A regular season matchup has yet to materialize, but UT women’s soccer coach Angela Kelly will finally get her wish when the Lady Vols take on Ohio State in Sunday’s NCAA tournament third round matchup.
“I’ve been trying to schedule Ohio State for the past five years,” Kelly said. “(Head coach) Lori Walker is a friend of mine. She’s done a great job with the Ohio State program. It will be exciting to finally have the chance to play them.”
Tennessee travels to Columbus, Ohio, for a Sweet 16 contest against the Buckeyes at 1 p.m. Sunday.
The two programs have followed remarkably similar paths.
Led by Walker, who was a teammate of Kelly’s at North Carolina, the team has found success over the past few seasons. Last year, the Buckeyes accumulated a program-best 13-5-3 record before losing to West Virginia in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
This season, the Buckeyes (18-3-3) earned an automatic berth into their third consecutive NCAA tournament and the sixth-seed overall with a 2-0 upset of then-No.3 Penn State in the Big 10 championship game.
In the opening rounds, a strong Ohio State offense (averaging 2.46 goals per game) put away Bowling Green, 2-0, and Detroit, 3-0, to move on in postseason play.
Though pleased to move on, Walker thinks her team can do better.
“We are happy to have survived such a tough and physical contest,” Walker said. “Detroit is a very good team and they gave us all we could handle. We did not perform as well as we have in recent games, but I’m proud of how our girls handled themselves in a game where they struggled at first.”
Freshman midfielder Lara Dickenmann leads the Buckeye offense with 13 goals and 12 assists. Her season performance earned her the Big 10 Freshman of the Year title and a semifinalist nod for the Soccer Buzz Freshman of the Year honors.
Senior goalkeeper Emily Haynam boasts a .61 goals-allowed-average for the season.
The Lady Vols (17-4-2) look to counter Ohio State’s offense with a strong defensive effort of their own.
UT goalkeeper Vanessa Phillips-Bosshart picked up her 12th shutout of the season in Sunday’s 1-0 second round win over UAB and holds a .67 GAA. Tennessee defender Keeley Dowling, who earned UT’s lone goal against the Blazers, has been named as a semifinalist for both the Hermann Trophy and the Soccer Buzz National Player of the Year honors.
Offensively, senior midfielder Kayla Lockaby leads the charge with 10 goals in 2004. Freshmen Genna Gorman, the Co-SEC Freshman of the Year, and Emily Redberg back up Lockaby with seven goals apiece.
Kelly expects a major challenge to present her team in their quest to move on to the Elite Eight. Tennessee has played in three straight Sweet 16 rounds but has yet to advance further.
“We expect the conditions to be cold and rainy for Sunday’s game,” Kelly said. “It will really be a battle for our team.
“We will have to play nearly the best game we have ever played in order to advance.”
