NCAA Tourney Berth On Line

The Provo Daily Herald Feature Story

Women's Soccer Home HEADLINES BYU Falls to No. 1 Stanford, 2-0, in NCAA Tournament BYU Defeats UC Santa Barbara, 2-0, to Advance to Second Round of NCAA Tournament MWC Women's Soccer Weekly Release RELATED LINKS • Follow all of the college soccer action at CollegeSports.com • Email this to a friend

Nov. 8, 2001

By Dorothy Knoell
Provo Daily Herald

PROVO, Utah - It's called fulfilling expectations.

The BYU women's soccer team was picked to win the 2001 Mountain West Conference championship in the coaches' preseason poll.

BYU accomplished that with a 3-0 victory over Utah last Saturday, which left the Cougars with a 5-1 record. New Mexico was second at 3-2-1, and UNLV and Utah tied for third at 3-3.

So, mission accomplished -- or rather, expectations fulfilled -- up to a point.

Because now it's "second season" time. The Cougars, who as top seed had a bye in Wednesday's first round, begin play in the MWC tournament today.

The winner of the tournament gets the conference's automatic berth into the NCAA tournament.

"Our team is very excited to have won the regular-season conference title," BYU coach Jennifer Rockwood said. "The players are confident and are coming together at the most important time of the season. We're looking forward to (today's) game."

The Cougars won both the regular season and tournament titles last year. The tournament championship game was a 6-1 victory over Utah.

BYU will face Utah at 5 p.m. (MST) today. On Wednesday, Utah beat San Diego State, 3-0.

The championship game is at 1 p.m. Saturday.

The Cougars are led by All-American Aleisha Cramer, a 5-foot-10 defensive center/midfielder. She has scored nine goals and has seven assists for 25 points.

Freshman Kim Devine has nine goals and three assists (21 points) and Jeni Willardson Viernes has seven goals and six assists (20 points).

The Cougars' only loss in MWC play was to second-seeded New Mexico. The Lobos came to Provo and handed BYU a 1-0 loss.