By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
After winning the first MIAA tournament title in program history, the Missouri Western Women’s soccer team has their sights on an NCAA championship.
Earning an automatic berth into the NCAA tournament, the Griffons knew they would be in the tournament; it was just a matter of waiting to find out their opponent.
After Monday’s NCAA selection show, MoWest now knows they have a date with MIAA conference mate Washburn on Friday in Mankato, Minnesota.
Head Coach Jacob Plocher says he’s proud of the hard work his team put in, especially through such a testing season
“With all the ties and kind of how close things were, so for us to be able to kind of get hot there at the right time and come away with the conference tournament championship is exciting,” Plocher tells reporters. “So hopefully we can kind of utilize and use that momentum come this weekend.”
Plocher says coming off a conference tournament that felt win or go home, having that mentality going into this tournament will help
“The mindset, the mentality, is we’ve been on a one game season now for the last three games,” Plocher explains. “So, just being able to continue that approach and stay focused and have the discipline to to execute how we need to execute, hopefully we’ll be in a good spot.”
The Griffons came to a nil-nil draw in their home finale against the Ichabods just two weeks ago in their only matchup this season.
Senior defender Brookelyn Buttolph says she’s excited to actually be able to face Washburn this time around
“I didn’t get to be able to play in that game, so now it’s kind of my motivation to go and play the best that we can,” Buttolph says.
Buttolph missed the match due to a red card she was given against Emporia State.
Fellow senior defender Annie McDevitt shares in the excitement with the team being back to full strength, using a very shuffled lineup against Washburn previously
“I played center back for the first time ever in my whole soccer career,” McDevitt laughs about the shuffled around lineup against Washburn two weeks ago. “So now that we got Brooke back, I’m back at my regular position, we’ve got Kendall (Knisley) back in the attack, I’m really excited and they’re not ready for us.”
MoWest and Washburn kick off on Friday at 10am in Mankato, Minnesota. The winner will play either top seed Minnesota State or eighth seed Harding on Sunday.
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