Women’s Soccer Returns to KCAC Tournament as No. 8 Seed
The Avila women's soccer team is about to reenter familiar territory: for the fifth time in six seasons as members of the KCAC, all under head coach Katie LaForge, the Eagles are one of the final eight teams standing after qualifying for the 2023 edition of the KCAC Women's Soccer Championship Tournament.
In fact, a very new looking Eagle squad is now a situation that looks very familiar to any of the players that are carryovers from last season's postseason team: Avila earned the No. 8 seed in the eight-team field and will face No. 1-seeded Oklahoma Wesleyan in the quarterfinals of the KCAC Tournament on Saturday, November 4, in Bartlesville, Oklahoma at 3 PM.
That's the exact same scenario – a first round matchup with OKWU – that befell the Eagles in 2022 in their return to the postseason after missing out in 2021. This year's Avila squad learned from the missteps of that 2021 team: that year, Avila needed a win on its final match day of the regular season to get into the playoffs and didn't get it, but this year, with those exact same requirements in play, the Eagles came through, shutting down Bethel 2-0 on the final day of the season to clinch a fifth playoff berth in six seasons.
Even though they had to wait an additional 48 hours to do so. Avila's season finale against the Threshers was postponed by two days due to persistent rain throughout the state of Kansas on Saturday, but once the teams took the field two days later than scheduled the Eagles did not miss their mark. Avila could still have made the top eight with a draw or even a loss if some other results over the weekend went their way, but a win would have given them that eighth spot outright, and that's exactly what the team delivered.
On offense, the Eagles are led by senior forward Megan Nugent, who paces the team with four goals and four assists (12 points). Typically a defender, Preseason All-KCAC honoree Amaris Sigler is second on the team with six points (one goal, four assists), and senior Aubrey Chaney, junior Mia Yerian, and freshmen Maddylen Farris and Nikkole Wood have all scored twice.
Avila's defense has evolved considerably over the course of the season, and now primarily features seniors and longtime friends senior and Brooke Clark, a transfer this summer from Division II Southwest Baptist University, alongside Korynn Peregrine and Alessandra Calderon on the back line and Hope Hines in the holding midfield – all three of them freshmen who have shined in expanded roles over the course of the season.
The midfield is largely anchored by freshman Nakita Wood and juniors Maria Perez and Samantha Mendez, the latter of whom, along with Yerian, transferred together to Avila from Northern Oklahoma College in the summer and will now all make their returns to their home state of Oklahoma for this first postseason game with their new team.
The goalkeeping position was the biggest question mark for the Eagles coming into the 2023 season, but not because the team didn't have any good options. Quite the opposite in fact: the team had two very good options, and there was very little to separate incumbent starter Kenan Ebel and newcomer Olivia Seston through the first month of the regular year.
Recently, however, and really ever since the first matchup between Avila and OKWU, it has been Seston's show: she started seven of the final eight games of the regular season after the pair almost perfectly split the minutes over the first ten games of the year. Seston and the Eagles have authored five clean sheets, all in league play, and she has allowed just 15 goals in her 13 appearances outside of her team's poor showing against HAAC Tournament contenders Benedictine. In fact, Avila's goalie pair has a 1.50 GAA in the 16 matches besides the two games in which their goalkeepers were blitzed often.
Of course, one of those games was the regular season matchup between the KCAC's two Eagles teams on September 27 at The Z in Kansas City, a 7-0 win for Oklahoma Wesleyan. Those Eagles are yet again the KCAC's top dogs as regular season league champions and the tournament's top seed, though they finished only two points clear of Friends at the top of the league and haven't been as infallible in league play as they have been in years past.
Even still, OKWU did not lose a game to a KCAC foe this season (11-0-2 overall) and is certainly the team to beat going into the tournament. Oklahoma Wesleyan is led offensively by Tania Mocholi, who has bided her time as a supporting player to other elite OKWU attackers in recent seasons and has fully deserved that distinction in 2023. The surefire KCAC Player of the Year and a probable All-American, Mocholi headlines a crew of what is likely at least a half dozen First Team All-KCAC honorees for veteran OKWU head coach Ivan Ristic, who has his sights set on a second straight trip to the NAIA Sweet 16.
Oklahoma Wesleyan began its postseason run last season by defeating Avila at home, but this year's Avila team is completely different from last year's, and they are playing differently from the team that faced OKWU in KCMO six weeks ago. 19 new players was the big storyline coming into the campaign for LaForge and company, and that big flock of new Eagles will try to lead the league's No. 8 seed to a first-round upset and the program's first postseason victory since the infamous 2020-21 season, where the Eagles defeated Bethany at Center High School to advance to the semifinal round.
Avila's quest to get back to that point begins on Saturday afternoon, at 3 PM, in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. The three other quarterfinal games will take place across the conference later on Saturday. You can watch all the postseason action live and for free courtesy of the KCAC Network, and tune in to live coverage across our social media channels.
