SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—The NAIA Women's Soccer National Championship begins at 10 sites nationwide on Thursday as 40 teams play for a chance to head to Orange Beach, Ala. to play for the red championship banner.
Southeastern is one of four teams in the Santa Barbara bracket, hosted by Westmont College. The Fire are the No. 1 seed and will take on Marymount California University in its first game at 11 a.m. Pacific Time.
The Fire earned their fifth-consecutive trip to the opening round by capturing The Sun Conference Tournament title for the third time in five years. However, this is the first time SEU will travel for an opening round having hosted for the past four seasons.
Heading to Southern California marks the first game west of the Mississippi since playing at Oklahoma Wesleyan in 2018.
Since losing back-to-back contests on September 30
th and October 2
nd, the Fire have rattled off 10 consecutive wins and have outscored their opponents 28-5 during that span.
Aisha Solorzano has scored six of those goals and has assisted on five more. She was The Sun Conference Tournament MVP, scoring in the 70
th minute against SCAD in the semifinal.
Hanna Ryberg has three goals over the last 10 games, including the game winner in the conference title game against St. Thomas, finishing a ball from the right of the goal by
Naira Lopez and sneaking it just under the crossbar from the middle of the box.
Marymount was the Cal-Pac Tournament runner-up after a pair of 1-0 wins on the road against Simpson and Saint Katherine. After an 0-7-1 start to the season, the Mariners are 8-3-1 since October 2
nd. Offensively, the Mariners have five players with seven or more points led by Olga Luna's four goals and three assists. Luz Lopez has made 82 saves this season and holds a 1.31 goals against average.
The winner will face either second-seeded Westmont or third-seeded Embry-Riddle (Ariz.) on Saturday at 1 p.m. Pacific. Both games will be carried on the
Westmont Sports Network.
