ZACH ENGLUND
Staff writer
It was a bittersweet weekend for the No.-24 Pepperdine women’s soccer team (11-6-3), blanking the Gonzaga Bulldogs, 3-0, in an impressive victory at home in the season finale Saturday afternoon.
It was a great way to celebrate Senior Day, as senior players Lindsey Redlin, Courtney Nelson, Jennifer Brewer, Caitlin Mitchell, Lauren Treinen, Loretta Younkin and Ashley Doi laced up for their last regular-season game of their collegiate careers. The script could not have been written any better, that is, until the team found out Monday that it was not granted a bid to the NCAA postseason tournament this year.
Shocked, confused and in disbelief, Head Coach Tim Ward had several things to say about his team being snubbed from the tournament.
“I just don’t get it,” Ward said. “Santa Clara was a No.-1 seed and we beat them. We played so well through a very difficult schedule, and we don’t get in? Our conference was ranked fourth out of 31 across the country. We finished third in our conference behind last year’s national champion, Portland, and the No.-1 seed in this year’s tournament, Santa Clara, and we don’t get in?”
Ward added that the harsh reality might be that who gets in the tournament might not be all about wins and loses.
“There’s something really skeptical going on,” he said, “and I don’t know exactly what it is. I don’t know if it’s the money that they generate in the Big East Conference, but a lot of West Coast teams were wrongfully left out of the tournament. It could very well be a money issue, generating funds and so on. It’s really unfortunate if that’s the case.”
Ward said his phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from people asking him what happened, and that coaches around the league have taken notice.
“I had calls from five different coaches expressing their concern and disappointment for what happened,” he said. “We are not the only team who feels like something’s up.”
Though the NCAA ranking system has had many complaints in the past, especially with football, Ward had never had a problem with the system until this year, feeling very uneasy about certain teams that got in.
“I don’t know how the NCAA voting process works,” he said. “I’ve never had a problem with it before, but so many teams got in over us that I’m just not sure about, especially on the East Coast. I really don’t know what to say. It’s just unfortunate, it really is.”
Ward also mentioned that when it came to justifying its selection to the NCAA in year’s past, Pepperdine has never failed to disappoint.
“We’ve done so well in the tournament the last five years,” he said. “We’ve always represented ourselves well, so that’s another reason why I don’t understand not being chosen.”
After finishing so strongly in the season with a team that Ward described as “one of the best he’s ever had,” the Waves have nothing to show for it. There are seven seniors on the team that had no intention of playing their last game, and that reality is one that Ward said really makes this whole situation even more bothersome.
“How do you look at a group of women who played so well all season and tell them that we didn’t deserve to get into the tournament?” Ward said. “All I can do as a coach is tell the girls that we can only control certain things, and that this year is a perfect example of how every single game is so important at our chances in the tournament. Hopefully we can come back next year with a fire from what happened to us.”
08-27-2007
