Women’s Soccer NCAA Preview: Tartans Head to Baltimore

(PITTSBURGH, Pa.) – The Carnegie Mellon University women's soccer team will be making the program's second-ever appearance in the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship when it travels to Baltimore, Md., for the first round of 64-team field. The Tartans earned an at-large bid to the tournament following a 9-4-2 season in which they were ranked nationally from start to finish. The team is one year removed from an Elite Eight appearance.

The Tartans are schedule to face York (Pa.) College on Saturday at 11:00 a.m. on the campus of Johns Hopkins University. This will mark the first-ever appearance between the two schools. York earned the tournament bid by way of winning the Capital Athletic Conference Championship on penalty kicks over Christopher Newport University. 

Carnegie Mellon has scored 24 goals this season with midfielders Louisa Pendergast (Snohomish, Wash./Glacier Peak) and Amanda So (Fairfax Station, Va./Lake Braddock Secondary) leading with four apiece. Sophomore midfielder Carson Quiros (Atlanta, Ga./Whitefield Academy) has scored three goals and assisted on two others while defender Rachel Contopoulos (Oakland, Calif./Berkeley) leads the team in points (10) with two goals and six assists. Defensively, the Tartans have recorded six shutouts behind the goalkeeping of senior Anna Albi (Cincinnati, Ohio/Summit Country Day) and freshman Katie Liston (Lakewood, Ohio/Montessori HS at University Circle).

York boasts a 12-4-3 overall mark with 37 goals scored and nine shutouts. They are led by defender Kayla Kovalsky's six goals and one assist with midfielders Beth Bunn and Jamie Sokolis each scoring five goals. Melanie Glessner has started 18 games in goal for the Spartans with Stevi Lukacz sharing time in nine games as the team has a 0.61 goals against average.

Johns Hopkins is ranked sixth in the nation with an 18-1-1 record and will host Brooklyn College in the other first round match-up in Baltimore. The Blue Jays earned the automatic qualifier from the Centennial Conference while Brooklyn is making its first-ever appearance in the NCAA tournament in just two years of the program. They won the City University of New York Athletic Conference.

The Tartans hosted the Blue Jays in September at the DoubleTree Tartan Cup, falling 3-2, after leading 2-0 in the first half. The Blue Jays hold the all-time series advantage at 7-1-0, with the Tartans lone win coming in the 2004 ECAC Championship game.