On a day when women’s conference tournament play moved into full swing, the biggest result was California’s 1-0 victory over No. 4 Santa Clara in a non-conference game that could have huge implications for the NCAA Tournament.
Reserve Stephanie Wieger scored on a 22-yard chip shot in the sixth minute of overtime to lift Cal past the Broncos. Freshman keeper Gina Pellegrini lowered her goals-against average to 0.16 with the shutout.
Cal has struggled in the Pac-10 — it’s in sixth place going into Sunday’s finale against red-hot Stanford — so the victory helped the Bears’ chances of receiving an NCAA Tournament bid. Cal was 41st in the latest RPI rankings NCAA released on Tuesday.
“We needed to make a statement to everyone out there that we deserve to be in the playoffs,” said Cal coach Kevin Boyd. “We haven’t maybe had the best results come Pac-10 time, but for us to beat the No. 4 team in the last week of the season speaks volumes.”
The loss dropped Santa Clara’s record to 14-4-1 and jeopardized its chances of earning a top seeding that would keep it at home through the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament. The Broncos were ranked third in the RPI rankings, behind only Notre Dame and North Carolina, both considered locks for top seeds in their brackets. Trailing Santa Clara in the RPI Top 10 are UCLA, Florida State, Texas A&M, William & Mary, Wake Forest, Penn State and Utah.