ASU Soccer: Season comes to an end as Sun Devils miss out on NCAA Tournament

(Photo: Colin Thompson/WCSN)

Arizona State women’s soccer did as much as it could in 2018: the Sun Devils beat who they were supposed to beat, picked up a couple of upsets, and ended up finishing 8th place in the Pac-12, three places above their preseason projection. On Monday, however, they learned that it wouldn’t be enough to earn a place in the NCAA Tournament.

The Sun Devils finish the 2018 season at 10–7–1, the first time since 2014 that ASU ended with a winning record. A 5–5–1 mark in Pac-12 play included a victory over Washington State and a draw with Colorado, both teams that finished ahead of ASU in the final conference standings.

That body of work was good enough to place Arizona State in the top-45 in RPI, a major factor in determining the teams that qualify for the tournament. A non-conference defeat to New Hampshire, who finished 190th in RPI, was a major blemish on the ASU résumé. The Sun Devils also picked up just one victory over a team that finished higher than them in RPI (Washington State, who finished 35th).

ASU had chances late in the season to potentially lock up an at-large bid. However, home defeats against Arizona- on senior night- and Stanford- the top-ranked team in the country- only served to hurt the Sun Devils’ chances. In the end, ASU found itself on the outside looking in.

After Sunday’s defeat to Stanford, coach Graham Winkworth thought the Sun Devils stood “about 43rd or 44th in the nation.” He thought the Sun Devils had put together a strong enough résumé to warrant inclusion.

“I think it would be a travesty if you take the 11th-best team in the third-strongest conference [North Carolina State] in the nation and don’t take the seventh-best team in the strongest conference [Arizona State] in the nation,” Winkworth said.

North Carolina State was named as part of the field of 64, in the same quadrant of the bracket as UCLA. The Wolfpack will face Northwestern in the first round.

Although the Sun Devils only beat one team that finished ahead of them in the conference, they played many games tough: two-goal defeats at UCLA and USC, a 1–0 loss to Arizona, and one of just five goals scored on Stanford in Pac-12 play. Coach Winkworth thought that competitiveness merited a look.

“I think that we’ve demonstrated against the best teams…that we’ve been in those matches until the last 10 minutes,” Winkworth said on Sunday. “I think it would be a real shame if they didn’t take us. Four of our seven losses have come when we’ve been shorthanded, hopefully the committee looks at that.”

The committee saw it differently, however, and the Sun Devils will be watching the NCAA Tournament from home for the fourth consecutive season. Arizona State last qualified for the tournament in 2014, making it to the second round that year. Their bid for an eighth trip to the tourney, however, will have to wait another year.

Five Pac-12 schools were selected to take part in the tournament: Stanford, Arizona, USC, Washington State, and UCLA. The Cardinal earned the overall number one seed, while USC and UCLA also were seeded as one of the nation’s top 16 teams. Notably missing out from the Pac-12, besides ASU was Colorado and Utah; both the Buffaloes and Utes finished ahead of Arizona State in the conference, but did not earn an at-large berth.

The focus now turns to the future for Arizona State, and it certainly is a bright future. Six of this year’s key contributors were freshman: Eva van Deursen, Alexia Delgado, Nicole Douglas, Cori Sullivan, Marleen Schimmer, and Isabel Dehakiz. Add in starting goalkeeper Nikki Panas, midfielder Kylie Miniefield, and jack-of-all-trades Olive Jones, and the Sun Devils look to be set to continue to make strides in 2019.

Seven seniors now have played their last games for Arizona State. Goalkeeper Sydney Day; defenders Madison Wolf, Melinda Gutierrez, Jemma Purfield, and Angela Boyle; midfielder Casey Martinez; and forward Natalie Stephens have all concluded their collegiate careers.

Both Martinez and Purfield indicated over the weekend that they will enter the 2019 NWSL College Draft. The draft will be held in Chicago in mid-January as part of the United Soccer Coaches Convention, likely on Thursday, January 10.