SAN JOSE, Calif. – SJSU women's soccer will face No. 2 seed UCLA in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Women's Soccer Tournament on Friday, November 9, at 6:00 p.m. PT at Wallis Annenberg Stadium in Los Angeles. This is the program's second appearance in the NCAA Tournament in the last four seasons and third overall.
"Oh, we're excited," head coach Lauren Hanson said. "Half of our team is from Southern California, so we should have a ton of fans there. Obviously, they are excited to play in front of their families. It's a great experience to go down there and play the Bruins, who are a great team, but for us, we know we have a great defense and we will be rested, finally. We are just going to go in and compete hard."
The Spartans clinched a spot in the tournament by winning the 2018 Mountain West Championship Tournament and finished with a record of 9-6-6 overall. SJSU has 11 shutouts, tied for fourth most in the nation and the most in school history, and had five players named All-Mountain West.
UCLA finished second in the Pac 12 this season behind No.1 overall seed Stanford with a 9-2-0 conference record and is 14-3-1 overall. The Bruins finished No. 6 in the final coaches poll and are currently riding a nine-game win streak into Friday's match.
SJSU's prolific defense will have its hands full as UCLA is tied for 20th nationally in total goals with 44 for an average of 2.44 per game, and rank 10th with 7.17 points per game. Nine Bruins have scored at least three goals this season led by Ashley Sanchez' eight. The Spartans' defense is currently boasting a goals against average of .620, which ranks 25th nationally.
This will be the second meeting all-time between the programs. The previous lone match in the series was played September 2, 1997, in a 4-1 Bruins victory.
