 win over Utah, two in UCLA's NCAA second round win over Clemson and two more in the quarterfinals at Florida State. Her 11 points in the NCAA Tournament rank tied for fifth on UCLA's single-season charts, and her five goals rank tied for fourth.
CASTANEDA HEATING UP
Redshirt senior Chloe Castaneda is heating up late in the year, recording five goals and four assists in her last seven games, including two goals in the NCAA quarterfinal win at Florida State to move into third on the Bruin squad in scoring with 14 points. Castaneda had a similar year-end surge a year ago, scoring four of her five goals in the last seven games of the season.
TIGER TRANSFER PAYING OFF FOR BRUINS
The Bruin lineup got a big boost in the summer when LSU All-American defender Lucy Parker transferred to UCLA. Parker has started every game since her arrival and ranks fourth on the team in goals scored with four and second in game-winning goals with two (vs. Colorado and at Oregon). Parker, a second-team All-Pac-12 honoree and two-time Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week, leads the Bruins in minutes played with 1,880 out of 2,090.
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 12 games this year, all UCLA victories, and has totaled six 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 10 games played (while averaging just 31 minutes per game) Reyes 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. Trevithick is UCLA's third-leading scorer in tournament play with five points. 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 10 solo and one shared shutout and a 0.60 goals against average, has moved into third on UCLA's all-time saves chart with 238 (two away from No. 2 Valerie Henderson, who had 240 from 2004-07) and is third with 61 career wins. With 36 shutouts, she ranks third on UCLA's career shutout list. Micah has not allowed a goal in four 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 assists (14) and ranks second in goals (7) and points (28).
MAINSTAYS
Four Bruin players have started in all 23 games this season - Kaiya McCullough, Karina Rodriguez, Viviana Villacorta, and Lucy Parker. All four have logged over 1,900 minutes this year. Four other players have played in all 23 games - Ashley Sanchez, Delanie Sheehan, Mia Fishel and Chloe Castaneda. McCullough has made 75 consecutive starts and 91 overall. The only game she did not start came on Oct. 23, 2016 due to illness. Rodriguez has started in 51 consecutive games. Parker started every game at LSU in 2017 and 2018 and has a streak of 65 consecutive starts. She leads the team in minutes played with 1,970.
THE WAY TO SAN JOSE - QUARTERFINALS
Chloe Castaneda scored two goals in the first 20 minutes, and Mia Fishel scored one in each half as UCLA eliminated defending national champion Florida State, 4-0. UCLA controlled play and limited the Seminoles to seven shots, just two on goal. Teagan Micah recorded her 10th solo shutout of the season. The victory by UCLA was only the second all-time in NCAA Tournament play by a FSU opponent at the Seminole Soccer Complex.
THE WAY TO SAN JOSE - THIRD ROUND
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 the 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.
THE WAY TO SAN JOSE - SECOND ROUND
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.
THE WAY TO SAN JOSE - FIRST ROUND
UCLA scored three first-half goals and cruised to a 4-1 victory over Lamar University in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Bruins shut down the third-ranked offense in the nation, holding the Cardinals to just one shot in the first half and six shots overall, allowing a goal only in the final minute. Jessie Fleming, Delanie Sheehan and Maricarmen Reyes provided the first-half scoring, and Kali Trevithick recorded her first collegiate goal in the second half. A total of 21 players saw action for the Bruins, who recorded 33 shots and 21 shots on goal.
FLEMING, SANCHEZ SELECTED TO ALL-REGION TEAMS
The United Soccer Coaches awarded senior midfielder Jessie Fleming first-team All-Pacific Region honors for the third time in her career, while junior forward Ashley Sanchez earned second-team honors.
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.
CROMWELL CLIMBING COACHING CHARTS
UCLA head coach Amanda Cromwell is making a quick rise up the coaching charts in winning percentage and victories. With a 325-121-40 record at the start of the 2019 season, she ranked No. 15 in winning percentage (.710) and No. 18 in victories (325) among all active Division I coaches. All-time, she is at No. 16 in winning percentage and No. 21 in victories. Cromwell's current coaching record is 343-125-41.
INSTA-LEADERS
UCLA women's soccer leads all collegiate soccer teams, men or women, in Instagram followers, boasting 59.4k followers. The Bruins are also in the Top 4 in NCAA women's soccer in Twitter followers with 18k. Follow UCLA Women's Soccer at @UCLAWSoccer on both Instagram and Twitter and /UCLAWSoccer on Facebook.
