MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — After a 13-day break, the WVU women’s soccer team opens NCAA Tournament play Friday night at Kentucky. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. in Lexington. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.
West Virginia (12-5-2) is making their 23rd NCAA Tournament appearance in the last 25 years under veteran head coach Nikki Izzo-Brown. The Mountaineers are back in the field of 64 after a one-year absence.
Kentucky (11-4-4, 3-3-4 SEC) won their first eight matches to start the season. However, the Wildcats are just 3-4-4 since then.
“The SEC is the lions den. In a Power 4, it is never easy to have the consistency. That’s what everybody is hunting,” Izzo-Brown said.
“They are a very talented group. They are going to have traits like a lot of different teams we played. I don’t know if I could stamp them and say, ‘Hey, they play like TCU or they play like Texas Tech or Baylor or Colorado’. But I think they have very strong tendencies like a lot of those teams. That’s why they are in the position that they are in and did so well this year.
“It is a very strong opponent that we will face and I am excited to see how we match up.”
West Virginia finished third in the Big 12 regular season standings. However, they were defeated in the opening round of the Big 12 Conference Tournament by eventual champion Kansas. The Mountaineers have had nearly two weeks in between matches.
“Being as experienced as I am, I have bowed out very early and then we have extended and won. I think even the years that we won (conference tournaments), as exciting as it was I think it does put you sometimes at a disadvantage in other ways depending on what team you have.
“As much as you want to rest them, you also have to keep that intensity up of game situations. We’ve definitely tried to see our load of game-type rest and recovery. But also, you have to get the women able to facilitate the intensity of a game and ensure that it is not too much rest and we are losing a first step. So we have done scrimmages. We have done some intense and opened-up fields. So we have done some things that would facilitate a game.”