The Bruins drew the No. 2 seed in the 2018 NCAA tournament.
UCLA women’s soccer (14-3-1, 9-2-0 Pac-12) finished the regular season with a nine-game winning streak, culminating with a 3-2 overtime victory over cross-town rival USC. The Bruins’ seed means they will host the first two rounds at Wallis Annenberg Stadium.
“I think we worked our way to a two seed – about a month ago it wasn’t looking like that and we were hoping to just keep getting results and put ourselves in a good position to host as long as we can,” said coach Amanda Cromwell.
Five teams from the Pac-12 were selected to the tournament, and three earned seedings. Stanford earned the No. 1 seed in the top left quadrant and USC is the No. 4 seed in the bottom left one.
Cromwell said she was surprised by how low the Trojans were seeded.
“When you look at it, the Pac-12 – specifically us, USC and Stanford (are) all being basically three of the top five teams in the country,” Cromwell said. “I thought USC got a raw deal with their seed and I’m shocked.”
The top seed in UCLA’s quadrant is North Carolina, which is undefeated in the ACC.
The Bruins were in the same quadrant as the Tar Heels last year, but didn’t end up facing them on their path to the championship game as UNC was upset by then-No. 4-seeded Princeton.
Cromwell said she looks forward to playing unfamiliar teams.
“It’s nice to get a new team because we always seem to play the same teams,” Cromwell said. “Any team at this point can beat any team basically so you have to prepare.”
The Bruins start the tournament at home against San Jose State on Friday at 6 p.m.