Gamecocks Travel to UNC for NCAA Tournament First Round
COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina women’s soccer earned its ninth-straight NCAA Tournament bid when the 64-team field was announced Monday afternoon (Nov. 8). The Gamecocks, who are unseeded, will travel to No. 2 seed North Carolina November 13 for a 2 p.m. kickoff.
“We’re excited to have an opportunity to be playing still at this time of year,” head coach Shelley Smith said. “We’ve matched up well with them in the past. You know you’re going to play the best teams in the country and North Carolina is one of those. You’re going to have to face those kinds of teams in the NCAA Tournament to make a run.”
The Gamecocks enter the NCAA Championship with an 11-6-1 overall record. South Carolina ranks 40th in the NCAA’s RPI and had the fourth toughest schedule in Division I. For the season, the Gamecocks have played nine teams that qualified for the NCAA Tournament, including Wake Forest in an exhibition.
This season will mark the 15th appearance in the NCAA Tournament for the Gamecocks, who have reached the event in 14 of the last 15 years.
The winner of this first-round match will face the winner of the Hofstra/Providence match. The other half of the Gamecocks section of the bracket features No. 3-seed Southern California against Grand Canyon and Penn State against Monmouth.
UNC earned an at-large bid after finishing the season with a 12-2-3 record. The Tar Heels will be South Carolina’s sixth ACC opponent this season. This will be the third meeting between the teams in the NCAA Tournament and the fifth meeting overall. Their last meeting came in the 2016 NCAA Tournament, a 1-0 win for UNC. The Gamecocks have won the last two meetings in Chapel Hill.
The Gamecocks are one of seven SEC schools to qualify for the 2021 NCAA Women’s Soccer Tournament.
The complete 64-team bracket can be found on NCAA.com. Broadcast information for the match will be released at a later time.
For the latest on women’s soccer, visit GamecocksOnline.com or follow the team’s social media accounts on Twitter @GamecockWSoccer, Facebook /GamecockWSoccer, and Instagram @GamecockWSoccer.
