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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Top-seeded and third-ranked host Alabama came out on fire in the second half and got past UC Irvine, 3-1, in the third round of the 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship at the Alabama Soccer Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
With the defeat in the first all-time meeting between the programs, Big West tournament champion UC Irvine concludes its tremendous campaign at 11-6-7 overall. The Anteaters had entered unbeaten over their last six at 5-0-1, having advanced via penalty-kick tiebreaker after a 1-1 draw with Ivy League champion Brown in Friday’s second-round tilt in Tuscaloosa. That result came on the heels of a season-best five-match win streak that included four consecutive shutouts to begin this improbable postseason run for the Big West Championship sixth-seed squad.
A third straight victory improved first-time Southeastern Conference (SEC) regular-season champion and tournament runner-up Alabama to 22-2-1 overall and a perfect 12-0 at home. The Crimson Tide had rolled through their league slate unblemished at 10-0, and were making their first-ever NCAA third-round appearance.
Having held the nation’s No. 3 scoring offense to just a penalty-kick goal over 110 minutes on Friday, UC Irvine was up against the No. 2 unit in scoring offense (2.92 goals per game) on Sunday. The Crimson Tide had in fact scored a program-record 70 goals over their first 24 contests to lead all of Division I by five.
Alabama generated the game’s first shot and first great scoring chance in the ninth minute as a left-sided cross was laid off by SEC Forward of the Year Riley Mattingly Parker for SEC Defender of the Year Reyna Reyes, whose right-footed try from seven yards clanged off the left post.
Mattingly Parker, tied for fifth nationally with a single-season school-record 17 goals, went high over the crossbar with a first effort of the afternoon, a left-footer from just behind the penalty spot in the 25th.
Sunday’s first half had the same general feel for UCI as Friday’s did, when the ‘Eaters took their first shot in the 32nd and grabbed a 1-0 lead at the interval through a counterattack goal with just 27 seconds left. Against UA, they picked up their first corner kick of the contest on a nice counterattack down the right flank in the 43rd minute, and Suus de Bakker was credited with UCI’s first shot attempt of the match with 37 ticks remaining on a long-distance venture that was likely just a cross. It took one bounce inside the area and landed on top of the net.
The sides thus combined for three shots, none on target, across the initial 45 minutes.
The action picked up early in the second half. UC Irvine’s first foray, in the 53rd minute, was indeed the first on target by either squad as Amber Huff’s left-footer from the edge of the penalty box on the left side was caught without much issue by Alabama goalie McKinley Crone.
Sure enough after four attempts and two corner kicks over the first 10-plus minutes of the period, the Crimson Tide produced the opening goal.
That second corner, from the left by Felicia Knox, was curled beautifully into the far netting for the SEC Midfielder of the Year’s seventh on the year. Macy Clem initially looked to have nodded the ball in at the far post, but was ultimately adjudged to have not made contact, with the goal given to Knox at 55:33.
Within three minutes, de Bakker brought Knox down just outside the area, and the Crimson Tide junior’s right-footer was narrowly tipped over the bar by Glo Hinojosa for the ’Eater goalie’s first save.
Two more corner kicks later, at 59:39, it was 2-0 just like that. A left-footed cross from the right by Kat Rogers bounced once inside the six-yard box and up off the chest of Ashlynn Serepca, who then knocked the loose ball into an empty net for the graduate student forward’s ninth of the year. It was Rogers’ ninth assist of 2022.
In the 66th minute, UC Irvine used its strength of set pieces to halve the deficit. Huff’s right-sided corner kick was met with a strong header at the far post by de Bakker back across the mouth of goal. Reyes was manning that near post, but could not keep the ball from finding the back of the net. It went down as de Bakker’s third goal and Huff’s Big West-best 10th assist, with nine coming over the last seven matches.
Huff sent a right-footed laser just high of the mark from outside 30 yards in the 78th. Erin Covey’s attempt from the left diagonal off the clearance of a deep Huff free kick went directly into Crone’s lap in the 85th.
Alabama finally clinched its first national quarterfinal trip in program history with a Knox penalty kick at 87:52. The product of Kansas City, Mo., was fouled while dribbling into the box from the left side, and gave Hinojosa no shot with a hard right-footer into the upper left. The strike meant Knox’s first collegiate two-goal brace.
The second half featured 17 shots, eight of them on goal (four each), and nine corner kicks combined from the two sides. UA accounted for 12 of those shots and eight corners.
Hinojosa, the 2021 Big West Goalkeeper of the Year and 2022 Big West Championship Most Valuable Player, had one save. The fifth-year junior played all 2,220 minutes in 2022 and led the league with a career-best 11 shutouts, tied with five others for seventh in Division I.
Crone made three stops for the Crimson Tide. The graduate student’s 10 shutouts coming in were tied for third in the SEC and 13th nationally.
Sunday marked the ‘Eaters’ second-ever NCAA third-round appearance. They had previously dropped a 1-0 home decision in double overtime to Washington in the 2010 third round. UCI is 4-3-2 in its four NCAA tournaments, all under 16th-year head coach Scott Juniper. The program has twice earned back-to-back trips, in 2010-11 and now 2021-22.