GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Colorado Mesa women's soccer is ready to play their first NCAA Tournament game in 12 years this Friday and hope to play their second this Sunday against a familiar foe.

The Mavericks claimed the No. 3 seed in the South Central region for the NCAA Tournament. That earns the Mavs a first-round matchup with the No. 6 seed, Texas Woman's, this Friday at 1 p.m. at the campus of Colorado School of Mines. The Orediggers are the regional No. 2 seed and will play the winner of Friday's match on Sunday at 1 p.m.

Both matchups will be available to watch for free on the RMAC Network. Live stats are also available.

After going unbeaten through their first 13 games of the 2023 season, the Mavericks lost three in a row and slid from the top of the RMAC standings to the fourth seed in the conference tournament. Since that streak, however, CMU has won four in a row, including three straight RMAC Tournament matches to claim the RMAC Tournament title. That earned the Mavericks their first overall NCAA bid since 2011 and their first automatic qualifying bid since the 1998 season.

Looking Back
Colorado Mesa scored early and often against a Colorado School of Mines defense that came into the match having gone nearly 1,000 consecutive minutes without giving up a goal, as CMU won 3-0 to win its first RMAC Tournament Championship since 1998.

RECAP: Colorado School of Mines

Mikayla Eccher scored two first-half goals, getting the Mavs on the board just three minutes into the match. Kylie Wells added CMU's third just two minutes into the second half. Keely Wieczorek made four saves in net to complete her 10^th shutout of the season.

Party Like It's 1998
Colorado Mesa's win over Mines capped off an eight-day run that ended in the program's first time lifting the RMAC Cup in 25 years.

The Mavs last captured an RMAC Tournament championship in 1998. At the time, the RMAC Tournament only consisted of three teams, with the second and third-place teams facing off in a play-in game to play the No. 1 seed in the final. The Mavericks were the RMAC regular season champions that year, so they only needed one win to claim the tournament victory, which they got over MSU Denver by a 2-0 score with two goals by 1997 RMAC Player of the Year and All-American forward Tiffany Thompson, who was the school's all-time leading goals and points scorer until her records were broken last season by Lila Dere.

That RMAC Tournament game was part of a unique scheduling stretch in 1998 where CMU played (and beat) MSU Denver in three consecutive matches – the final RMAC regular season game (a 1-0 CMU win), the final of the RMAC Tournament after MSU Denver beat Colorado Christian in the play-in semifinal and the first round of the 1998 NCAA Tournament (a 3-1 CMU win), which is still the CMU women's soccer program's most recent NCAA Tournament victory.

This year was only the second time the Mavericks have won multiple games in the RMAC Tournament. After only needing one win in 1998, the Mavs most recently made a six-team RMAC Tournament final in 2011, coincidentally also as the No. 4 seed. The Mavs beat fifth-ranked MSU Denver and top-seed Regis before falling to second-seeded Mines in the final, eerily similar to the Mavs' path in 2023 (No. 4 seed, win over No. 5 MSU Denver, win over No. 8 Westminster, played No. 2 Mines in the final).

All-Tourney Team
After winning the RMAC Tournament, Colorado Mesa placed six players on the 12-player RMAC All-Tournament Team.

With her two goals in this year's tournament title match, Mikayla Eccher became the first CMU player with multiple goals in a postseason game (RMAC or NCAA) since Thompson in the 1998 RMAC Tournament final. Eccher also scored in the semifinal against Westminster, finding the net in the third minute of back-to-back games. Eccher is the first RMAC Tournament MVP in program history.

Forwards Sauvelyne Randel and Kylie Wells each made the All-Tournament team. Randel tallied a goal and an assist in each of CMU's two home tournament wins over MSU Denver and Westminster and had eight shots throughout the tournament. Wells scored once in every tournament game and has a four-game scoring streak dating back to the regular-season finale at Westminster. Adessa Correa got an All-Tournament nod after scoring in the quarterfinal against MSU Denver and providing the key through ball assist on Wells's championship-icing goal early in the second half against Mines.

Defensively, goalkeeper Keely Wieczorek and defender Ally Wachtel earned spots after recording back-to-back shutouts in the semifinal and final. Wachtel was instrumental in disrupting attacks and using her head to win aerial balls for the Mavs, while Wieczorek made 11 saves against two goals conceded in three matches.

Tournament Preview
Six teams have qualified for the 2023 NCAA Tournament from the South Central regional, one of eight regions in the 56-team overall tournament. The six qualifying schools are split evenly between three from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) and three from the Lone Star Conference (LSC).

Dallas Baptist (No. 10 in United Soccer Coaches Poll) has earned the No. 1 regional seed and are still undefeated with a 14-0-4 record, capturing the LSC regular season and tournament titles. The Patriots have tons of postseason experience, advancing to the Final Four two seasons ago and the South Central regional final last year. DBU is led by Taylor Tufts, who leads all of Division II with 17 assists, and a suffocating defense which has allowed just six goals in 18 matches.

DBU will be one of two regional hosts and is one of two teams with a first-round bye. DBU will also host a first-round game between No. 4 UCCS and No. 5 St. Mary's, on Thursday at 1 p.m. CT/noon MT. UCCS won the regular season RMAC title with a 10-1-1 conference record but were upset in the quarterfinals of the RMAC Tournament. The Mountain Lions feature the RMAC Goalkeeper of the Year in Isabella Whitmore and the RMAC Coach of the Year in J.B. Belzer, as well as four RMAC All-Conference first-teamers: Whitmore, defender Jade Kinsey and midfielders Makayla Merlo (seven goals) and Fie Steenberg (six assists).

UCCS and St. Mary's played during the regular season and tied 1-1 at the Rattlers' campus in San Antonio, Texas. St. Mary's finished second in the Lone Star during the regular season and advanced to the championship match of the tournament, where they lost to DBU. The Rattlers are led by sophomore midfielder Shelby Paniagua (nine goals, 11 assists) and are outscoring opponents 41-26. The winner of the UCCS-St. Mary's game will face DBU on Saturday at 4 p.m. CT/3 p.m. MT.

The other side of the bracket features Colorado School of Mines (#4 in Coaches Poll) as the host and No. 2 seed, receiving a first-round bye. Colorado Mesa (#18 in Coaches Poll) knows the Orediggers well after playing them twice in the last month, including last Sunday in the RMAC Championship. Mines will face the winner of Friday's match between No. 3 Colorado Mesa and No. 6 Texas Woman's on Sunday at 1 p.m. MT.

About Texas Woman's
The Texas Woman's University Pioneers will be playing in the second NCAA Tournament game in program history when they take on the Mavericks. The Pioneers previously qualified for the tournament in 2019 but lost in the first round to Dixie State (now Utah Tech). This season, TWU is 11-3-4 overall and went 6-2-3 in the Lone Star conference season.

Defense has been TWU's calling card all season long. The Pioneers have allowed just six goals across 18 matches this season, tied with DBU for the second-fewest goals allowed in all of Division II. Pioneers goalkeeper Amanda Farris ranks fourth in Division II with a 0.34 goals-against average, allowing just the six goals across 1,599 of TWU's 1,640 total minutes in net.

Texas Woman's has 13 shutouts in its 18 games this season and have only allowed multiple goals once this season, during their most recent game. Back on Monday, November 6, TWU was upset in the quarterfinals of the LSC Tournament by Midwestern State 2-1 in overtime, sending a Pioneers team that entered the match ranked fourth in the South Central region into a sweat for the selection show this past Monday.

The Pioneers favor low scoring games, as they have scored just 22 times in those 18 matches. Over the course of TWU's last seven matches, the Pioneers are 2-2-3 while both scoring and conceding just four goals each.

That grind-it-out style means TWU is certainly capable of producing results against top teams. The Pioneers battled to a 1-1 tie with undefeated DBU and tied 0-0 with St. Mary's, the conference's other NCAA Tournament team. If their vaunted defense is breached, however, the Pioneers have been vulnerable – Texas Woman's has only scored multiple goals twice in 12 games against Lone Star Conference opponents. The Pioneers have not played an RMAC school yet this season.

The top three scorers so far for Texas Woman's this season are all freshmen. The aptly named Alyssa Striker leads the Pioneers offensively with four goals and three assists but has missed TWU's past two matches due to injury. Giselle Gutierrez and Erica Brelove have three goals apiece. Brelove, a defender, was named Second Team All-Conference and earned spots on the LSC All-Freshman team and LSC All-Tournament team. Striker, Farris and TWU defender Alyssa Valdez were also Second Team All-Conference.

Goal Hungry
The strong defensive challenge presented by Texas Woman's means that Colorado Mesa's forwards will have to be on their game. Fortunately, that has very much been the case throughout CMU's postseason run thus far.

Colorado Mesa has scored 51 goals this season, a total that ranks third in the RMAC but would lead the Lone Star Conference. The Mavs have scored exactly three goals in four consecutive matches, upping their season average to 2.55 goals per game. In first-team All-RMAC forwards Sauvelyne Randel and Abby Fotheringham and second-team forward Kylie Wells, the Mavs boast three of the top seven attackers in the RMAC in total shots and three of the top eight in shots on goal.

All three have experience in clutch moments, as well. Randel, who ranks second in the RMAC and South Central Region with 13 goals, has five game-winning goals this season. That is tied for the second-highest single-season total in program history, tied with Lila Dere's 2022 season and trailing Dere's 2021 season (six). Dere was the South Central region Player of the Year in 2021 and 2022 and now plays for the University of Colorado (DI).

Wells has come alive in the postseason with a goal in each RMAC Tournament game. She scored what ended up being the game-winning goal in the second half of a 3-2 quarterfinal win over MSU Denver and also got CMU's third just after halftime in the RMAC Tournament championship game against Mines.

Fotheringham, who has five goals and four assists this season, authored the season's most dramatic single moment with an 89th-minute game winning goal against UCCS, which was the only RMAC loss for the Mountain Lions this season.

Summit Award
Colorado Mesa women's soccer made program history last week when Mira Houck was named the winner of the 2023 RMAC Women's Soccer Summit Award.

Summit Award Release

Houck became the first CMU women's soccer player to receive the prestigious award, presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA that is also competing at the site of the finals for their respective sport's championship. Houck has a perfect 4.0 GPA during her time at Colorado Mesa as a sociology major.

Coach's Corner
Mavericks head coach Megan Remec is in her fourth season at the helm of the CMU program.
 
In her debut campaign, played in spring 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Remec led the Mavericks to a winning 5-4-1 record and to the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament for the first time since 2017.

In her first full season in fall 2021, CMU finished 14-4 with a 10-2 RMAC record, winning the program's first regular-season RMAC title since 2000. At the conclusion of the 2021 season, Remec was named the RMAC Coach of the Year, becoming just the second individual Colorado Mesa coach to win that honor and the first since that same 2000 season.

Prior to CMU, Remec spent five seasons as an assistant coach at RMAC rival MSU Denver and was also an assistant coach at Elmhurst College (Division III) in Illinois.

Host Preview
Colorado School of Mines is in the NCAA Tournament for the 15^th year in a row and have regional hosting rights and a first-round bye as a top-two seed for the second year in a row. Last season, Colorado School of Mines advanced all the way to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, beating UCCS and Dallas Baptist before falling to Western Washington, the eventual national champions.

Colorado School of Mines also won the RMAC regular season and tournament double last season, a feat they did not replicate in 2023. Mines lost the regular season title by only a single point to UCCS and made the championship game of the RMAC Tournament, but the second-seeded Orediggers fell to the fourth-seeded Mavericks 3-0. That outcome was a reversal of the matchup during the regular season, when Mines came to Grand Junction and beat the then-No. 4 Mavericks 4-0.

Mines features the RMAC Player of the Year and Academic Player of the Year in Reese McDermott (11 goals, eight assists), the Freshman of the Year in Bella Campos (region-leading 16 goals, four assists) and the Defensive Player of the Year in Natalie Rouse. Those three all made the RMAC All-Tournament Team alongside midfielder Cloey Seltzer.

The Orediggers have a stingy defense themselves, with 15 shutouts in 21 matches. Mines had recorded 10 consecutive shutouts prior to giving up three goals to the Maverick attack in the tournament final, which is the most goals given up by Mines all season.