The NCAA News - News and Features

November 10, 1997

Division I Women's Soccer

North Carolina, Notre Dame on collision course for national title

Event: 1997 Division I Women's Soccer Championship.

Overview: North Carolina and Notre Dame have met in either the semifinals or final in each of the last three years and appear on a collision course once again. The two teams tied in their regular-season clash and have beaten all other opponents between them, including a host of contenders .... North Carolina, defending champion and winner of 13 titles overall, features two top scorers in Robin Confer and Laurie Schwoy, who have combined for 26 goals and 25 assists. Raven McDonald also has scored 10 goals, and Nel Fettig and Cindy Parlow have 11 and 10 assists, respectively. The 17-0-1 Tar Heels have beaten seven ranked teams, including Portland, Santa Clara and Texas A&M. Only Texas A&M, Florida and Notre Dame have scored on the North Carolina defense .... Notre Dame is fresh from a 1-0 win over Connecticut and also has victories over Portland and Duke. Coach Chris Petrucelli's Irish are 16-0-1 and 10-0 in the Big East Conference. Five players have scored at least 10 goals, including Meotis Erikson with 17. Holly Manthei has recorded 26 assists. In goal, LaKeysla Beene has replaced graduated all-American Jen Renola with 13 shutouts and a 0.30 goals-against average .... Connecticut's loss to the Irish snapped a 14-game winning streak. The Huskies, the only team other than North Carolina that has advanced to the tournament every year, are 16-2 behind 20 goals from Jen Carlson and 14 from Carmie Landeen. Goalkeeper Jen Traw has allowed just seven goals all season .... Portland has made the tournament five times and has placed in the last three, including second in 1995. Wynne McIntosh leads this year's 11-3 club with 10 goals, including five game-winners .... Santa Clara leads a host of other contenders, along with Texas A&M, Nebraska, Duke and Virginia.

Field: Thirty-two teams will be selected November 11. Thirteen conferences will receive automatic qualification and six other conferences will compete in play-in games for the other three automatic berths. The remaining 16 teams will be selected at large.

Dates and sites: First-round games will be played at on-campus sites and must be completed by November 16. Second-round games at campus sites must be completed by November 23 and third-round games at campus sites must be completed by November 30. The semifinals and final will be December 5 and 7 at North Carolina-Greensboro.

Results: The fax-on-demand telephone number is 770/399-3060 (passcode 1915); request numbers are 1449 for bracket/schedule, 5149 for semifinal results and 5150 for championship game results. Results also will be available on the World Wide Web at www.ncaa.org. Championship results will appear in the December 15 issue of The NCAA News.