Field of 64 selected for NCAA Women’s Soccer Championship

INDIANAPOLIS (Via NCAA) – The field of 64 teams, which will compete for the 34th NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship, was announced this afternoon by the Division I Women’s Soccer Committee.

+Official NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship Bracket

The defending national champion Florida State, the automatic qualifier out of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), earned a top seed along with fellow ACC member and the 2014 runner-up Virginia. Penn State and Stanford also earned No. 1 seeds after receiving automatic qualifications from the Big Ten and Pac-12, respectively.

Evansville, an automatic qualifier from the Missouri Valley Conference will face Florida State in the opening round. Virginia will host Howard, the automatic qualifier from Southwestern Athletic Conference. Penn State will host Albany (NY), the American East champion, in the first round and Stanford will host San Jose State, the Mountain West champion.

The No. 2 seeds include Florida, West Virginia, Rutgers and Clemson. Capturing the No. 3 seeds are North Carolina, Notre Dame, California, and Duke. Virginia Tech, Santa Clara, Southern California and Auburn each earned a No. 4 seed to complete the top 16 seeded teams.

The ACC led all conferences with eight teams in the tournament. The SEC and Pac-12 followed with six teams and the Big Ten will have five representatives in this year’s tournament.

Thirty-one conferences were granted automatic bids for the 2015 championship, while the remaining 33 teams were selected at-large. The top 16 teams are seeded and conference teams cannot play each other in the first- or second-rounds. When pairing teams, the committee follows geographic proximity parameters. The top 16 teams will host and all other sites were selected for the first-round to create the least number of flights.

First-round games will be played at campus sites November 13, 14 and 15. Second-round games will be played Friday, November 20, at campus sites, and third-round games will be played Sunday, November 22, at the same campus sites. Quarterfinal games will be played November 27 or 28 also on campus sites.

The 34th annual NCAA Women’s College Cup will be played December 4 and December 6 at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina, with Campbell University and the Town of Cary serving as co-hosts. The first national semifinal will be played and shown live on ESPNU at 5 p.m. Eastern Time Friday, December 4. The second semifinal will begin at approximately 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time live on ESPNU. The national championship match will take place at Noon Eastern Time on Sunday, December 6 and will also broadcast live on ESPNU.