Nov. 6, 2006
LAS VEGAS - 2006 NCAA tournament NCAA bracket
The UNLV women's soccer team learned Monday afternoon their first round opponent in this year's NCAA Tournament will be third-ranked UCLA, as the 2005 selections for the 64-team tournament were announced. The Rebels, who won the Mountain West Conference Tournament championship for the second straight year this past Saturday in a penalty kick shootout over No. 10 Utah, will take on the No. 2 region seed Bruins at 5:30 pm (PST) at Drake Stadium in Los Angeles, Calif.
Friday night's game will also be a homecoming for second-year UNLV head coach Kat Mertz, as she was an assistant on the UCLA staff from 2000-2004 before taking over as the Rebels' coach in April of 2005. Loyola Marymount and Cal State Fullerton, the other two teams in the UCLA regional, will play in the second game at 8 pm, while Friday's two winners will meet on Sunday in the second round at 1 pm.
UNLV brings a 9-10-3 mark into this year's postseason tournament. The Rebels finished third in the MWC regular season with a 3-4 mark, but posted a 1-0 win over Wyoming on a last second shot in the MWC first round, and then advanced past 19th-ranked BYU on a PK shootout 4-1 following a double-overtime 0-0 tie. UNLV repeated that same feat in the championship game against 10th-ranked and host Utah, taking the Utes to a scoreless double-overtime tie before claiming the tournament title 6-5 in the PK shootout.
UNLV is playing in the NCAAs for the third straight year, and the second consecutive time as an automatic bid after earning an at-large bid in 2004. This is the second time UNLV will be playing in the UCLA regional, as in 2004, the Rebels fell to San Diego 1-0 in overtime in a first round game. Last year's NCAA first round game also ended in a 1-0 overtime loss, this time at Cal State Fullerton.
The Rebels have met UCLA in women's soccer once before, with the Bruins scoring the lone goal with just three seconds left to claim a 1-0 win on Oct. 3, 2003, at Peter Johann Memorial Field in Las Vegas in front of a record crowd of 1,664.
NCAA Soccer Championship Schedule at Drake Stadium (Los Angeles, Calif.)
First Round (Friday, November 10)
Game 1 - UNLV at UCLA - 5:30 pm
Game 2 - Loyola Marymount at Cal State Fullerton - 8 pm
Second Round (Sunday, November 12)
Game 3 - Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner - 1 pm
