UVU women’s soccer wins first WAC tournament championship

Anderson picks up 200th win as Wolverines earn automatic bid to NCAA tournament.

Kyle McDonald | Sports editor | @kylesportsbias

Bakersfield, CA — The Utah Valley University women’s soccer team won their first WAC tournament championship 2-0 over No. 1 seed Seattle University on Sunday afternoon.

The win marks the 200th win for head coach Brent Anderson and it also gives the Wolverines an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament, which begins on November 13.

“It’s a really proud moment for the program and for this team,” Anderson said in a statement to wolverine green.com. “We knew Seattle would come to battle today. They put us under a lot of pressure. Our team did a good job of staying disciplined and organized. It was a great team effort today. I’m really proud of the way team played and the maturity they showed. Winning this WAC championship and getting the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament has been something we’ve been focused on and pushing towards ever since we got into the WAC. To realize that goal is a great feeling and our team is ecstatic about it.”

Taylor Kirk got UVU on the board first in the 19th minute as she fired a shot into the back of the net after she stole the ball from the Seattle U defender.  It proved to be the game winner.

Seattle U came out in the second half with some fire as they put pressure on the UVU defense and had two shots on goal that tournament MVP Jessica Duffin was able to stop.  Despite the aggressive nature that Seattle had in the second half, UVU used quick counterattacks to keep the Redhawks at bay.  Their ability to counterattack led to a goal in the 69th minute by Sara Callister off a nice pass by Kirk that put the game out of reach.

Kirk, Callister, and Kalli Suesue were named to the All-Tournament team and Duffin won MVP honors.

The Wolverines now set their sites on the NCAA tournament and will find out where they are playing and who they are playing at 2:30 MST on Monday afternoon.