Wake Forest Athletics
Deacs Host BU Friday in NCAA Second Round
11/17/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Nov. 17, 2011
Tournament Central | Complete Wake Forest Notes 
The top-seeded Wake Forest women's soccer team will host America East champion Boston University in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Spry Stadium as the Deacs look to advance to the third round for the first time since 2009.
Fourth-seeded Penn State and Marquette will also play their second round match at Spry Stadium on Friday, kicking off at 5 p.m., and the winners of the two matches will square off in the third round on Sunday at 1 p.m.
Tickets for all rounds are seven dollars for adults and three dollars for students, youths and seniors and can be purchased at the Spry Stadium box office on the day of the game.
Deacs Dominate Oakland in 2-0 First Round Win
Wake Forest opened the 2011 NCAA Tournament in fine fashion last Friday in a dominant 2-0 victory over Summit League champion Oakland.
Katie Stengel scored the game-winning goal for the Demon Deacons in the first half and also assisted on Rachel Nuzzolese's second-half insurance goal. Alisha Woodson earned an assist on Stengel's game-winner. Aubrey Bledsoe had to make only one save in net to post a shutout.
Wake Forest dominated the match from start to finish, outshooting Oakland 27-2. Its 27 shots and 15 shots on goal were its highest totals of the season. The score could have been even more lopsided if not for a strong effort by Golden Grizzly goalkeeper Anne Berschbach, who made a career-high 13 saves.
Deacons Extend Second Round Streak to Six
With its win over Oakland, Wake Forest has now advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the sixth consecutive year, which according to CollegeSoccer360.com is tied for the seventh-longest active streak in the country. Among ACC teams, only North Carolina (30), Virginia (18) and Florida State (7) have advance to more consecutive second rounds.
Deja Vu All Over Again
2011 ACC Offensive Player of the Year Katie Stengel's first two seasons at Wake Forest have statistically been the two most impressive in school history. The sophomore from Melbourne, Fla. has scored 15 goals and 36 points this season, both totals only one shy of the Wake Forest single-season records that she set as a freshman in 2010. Stengel is looking to become the first player since North Carolina's Mia Hamm in 1992 & 1993 to lead the league in goal-scoring in back-to-back consecutive seasons.
Demon Deacons Boast Dynamic Striking Duo
The most dominant strike tandem in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Katie Stengel and Rachel Nuzzolese have combined to score 26 of Wake Forest's 43 goals this season, which included nine of the Deacons' 14 goals in ACC play.
Stengel's 15 goals and Nuzzolese's 11 goals make Wake Forest one of only four teams left in the NCAA Tournament to have two players that have scored at least 10 goals this season. The others are Penn State's Maya Hayes (27 goals) and Taylor Schram (12 goals), Texas A&M's Kelley Monogue (19 goals) and Annie Kunz (14 goals), and Maryland's Sade Ayinde (10 goals) and Jasmyne Spencer (10 goals).
Bledsoe Extends School Shutout Record
With a 2-0 blanking of Oakland in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last Friday, Aubrey Bledsoe extended her Wake Forest single-season record to 12 shutouts, three clear of the previous record of nine, which was set by Erin Regan in 1999.
An All-ACC First Team selection, Bledsoe currently sits third among ACC players with a 0.61 goals against average, and her 12 shutouts are tied for the most in the conference. She already ranks third on the Wake Forest career shutout charts with 15 career clean sheets.
Scouting the Terriers
Boston University earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament after winning its fifth straight America East title. The Terriers sport an impressive 19-2-1 record and are currently on a 14-match winning streak. They beat Harvard 3-0 in the NCAA first round.
BU spreads its scoring around, with six different players scoring at least five goals this season. Jessica Luscinski has led the Terriers with nine goals, eight assists and 26 points. Alice Binns and Kelly King have split time in goal this season, though Binns played the full 90 minutes in BU's win over Harvard. She holds a stellar 0.33 goals against average.
Wake Forest and BU have met on only one previous occasion - the first round of the 2007 NCAA Tournament. In that match, Allie Sadow scored in the 56th minute to break a 1-1 deadlock and give the Demon Deacons a 2-1 win on Boston College's home field.
Sophomores Already Climbing Career Charts
Wake Forest's trio of star sophomores Katie Stengel, Aubrey Bledsoe and Rachel Nuzzolese are already well into a full-on assault on the Wake Forest career record books, despite playing less than two full seasons in the Old Gold and Black.
Stengel already ranks in the top six in school history in both goal and point scoring, and Nuzzolese has cracked the list of top-10 goal-scorers and ranks 11th in career points. Stengel and Nuzzolese's respective career points per game (1.66 & 1.53) and goals per game (0.70 & 0.62) averages are by far the highest of any Wake Forest player to have played in at least 20 games.
Bledsoe's 15 career shutouts are the third-most in school history, while her career goals against average of 0.91 is the lowest of any Wake Forest goalkeeper to have played at least 2000 career minutes.
The November Nine
After surviving the gauntlet of a regular season in the consensus best conference in women's soccer, all nine of the Atlantic Coast Conference teams that were selected to the tournament advanced to the second round.
The ACC leads all conferences with six of the tournament's 16 national seeds, marking the fourth straight year that the conference has had six teams seeded. Three of the tournament's four No. 1 seeds belong to ACC teams Wake Forest, Duke and Florida State. The other seeded conference teams are Virginia (No. 2), North Carolina (No. 3) and Boston College (No. 4). Joining them in the field of 64 are Maryland, Virginia Tech and Miami.
