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Jillian Ellis has been absolutely extraordinary, advancing to what is now her seventh consecutive College Cup as the head coach of the UCLA women's soccer team. A National Championship has eluded her though and it will be up to Lauren Cheney, Sydney Leroux and the rest of the Bruins to deliver their head coach that national title.
The Bruins play their first College Cup match at 2:30 pm PST, a national semifinal match, versus Stanford. The Bruins and Cardinal each earned #1 seeds in their respective brackets, but Stanford beat UCLA 2-0 in the regular season and won the Pac-10 title. The Bruins have spoken about how they've been a different team ever since their loss in Palo Alto though and their 9-0 record with a combined score of 31-5 since that loss speaks to it.
Some notes:
- UCLA has scored 17 goals in their four NCAA Tournament matches, the most in the tournament and three more than the next closest team.
- Lauren Cheney's game-winning goal over Portland in the quarterfinals gave her 171 points for her career, the most in UCLA history.
- Sydney Leroux has eight goals in the postseason, a UCLA postseason record and she now has 23 goals for the year, which is tied for the best in UCLA history.
The match, in College Station, Texas, will kick off a tick past 2:30 pm PST and will be broadcast live on ESPN2. The official site also has the match on their GameTracker. Use this as your open thread to discuss the match as you watch along and follow along. GO BRUINS!!