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Wildcats earn NCAA Championship Tournament berth
11/9/2009 4:44:58 PM
CHICO, Calif. – After making an early exit in last week’s California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Tournament, you can forgive the Chico State women’s soccer team of being more than a little anxious as the Wildcat players gathered in Acker Gym Monday afternoon to find out if the ’Cats had qualified for the 2009 NCAA Division II Championship Tournament. But the tension in the room quickly gave way to hearty cheers when the official announcement came down: the Wildcats were selected as one of six teams competing in the West Region bracket, and for the fourth time in six years, Chico State will get the chance to play for the NCAA title beginning Thursday in San Diego against Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) champion and defending national champs Seattle Pacific University.
The Wildcats (8-5-8 on the season) and Falcons (16-3-1) will square off at Thursday at 7:00 p.m. at Triton Soccer Stadium on the UC San Diego campus. This will be the second meeting of the year between the two schools – Seattle Pacific edged Chico State 1-0 September 8 at University Soccer Stadium.
“This is terrific,” Chico State Head Coach Kim Sutton said ecstatically immediately following Monday’s announcement. “We worked hard all year to get to this point, and this is exactly where we wanted to be. Getting into the tournament is an honor, and it’s good for this young team to be able to live this experience.”
The Wildcats enter the NCAA Tournament seeded sixth in the West Region. CCAA champion Cal State L.A. grabbed the No. 1 seed, with UC San Diego seeded second. Seattle Pacific earned the region’s No. 3 seed, followed by Pacific West Conference champion Dixie State College, Cal State Dominguez Hills and Chico State.
In four NCAA Championship Tournament appearances, the Wildcats have yet to advance past the first round. Chico State’s last West Region match was in 2007, when it battled Cal State L.A. to a scoreless tie, but lost 3-1 on penalty kicks.
The winner of Thursday’s Chico State-Seattle Pacific match will play Saturday at 7:00 p.m. against UC San Diego, which drew a first round bye.
Ticket information for the West Region matches will be posted on the Wildcats Athletics website as soon as it becomes available.
48 teams from eight different regions throughout the country are selected for the NCAA Championship Tournament, with the national champ crowned December 5 in Tampa, Florida.
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Wildcats of the Week
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Women's Track
There’s something about the annual Chico Multi that always brings out the best in heptathlete Kelly Clancey. For the second straight year, the junior from Modesto earned an NCAA Championships provisional bid in the heptathlon during the two-day Chico Multi, collecting 4,743 total points over the seven events, easily surpassing the 4,400 points needed to secure the provisional bid.
Clancey was the dominant athlete in the 12-person field, taking first place in four of the seven hepthatlon events. She took top honors in the high jump (5 feet, 3.25 inches), long jump (17 feet, 9.5 inches), 100-meter hurdles (15.42 seconds) and the 800-meter run (2 minutes, 20.25 second), while finishing second in the 200-meter dash (26.34 seconds), fourth in the shot put and sixth in the javelin throw.
Clancey, already well ahead of last season's schedule in which she scored a 4,400 in the Chico Multi and went on to post a career-best 4,811 at the CCAA Championships and advance to the NCAA Championships, will try to better her provisional mark March 24-25 at the California Multi, hosted by UC Berkeley.
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Men's Golf
Sylvester Gama carded three consecutive sub-par rounds and finished alone in second place at 7-under par at the Coyote Classic last Monday and Tuesday. Gama, competing as an individual, finished six strokes clear of third place in a standout performance that was bettered only by Cal State San Bernardino's Gene Webster, Jr.
Gama went 2-under in the opening round on the par-70 course at Arrowhead Country Club. He went 1-under in the afternoon. And on Tuesday, Gama's 66 was bettered only by Webster and matched his teammate Kyle Souza for the third lowest round of the tournament.
A 6-foot senior from Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara CC), Gama has now gone under par in eight of his 16 rounds of the 2009-10 season. His stroke average of 72.1 is second on the Wildcats as are his three top-five finishes.
Those efforts have made him easily the team's most improved player thus far this season. His stroke average was 75.3 last season and he had just one top-10 finish - an eighth-place finish at the CCAA Championships.
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1.18.10 | Women's Soccer
LOS ANGELES – After a stellar postseason run in 2009, including the first NCAA Championship Tournament victory in the history of the program, the Chico State women’s soccer team has received two more individual honors. Senior goalkeeper Natalie Bensky and junior forward Ashley Perlman were both selected as Jewish All-Americans by the Jewish Sports Review in its January/February 2010 edition.
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1.7.10 | Men's Soccer, Women's Soccer
CHICO – The ever-popular Wildcat 7-vs-7 Soccer Tournament, hosted by the Chico State men’s and women’s soccer programs, will take place on May 1-2, 2010 at University Soccer Stadium. Everyone is invited to sign up with one or more teams. Men's and Women's Divisions include Open, Over 40, co-ed competitive, and co-ed recreational.
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11.30.09 | Women's Soccer
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – It’s there’s such a thing as hitting a postseason awards trifecta, Chico State’s Ali Sward has officially accomplished the feat. On the heels of earning All-CCAA First Team honors and an NCAA/Daktronics All-West Region First Team selection, the Wildcats’ senior midfielder was named Monday to the 2009 National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA)/NCAA Division II Women’s Soccer Far West All-Region First Team. Sward’s teammate, sophomore defender Molly Downtain, was also honored as an NSCAA Far West All-Region Second Team selection.
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11.18.09 | Women's Soccer
Freshman defender Christine Kearney converted on a penalty kick shootout to help lift the Chico State women's soccer team into the NCAA Championship Tournament's second round for the first time in the history of the program, and then two days later, notched her first collegiate goal. She's been named a Wildcat of the Week.
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11.17.09 | Women's Soccer
CHICO – Chico State women’s soccer midfielder Ali Sward, already an All-California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) First Team selection, received another well-deserved accolade Tuesday – the Wildcats’ leading scorer for the just-completed 2009 season was among 13 players named to the Daktronics/NCAA Division II All-West Region First Team.
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11.14.09 | Women's Soccer
LA JOLLA – Grand Eucalyptus trees surround half of Triton Soccer Stadium, which is 50 yards west of a sprawling grove of the twisting, bending behemoths. The trees provided a unique and beautiful setting for what turned out to be a heartbreaking 2-1 loss for the Chico State women’s soccer team at UC San Diego in the second round of the NCAA Championship Saturday. But the trees also provided a representation of the growth of the Chico State women’s soccer team into one of the towering programs in the West Region under Head Coach Kim Sutton and the team’s four fourth-year seniors – Natalie Bensky, Molly McFadden, Alex Rodriguez, and Ali Sward.
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11.14.09 | Women's Soccer
LA JOLLA – Apparently someone does win in a tie. This season, that someone has the Chico State women’s soccer team. With their NCAA record ninth tie of the season and a 4-3 victory in the ensuing shootout Thursday night against long-time nemesis Seattle Pacific, the Wildcats advanced to tonight’s NCAA Championship Tournament second-round match against host UC San Diego at Tritons Soccer Stadium.
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