INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference regular season and tournament champion Trinity University (20-0-1) has earned its 12th-straight berth into the 64-team NCAA Div. III Women’s Soccer Tournament, as the league’s automatic qualifier. NCAA Release | Tournament Bracket
The Tigers earned the SCAC automatic bid by virtue of their 4-0 win over Texas Lutheran University Sunday afternoon. The SCAC championship was the third consecutive league crown for Trinity and assured the Tigers of their 27th appearance in NCAA postseason play since 1992.
Trinity will host Pomona-Pitzer (13-2-3) for its NCAA opening round contest, the automatic qualifier out of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC), on Saturday in San Antonio, Texas. Saturday will be a rematch of last year’s NCAA Second Round game that Trinity advanced via penalty kicks. Overall, the SCAC is 2-1-1 all-time against SCIAC foes in NCAA Tournament action.
On the other side of the bracket, Mary Hardin-Baylor (16-0-1) will take on Pacific Lutheran (16-1-3). The winners of Saturday’s matches play on Sunday with a trip to the sectionals on the line.
Trinity, which holds a 32-20-11 record in NCAA postseason play, will be led by seventh-year head coach Dylan Harrison. The Tigers got strong performances this season from SCAC CO-Offensive Player-of-the-year Molly Sheridan and SCAC Tournament Offensive MVP Michaela Bosco as the duo combined for 28 goals and dished out 16 assists for 92 total points. On the defensive side of the ball, Trinity is led by back-to-back SCAC Defensive Player-of-the-Year Bailey Meyer who anchored a defense that has allowed just two goals all season, posted an SCAC record 19 shutouts and sustains an NCAA best 0.095 goals-against-average.
Forty-four conferences were awarded automatic qualification for the 2022 championship. One team will be selected from Pool B. The other 19 berths were reserved for Pool C, which includes institutions from automatic-qualifying conferences that did not win their conference championship and any remaining Pool B teams.
Sixteen four-team sites will conduct first- and second-round play on the first weekend of the championship, November 11 and 12 or 12 and 13. Second-round winners will advance to one of four sectional sites November 18 and 19 or 19 and 20. All games, except the semifinals and final, will be played on the campuses of competing institutions.
Winners of the four sectionals will advance to the semifinals December 2 and 4, at Kerr Stadium in Salem, Virginia, with Roanoke College and Old Dominion Athletic Conference serving as hosts. If a Sunday no-play institution advances to the final site, the semis and finals will be held on December 1 and 3.
