Reigning Big 12 Women’s Soccer champion West Virginia and coach Nikki Izzo-Brown spoke to the media recently about the upcoming soccer season and life in the new Big 12 Conference.
The Big 12 expanded to 14 teams for 2023, with the number set to grow to 16 in 2024. One of the 2023 newcomers, BYU, was selected first in the preseason poll.
With the expanded conference, teams now play 10 conference opponents rather than nine. West Virginia will face every newcomer except BYU during the regular season.
“Our league is going to be stronger. BYU and Central Florida are both incredibly strong programs,” Izzo-Brown said. “I’m excited. When Virginia Tech and Miami left the Big East … just tell me my schedule. Ideally, if someone would ask me, let football be football and let them go to their conferences and just regionalize the rest of our sports, because the travel is going to get interesting for everybody from the Big Ten all of us.”
Izzo-Brown openly admitted that she is concerned about having to go all the way to Colorado to play games when Colorado joins the Big 12 in 2024.
“You go out to that elevation, that’s probably one of my biggest concerns,” Izzo-Brown said. “It just kind of hit me over the head once I saw that.”
She also spoke on her players and how she enjoyed Covid giving some players five years of eligibility.
“Mackenzie Aunkst, she’s one that’s coming back stronger than she was last year.” Izzo-Brown said. “Maya McCutcheon is somebody that is also coming very strong. Maddie Moreau is always ready to rumble, and Julianne Vallerand … and Kayza [Massey].”
West Virginia will need to do some replacing at the center back position after Gabrielle Robinson and Jordan Brewster moved on to play professionally.
“Annika [Leslie] has gotten some significant minutes there and knows exactly what her skillset has to be to keep that position intact,” Izzo-Brown said. “And then Kenzie, you might see Kenzie there a little bit, and obviously with all of her experience, you know they know the position well. So, I feel like we’re in good hands.”
After winning the Big 12 Championship, hosting and winning an NCAA Tournament game against Virginia Tech, then losing in the second round to Penn State in 2022, West Virginia is motivated to make a deeper postseason run this season.
“Us not making a Sweet 16 is definitely whispers that I’m hearing in camp and something that the girls want to make sure we take care of with the things we can control this year, our hard work and development,” Izzo-Brown said. “By winning a Big 12 Championship, we can look to that a lot and how exciting that was. So failing and not making a Sweet 16, but also winning a championship will kind of be the yin and yang of the experience this season, and hopefully it’ll be our fuel for the fire for to do both through failure and success.”
West Virginia opens up the season on the road against Duke tomorrow night at 7 p.m., with the game available to watch on the ACC Network on ESPN.
