2 Utah college soccer teams punch NCAA Tournament tickets on championship weekend. Could a 3rd join them?
BYU and Utah State are in the Big Dance after winning the Big 12 and Mountain West tournaments, respectively. Here's how close Utah Valley and Weber State came to securing their bid.
Two Utah college women’s soccer programs punched their tickets to the NCAA Tournament with a pair of tournament titles on championship weekend, and two more came agonizingly close to adding their own names.
Could the Beehive State have a third team that hears it’s name called Monday afternoon when the NCAA selection committee makes its picks for the 64-team bracket?
Here’s a look at championship weekend from the Big 12, Mountain West, Big Sky and Western Athletic conferences.
Rath stands tall as Utah State secures third-straight Mountain West title
Taylor Rath didn’t play a single minute in regulation during the Mountain West Tournament, but the Utah State graduate senior goalkeeper made two saves during a penalty kick shootout as the Aggies took home a third consecutive tournament title, eliminating regular-season champion Boise State on penalties at Boas Soccer Complex in Boise, Idaho.
Rath replaced junior Allee Grashoff, who made three saves in 110 minutes of regulation and extra time against the Broncos. Rine Yonaha and Summer Diamond scored a pair of second-half goals to put Utah State up 2-0.
But Boise State came back, first with Olivia Collins’ goal from the penalty spot in the 75th minute and again five minutes later through Kayla Soderstrom to force extras.
That left the moment for Rath, who earned Mountain West Tournament outstanding player honors with a pair of penalty saves, and Yonaha, Kaylie Chambers, Rachel Reitz and Talia Winder all converted a penalty to help the Aggies (10-6-6) clinch the league’s NCAA Tournament autobid.
Walbruch’s 5th goal in 3 matches secures BYU’s first-ever Big 12 title
Ellie Walbruch scored her fifth goal in three postseason matches, and junior goalkeeper Chelsea Peterson made it stand up as BYU captured its first Big 12 soccer tournament title with a 1-0 win over defending champion Kansas in Waco, Texas.
Walbruch, who has 16 goals on the season including 12 in the last 10 matches, continued her stellar run of play with a right-footed laser from close to 30 yards away in the 21st minute to give the Cougars all the scoring they would need.
Peterson, the University of Utah transfer who took up the sport this season after two years away on an 18-month church mission and a transfer to BYU, made eight saves to earn tournament Most Outstanding Defensive Player honors.
“It’s been a tough year,” BYU coach Jennifer Rockwood told ESPN+ after the Cougars became the first-ever No. 8 seed to win the tournament title. “We’ve gutted it out, and these girls have been resilient. They got up after they’ve been hit down over and over again.”
CBU stuns top-seeded Utah Valley on PKs for consecutive WAC titles
Anja Jestrovic had a goal and an assist to help California Baptist rally from an 0-2 deficit to tie top-seeded Utah Valley 2-2 and sneak the Western Athletic Conference’s final autobid to the NCAA women’s soccer tournament on penalties, 4-3 Saturday night at UCCU Stadium in Orem.
Josie Shepherd and Faith Webber each scored for the Wolverines, who won the WAC regular-season title for a third-straight season with a 13-4-2 overall record. The Wolverines ranked second nationally in total goals with 60 during the regular season, to go along with 62 assists, 182 points and 3.16 goals per match.
But nothing is guaranteed beyond the WAC automatic berth, and the Wolverines will await Monday’s NCAA selection show with baited breathe. Wins over Big 12 foe Utah, SEC opponent LSU, and Gonzaga out of the WCC in nonconference play — as well as a 9-0-1 record in their final season in the WAC before joining the Big West — gave the Wolverines the No. 37 RPI nationally (which dropped to No. 40 after Saturday’s result).
That puts UVU squarely on the bubble — though very possibly on the right side of it — for the 64-team tournament that starts next week.
“At the end of the day, we went 1-0-1 in the tournament and we don’t get the automatic bid,” UVU coach Chris Lemay said. “Congratulations to Cal Baptist, they beat us on penalty kicks, and unfortunately sometimes that’s the way that it ends.
“There are some things we’ll learn from this game that we can build upon and get better because of. We’re going to prepare like our name is going to be called on Monday, and be ready to go next weekend.”
Weber State heartbroken in penalty setback in Big Sky final
Big Sky Conference goalkeeper of the year Ashlyn Dvorak made three saves, stopped two penalties, and converted another herself in a shootout to help top-seeded Montana hold off second-seeded Weber State after a 0-0 match in Missoula, Montana.
Montana out-shot the Wildcats 10-9 in regulation, but freshman goalkeeper Lauren Butorac and her defense stood tall to force the gold-goal, extra-time periods.
No moment was bigger than seconds into the first extra session, when Butorac stoned Montana’s Eliza Bentler to keep the match scoreless.
Tenzie Knowles, one of her six Wildcat seniors playing in her final collegiate match, got off a shot with about 2 seconds left in the second extra period. But her goal was ruled to cross the line after the final buzzer.
Instead, Dvorak saved two penalties and converted one herself before Maycen Slater secured the league’s autobid with a 4-2 finish in front of a school-record home crowd.
In his first season with the team, former Utah Valley assistant coach Kyle Christensen took a 2-win team from a year ago to a 12-7-1 record that included a 5-2-1 mark in Big Sky play and the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament.
Christensen earned Big Sky coach of the year honors after engineering the nine-win turnaround, the largest in Wildcat history since 1997 that closed the season with the No. 94 RPI — tops in the Big Sky.
It’s the Wildcats’ first 11-win season since 2021, an eighth-place to second turnaround captained by senior forward Grace Kirby, whose four goals and two assists in conference play earned her the Big Sky Golden Boot award.