Wildcats play SIU Edwardsville on Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. ET
Video: @KYwildcatsTV
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The University of Kentucky women’s soccer team earned its first-ever NCAA Tournament national seed on Monday afternoon, as it was announced the Wildcats will be hosting Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. ET at the Wendell & Vickie Bell Soccer Complex in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The match will be shown live on the SEC Network+, as well as ESPN3.com and the WatchESPN app on Saturday night from the Bell Soccer Complex.
“First of all, it’s such an honor to get to represent the school in the NCAAs again,” UK head coach Jon Lipsitz said, who has now guided UK to the NCAA Tournament each of the last four years. “You’re looking at a senior class that is leaving quite a legacy. This is their fourth year in a row in the NCAAs and that’s never happened before in this program. So it’s something we want to be able to say about every class in the future, but we never take it for granted. Almost half of last year’s field is not in this year and it says a lot about how competitive it’s becoming in women’s soccer and what a special thing it is for us to be here.”
Kentucky is the No. 3 national seed in the Charlottesville, Va., regional, which features (2) Virginia, High Point, LaSalle, Rutgers, Arizona State, Northern Arizona and SIUE. The Wildcats are slotted to face the winner of the Northern Arizona/Arizona State match if UK wins on Saturday night.
“About five weeks ago, we lost a game at Texas A&M and our RPI was 59 at the end of that.” Lipsitz said. “We handed it out to the team and we said, ‘Look, we need to make it clear: We’re not in the NCAA Tournament. And we’re not even on the bubble.’ And every week, every Tuesday morning before practice, we would have a meeting and I would hand out the RPI sheets and who we’re playing and where all our opponents are and where we are. And I’ve kept all those sheets in the office. Our goal from that moment on was to get seeded. It’s something that hasn’t happened. And our goal was to get seeded and I felt like we had done enough. To get a three seed is an incredible tribute to the way we’ve been playing the last month and to the way we also played yesterday in a tremendous championship game representing the SEC.”
Tickets for Saturday’s match against SIUE are available beginning Tuesday Nov. 11 at 9:00 a.m. ET. Tickets can be purchased by contacting the UK Ticket Office between 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET or by calling 1.800.928.2278.
Ticket prices are $8 for adults, $5 for students (2-18 years old), $3 for senior citizens (65+), with children under the age of two admitted for free. Any UK student presenting a valid UK student ID will be admitted free of charge by checking in at the marketing gazebo.
The Wildcats appearance in the NCAA Tournament is its fourth-straight season in the postseason, and fourth-straight season hosting an opening round match – both new program records. Kentucky has never faced SIUE in program history.
The Cougars were both the regular season and Ohio Valley Conference Tournament Champions, as SIUE came from behind two goals with less than 10 minutes remaining on Sunday afternoon to claim the OVC Tournament Championship title 3-2 over Jacksonville state in overtime. The Cougars are 13-6-1 and 8-2-0 in OVC play this season.
The Wildcats were appearing in the SEC Tournament final for the first time since 2006, and only the third time in program history on Sunday afternoon. UK finishes the regular season with a 15-6-0 record, as winners of eight of the last nine matches, with Sunday’s defeat coming as UK’s first since losing to the same Texas A&M Aggies back on Oct. 4 in College Station.
Kentucky finished the season slotted at No. 17 in the national computer. The Wildcats have wins on its resume over (9) Florida and (10) South Carolina, as well as five wins over the top-50 in the current RPI.
For continuing coverage of UK women’s soccer, log on to UKathletics.com.
*UK Athletics Release
