I know the focus is on Men’s Basketball, hence “Bronco Hoops”, but just wanted to give some well deserved attention to the most successful and consistent program within SCU Athletics…Women’s Soccer.
AGAIN, Jerry Smith has this program playing in the NCAA Tournament. Imagine if SCU’s other programs acheived one tenth of what these Ladies achieve year in and year out. Personally, we probably, as a whole, take their success for granted. I didn’t play soccer growing up, and it’s not a sport that I watch with regularity, albeit The World Cup. I will be watching today.
Lady Broncos play on The Mission Campus at 1pm today vs Arizona St and match will be on ESPN+.
Congratulations to Coach Smith and the team ONCE AGIN!
Note: The men’s team finished conference play 5-1-1 and are co-champions of the WCC with USD. The automatic bid goes to USD as a result of their win over SCU. The men are hoping to receive an at large bid during Monday’s selection show. Regardless, a very fine season for a team that was not even projected to finish in the upper half of the conference.
Congratulations to Coach Rast and team and good luck to the ladies against Penn St.
The Men’s team got snubbed – LMU got the pick at-large. Men’s games start today, I believe. Too bad, Rast has done a nice job. Oh well, at least we have the women’s squad to follow! Hopefully they can repeat the fine playoff performance of last year.
Women’s soccer co-shares yet another WCC championship but gets an extremely poor ncaa tournament placement.
They won the automatic slot over pepp bc of our h2h, however the committee gave pepp a home game and higher seed than us (#7 while we got a #10 seed).
To make matters more challenging, we face familiar foe BYU in the first round who was ranked #3 overall in the preseason before an up down season. UNC is waiting for us in the next round and the #1 seed in our region is FSU - who has won 4 of the last 10 titles.
It’s going to be an extremely challenging task for the broncos but hope they can pull off some upsets.
Midwest is right. We got the short end of the stick compared to Pepperdine. However you have to beat the best to be the best and if anyone can overcome the snub it’s our broncos. Go Broncos!!!
Unfortunately in the end, the coaches poll is meaningless. The seedings are entirely based upon RPI, and our poor performance against lower rated teams, a loss at Oregon St and draws with San Diego, Pepperdine, Washington St and Harvard pushed us down in RPI… And as for bracket placement, it’s all subjective coupled with an extreme bias toward the “Power 4 Conferences”… Unfortunately, the team’s been plagued by injuries throughout the season which has limited their ability to score as well as defend. Thought playing Sally Menti in a forward position against San Diego put us in a more aggressive posture for better looks to get goals on frame…
Provo’s always snake pit due altitude, weather and crowd (2,500). Game time weather: Partly cloudy, cold (40s)… I’m optimistic and feel Jerry and his staff will have the team well prepared with a game plan for a Bronco win!!!
Unseeded Santa Clara Women’s Soccer advances with a 1-0 win over 7 Seed BYU on a goal in 71st minute by Tory Powell. Now its on to the round of 32 next Friday 11/22 at 2 Seed North Carolina… This was an awesome win on the road in Provo!!!
Broncos lost a close one 0-1 on last minute goal to North Carolina. . Bronco womens soccer still the gold standard for Bronco athletics. Hopefully basketball can start to emulate. Credit to Bronco women for another great/good year. Tough to have to play number 1 seed in second round on the road but they played worth heart.
Really excellent article, and I’m glad that Smith was willing to be so forthright.
Glass half-full: Santa Clara is way out ahead of a lot of peer schools for having leaders like Smith and recent grads like Julie Ertz, Jalen, Podz, Sofia Huerta, etc. and the old(er) guard like Nash and Brandi and Leslie Osborn.
I don’t know how a school like Portland is navigating all of this.
“The collective started with the school leaning in to a group of billionaire alums for help, but Merz and athletic director Heather Owen say one of the problems has been convincing alums from an academic school to invest in a college sports model they didn’t grow up in, a common problem nationwide.”
If I won the lottery I wouldn’t tell anyone…but there would be signs…