Utes Celebrating Big Football Victory

Last Saturday was an exciting day for the Utes. The Utah football team capped off an undefeated season by defeating rvial BYU, 48-24, in front of a packed house of 46,000 fans. With the victory, the Utes clinched the Mountain West Conference Championship and qualified for the "BCS" bowl series. They will be headed to Miami (Orange Bowl), New Orleans (Sugar Bowl) or Phoenix (Fiesta Bowl) come the New Year. Their destination will be announced on December 7.










Many of the Utah soccer players attended the game. When questioned, many even admitted to "storming" the field after the game to celebrate with the football team...attending the other sporting events and supporting their friends on the other teams is an important part of the experience for our soccer players. With so much excitement going on, it is bound to increase everyone's appetite....good thing Thanksgiving is here...lots of home cookin' this weekend. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Great Soccer Viewing for U.S. Fans this week

For those of you that love soccer...and especially soccer here in the good ol' U.S.A....this is a great week. First, we have the under-20 Women's World Cup starting in Chile tomorrow. Both the U.S. and the Canadian teams are made up of current and future college stars. Many of the players there have sacrificed being with their college teams during the NCAA playoffs in order to have a shot at the world title. The U.S. team's games will be shown at ESPN...tomorrow is on ESPN2. The others will be on ESPN360.com (an internet broadcast service). Here is the 1st round schedule.

Wednesday
U.S. vs. France
Estadio Nelson Oyarzun, Chillan, Chile
11 a.m. MT, ESPN2, ESPN360.com

Nov. 22
U.S. vs. Argentina
Estadio Nelson Oyarzun, Chillan, Chile
8 a.m. MT, ESPN360.com

Nov. 26
U.S. vs. China
Estadio German Becker, Temuco, Chile
12 p.m. MT, ESPN360.com

You can follow the tournament and see highlights of the matches at www.fifa.com!


Second....the U.S. men's national team has a 2010 World Cup qualifier on Wednesday night against Guatemala in Colorado. The U.S. has already advanced to the final round as it as won the 4-team group....However, Guatemala is in a dogfight with Trinidad & Tobago and must win to stay alive for the second place....Fans of the younger U.S. players, such as Freddy Adu and Jozy Altidore, will be able to see how they do in an intense environment.

U.S. vs. Guatemala
Wednesday
Dick's Sporting Goods Park; Commerce City, Colo.
8 p.m. ET, ESPN Classic


Third...yes, there is more....the MLS Cup will be held in Los Angeles this Sunday. The Columbus Crew will face the NY Red Bulls for the championship. Watch Argentinian superstar, Guillermo Barros-Schelotto, formerly of Boca Juniors try to lead Columbus to its first crown!

Sunday
New York vs. Columbus
Home Depot Center, Carson, Calif. 3:30 p.m. ET, ABC


Okay soccer fans...enjoy the feast!

NCAA Bracket

The NCAA tournament field, 64 teams strong, was announced last night. Some interesting match ups all around...BYU, our Mountain West Conference rival, gets to host this week. They will face Virginia Tech on Thursday. The other game in Provo will be defending champion USC against Boston University. Maybe the toughest opening weekend group is happening over at Notre Dame...The Irish play Toledo while Michigan State faces Wisconsin Milwaukee.

Click here for an interactive bracket!

NCAA Selections Revealed Today

The Utes won't be going "dancing" this year. We probably fell about 2 or 3 wins short of an at large bid to the NCAA tournament. Many of the teams we played this year will be in the tournament....Wake Forest, Long Beach State, Washington, BYU are definitely in and UNC Greensboro, Georgia and TCU have a shot to be invited.

The tournament brackets will be revealed this evening on ESPNews between 6:00 and 6:30 PM Mountain Time.

The NCAA women' s soccer tournament is a 64-team bracket. Teams are grouped in "pods" of 4 for the first weekend. So there will be 16 hosts beginning this weekend...

This will be the first year that two teams from the same conference won't be matched up against each other until the 3rd round. Hopefully, that will help mix up the matchups a bit.

Check it out this evening...

Utes Fall in MWC Tournament Final

It all seems to end so fast!...

We lost a tight, 1-0 battle to BYU in the Mountain West Conference tournament final today here in Las Vegas. We competed with great heart and gave it our best shot. We had beaten TCU on Thursday in the semi-final, 2-1 in overtime in another extremely tight game.

We will fall 2 or 3 wins short of an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament. However, we finished our season as a much improved team...going 7-2 in our last 9 games and 10-4-2 after a 1-5 start. More importantly, we grew as a team...playing with confidence and believing in ourselves.

We will head back to Salt Lake tonight and catch up on some school work.
Then we will re-group and talk about our plans here after the season. The players will have classes until about Dec. 10 then have a month-long break before starting up again in January.

Thanks to everyone for your support this year. We'll have more "stuff" from this past week as well as some great material from the players. Stay tuned!

MWC Tournament starts with Banquet

The Utah Soccer Team poses for a team photo after the MWC Awards Banquet in Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday evening.













After some travel issues, we arrived in Las Vegas in time to go straight to the hotel and get changed for the MWC Awards Banquet. On the menu was chicken and steak, potatoes, green beans, salad and bread. Strawberry crepes for dessert....good stuff!

When the awards were announced, four Utes were honored....

Sophomore Lauren Hair and freshman Lauren Porter were selected to the 2nd all-MWC team.
And senior Katy Reineke and junior Kelly Isleib were chosen on the 1st team. Congratulations.

Tomorrow will be lunch and then head to the field to watch a bit of the TCU-San Diego State game...then a training session in preparation of Thursday's match...Stay tuned for more...


Sophomore Morgan Skeen and sophomore Alyssa Toomey "lower themselves" to allow freshman Lauren Porter into the picture with them at the Mountain West Conference Awards Banquet.


















Addie Hair, Lauren Hair and Hannah Turpen prepare for dinner at the MWC Banquet.













Sports Information Director Mike DeVine, Head Coach Rich Manning and Assistant Coach Ryan Robinson were disappointed not to have ice cream for dessert but were able to put on happy faces for the camera.

Mountain West Conference Tournament is Here!

The Utes had the final practice at Ute Field today for this week...as we will travel tomorrow to Las Vegas to take part in the MWC tournament....6 teams...1 trophy and the winner gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament...Exciting!

You may already know about our 2-1 win over the Air Force Academy last Friday. With the victory, we clinched the 2nd seed in the tournament. Check out the story by clicking here!

Tuesday is a busy day. Because we traveled to Colorado last week. The players had to do some catching up on school. We will be missing classes the rest of the week. So some students are busy taking some tests and getting some projects in. We will fly to Las Vegas (about a 1 hour flight) at 1 PM Mountain time. We will go straight to UNLV for a short practice...then get to the hotel to quickly change and get ready for the big banquet with the other teams.

On Wednesday, we will watch the TCU - San Diego State game at 12 Noon...as we play the winner. Then we will train at 3 PM to get ready! Our first game will be on Thursday at 12 Noon. The game will be aired live on TV on the mtn. channel. There will also be live stats and other information available at the Mountain West Conference tournament web site...click here!

Here is the basic schedule (Pacific times):

Wednesday
12 PM TCU vs. SDSU
3:00 PM UNLV vs. New Mexico

Thursday
12 PM Utah vs. TCU/SDSU winner
3:00 PM BYU vs. UNLV/New Mexico winner

Saturday
12 PM Final


We will be updating here as well. Looking forward to a great week! Go Utes!