Saddleback College women’s soccer finishes regular season in tie
(Michael Grennell)
UPDATE: The Gauchos received the No. 16 seed in the Southern California Regional bracket, and will face Long Beach City College Thursday afternoon.
The Saddleback College women’s soccer team closed out its season in a 1-1 tie at home against the Golden West College Rustlers.
Because of the format for ranking playoff teams, the tie will most likely end up helping the Gauchos into the playoffs.
According to a press release from the Saddleback College Athletics Department, “With a playoff formula that involves power rankings, the Gauchos were better served by tying the game than winning it, thus helping their power ranking. A win against the Rustlers would have dropped Golden West below .500 for the season, thus hurting their total points for the year.”
Freshman Danyelle Allen scored the Gauchos’ lone goal in the 25th minute of the game. The goal was Allen’s 28th of the season, giving her two and a half times more goals than what the previous school single season record was.
With the tie, the Gauchos finished the regular season 12-3-6, their best record since 2003 when they finished 15-4-2 and advanced to the first round of the regional playoffs. Saddleback will learn if it receives a playoff spot during the seeding meeting on Tuesday. Check out lariatnews.com/sports to find out the results of the meeting.