The WVU men’s soccer team earned an at-large bid into the NCAA Soccer Championship on Tuesday, earning a No. 11 seed and a first-round bye.
The Mountaineers will host the winner of the Virginia Tech/Campbell match in the second round, scheduled for Sunday at Dick Dlesk Stadium.
With the selection, the Mountaineers have qualified for the NCAA tournament for the 15th time in program history, including the third time in the last four seasons. The national seed is WVU’s first since 2007, as well as its highest placement in the field since being slotted No. 6 in 2006.
“This is definitely a pleasant surprise,” WVU coach Dan Stratford said. “I think we were still confident that our body of work and the quality of our competition that we faced was going to work in our favor. So, the intent was always to give us the absolute very best chance for us to be an at-large and be seeded, and I think we are very worthy of this. But we are very grateful, and hopefully can do the seed justice.”
WVU (11-3-4) finished second in the Mid-American Conference during the regular season. WVU fell to Georgia State 1-0 in the MAC tournament semifinals. WVU was one of five MAC schools to be included in the NCAA tournament field.
WVU enters the NCAA tournament ranked No. 7 in the nation in goals against average (.630) and No. 18 in goal differential (20).
“We will be very quick to remind our players that we are unbeaten at home through 10 games,” Stratford said. “There’s an argument to be made that having played and winning a game in the Tournament is helpful. But we get a little more time to rest and recover and to build up to our game.”
The 48-team field is made up of champions from 23 conferences, who qualified automatically, in addition to 25 teams that were selected at-large. The top-16 teams were seeded and received first-round byes.
All first-round games will be played Thursday on campus sites.
