Random Thoughts on the NCAA's

It was certainly tough watching the NCAA games and not being involved this past weekend. Nearly every publication out there had as one of the teams being in, so it was even more difficult to see scores. But I think our young team has definitely learned a lot from the experience and emotions over the past 2 weeks, which will serve us well moving forward.

It was great to see a couple of upsets, with the big one being South Dakota State over Colorado in the first round. Something probably most people don't realize is the fact a number of teams lost key players before the NCAA tournament stated to travel with the US Under 20 National Team to the world championships in Chile. This definitely hit Colorado who lost Nikki Marshall, one of the top strikers in the country.

I was glad to see BYU from our conference have a good run in beating ACC opponent Virginia Tech in the first round, before falling to defending national champion USC in a shootout. Our conference traditionally has been a 3 team conference for the NCAAs, so it was important for BYU to have a strong showing to continue to improve the profile of our league.

I was sad two of my good friends, Ada Greenwood at USD and Mauricio Ignacio at Long Beach State, had to meet each other in the first round. Both have done a great job of building solid championship programs, so they had to duke it out for the right to play UCLA in the 2nd round. USD got the chance and from the gametracker looked like they took the bruins all the way to the end before succumbing to a 1-0 loss.

I'm really looking forward to the matchups this weekend-in particular USC-UCLA!