No. 7 West Virginia (11-4-7, 4-1-4) will continue their NCAA Tournament run on Friday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. against No. 2 Penn State at Jeffrey Field, University Park Pennsylvania.
West Virginia is competing in the NCAA Tournament for the 22nd time in school history, including a 21 year streak where they made the tournament every year from 2000-2022, which was snapped last season when they failed to qualify. The Mountaineers are looking to advance to the third round of the tournament for the eighth time in school history.
The Mountaineers advanced to the second round by defeating Virginia Tech last Sunday in Morgantown 2-0. Two Mountaineers picked up their first career goals in the match, with Aria Bilal and Isabel Loza scoring. West Virginia has shut-out their last three opponents, with their last conceded goal coming against Oklahoma State on Oct. 30. West Virginia goalkeeper Kayza Massey leads the Big 12 in shutouts with 10.
Penn State (14-4-3, 5-3-2), defeated Quinnipiac in their first round match-up 4-1. The Nittany Lions had four different goal-scorers in the match.
Redshirt senior Ally Schlegal leads Penn State with 13 goals and 28 points on the season. She has also added 2 assists.
This will be the second time the Mountaineers and Nittany Lions have met this season, with the first coming on Aug. 25, where Penn State defeated West Virginia 2-0. It will also be the 22nd meeting all-time between West Virginia and Penn State, with Penn State having an 11-7-3 advantage in the series.
“There able to score and do the things that they do so well, there a high speed, high pace of play team and we saw that in the first match-up, but both teams are different, better, worse, but I can take away that if you give them an inch there gonna finish,” West Virginia head coach Nikki Izzo-Brown said on the match-up
The match will be streamed on ESPN+, with the winner of the game playing the winner of Xavier and No. 3 Virginia.
Photo by Wesley Shoemaker, Blue Gold Sports
