But powerhouse Stanford looms in second round
The South Carolina women's soccer team got good news Monday, but it came with a catch.
The Gamecocks will host Texas at 7 p.m. on Friday at Stone Stadium in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. But if they win, they'll almost assuredly have to fly across the country next weekend to face 1-seed Stanford, which boasts a 19-0-1 record and has outscored opponents 60-8 this season with 12 wins coming by shutout.
"It's a very difficult draw," said coach Shelley Smith. "It's an unfortunate draw. To play against a Stanford that early is not a good draw."
But before USC (15-6) gets to the Cardinal, it has to defeat Texas, which comes to Columbia at 11-8-1 after reaching the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament. The Gamecocks and Longhorns have one common opponent in Georgia. USC lost a road match to the Bulldogs 2-1, while the Longhorns defeated UGA 3-0 in Athens back in August.
Smith said USC doesn't know much about Texas beyond having seen a handful of UT players compete during recruiting. But Kayla Grimsley, USC's star forward and all-time school scoring leader, said that's not necessarily a bad thing.
"We've never seen them and we don't really know much about them, but that's the best part about it," Grimsley said. "That way you can't freak out too much about it and you can't overthink it. You just go in like it's another team and another tournament and just get it done."
Going into the bracket announcement, which USC's players and coaches watched at a Columbia-area restaurant, the Gamecocks were unsure if they would get the chance to host a game. While USC won the outright Southeastern Conference regular season title, it fell to eighth-seeded Alabama in the first round of the league tournament, leaving its fate in question.
"That's something that we weren't sure what the committee would do," Smith said. "You just don't know where you're going to end up, so we were very pleased."
Getting one more home game was very important to the team, especially the soon-to-be departing seniors, Grimsley said.
"That's all we wanted," said Grimsley, a senior. "We didn't talk about who we were going to play or who was a possibility. It was just we wanted to play at home in front of our fans and especially for us seniors to get one more time at Stone Stadium is huge for us."
It will almost assuredly be the Gamecocks' final game in Columbia this season, given that a win will send the team, which is unseeded, to Palo Alto, Calif., next weekend.
"I think we're better than that (being placed with Stanford in the second round), but we'll take what we have," Smith said. "We know getting into the championship is going to be a tough road regardless. And no one has seemed to have done well enough to beat Stanford this year, so that's why it is such a tough draw. But that's what the NCAA Tournament's all about.
"Anything can happen, and if we're fortunate enough to face a Stanford team, we'll take our best game and make the most of it and be thrilled to be there."
If USC does play Stanford, Grimsley said the Gamecocks won't be scared. To them, it'll be just another game.
"We were No. 1 (in the SEC Tournament), and we lost to No. 8," Grimsley said. "Anything can happen in the game of soccer, especially when it comes to South Carolina women's soccer. Nobody knows about us, and I think it's an advantage for us if we do win against Texas to come in and play the first(-seeded) team because they're going to overlook us I think."
But first, Carolina needs to put itself in a position to be overlooked and take care of the task at hand.
"We know that [Texas plays] obviously in a strong conference and have always been a strong program as well," Smith said. "We know they'll be a challenge."