USC Women's Soccer Draws 4-Seed in NCAA Tournament, Will Host UC Irvine

LOS ANGELES – The USC women's soccer team is headed to the NCAA Tournament for the ninth year in a row with the release of the full 2022 postseason bracket today, drawing a four-seed in the 64-team field.
 
The Trojans (12-2-3) will host UC Irvine (10-5-6) on Saturday at McAlister Field at 1 p.m. for their first-round game. Broadcast information for the postseason contest will be released soon.
 
ROAD TO THE POSTSEASON
 
The Trojans finished the regular season third in the Pac-12 standings with an 8-1-2 conference mark, earning an at-large bid to this year's tournament. The Trojans' two losses came while the team was short-handed due to players having national team duties and all three draws came on the road. USC beat all four ranked opponents it faced this season, including No. 1 UCLA on the final game of the regular season and eventual Pac-12 Champions No. 7 Stanford.
 
THE OPPONENT
 
The Trojans and Anteaters will be playing a rematch of their early-season contest, a 3-2 thriller won by USC at home. UC Irvine earned an automatic bid to the tournament by winning the Big West Tournament last week, despite the Anteaters finishing sixth in the regular-season standings.
 
USC owns a 12-1-3 record all-time against UCI. The teams have never met in the postseason. The Anteaters are no strangers to Pac-12 upsets, though, taking down UCLA in the first round of the tournament last season.
 
USC TOURNAMENT HISTORY
 
USC is making its 21st NCAA Postseason appearance this year and ninth straight dating back to 2014. USC has won two National Championships in its history, becoming the first Pac-12 program to win a title in 2007 and then the first program from the conference to win a second title in 2016.
 
The Trojans have only missed the postseason nine times in the program's 30 year history and have advanced past at least the first round 13 times. USC has been a national seed in the NCAA field each of the last eight years.