Why Was Cal Left Out of Women's NCAA Soccer Tournament?

Cal failed to make the 64-team field for the NCAA women’s soccer tournament, but the Bears are probably wondering why they were left out of the bracket that was announced Monday.

Nine ACC teams received berths to the NCAA tournament, and three ACC teams – Stanford, Notre Dame and Virginia – received No. 1 seeds. But Cal finished eighth in the final standings, ahead of two ACC teams that made the NCAA field, Wake Forest and Clemson. All seven teams that finished ahead of the Bears in the standings received NCAA berths.

Cal finished with an 8-3-8 overall record and 4-2-4 in the ACC. Wake Forest, which received a No. 7 seed putting them in the field with some room to spare, has a 10-4-4 mark, including 4-3-3 in the conference. Clemson was seeded No. 8 with a 7-5-5 record and a 4-4-2 mark in ACC play. Cal lost two fewer ACC games than Clemson and one fewer than Wake Forest.

Cal had an 0-1-3 mark in the four conference games it played against ACC teams that made the NCAA tournament field. Cal tied Clemson 2-2 on the Tigers' home field; the Bears tied Virginia 2-2 in Berkeley, and Cal tied Florida State 2-2 on the Seminoles' home field. The one loss came against Stanford in an 8-2 defeat in Berkeley in the Bears’ final game of the season.

Cal, Wake Forest and Clemson did not qualify for the six-team ACC tournament won by Stanford.

Stanford is ranked No. 1 in the final regular-season coaches poll released this week.

That lopsided loss to the Cardinal may have kept the Bears out of the NCAA tournament.

The other factor working against Cal is its RPI ranking. The Bears are No. 46 in the current RPI rankings, which is lower than all nine of the ACC teams that made the 64-team NCAA field. Clemson, at No. 36, has the lowest RPI ranking among the ACC teams that got NCAA tournament berths.

The top three teams in the RBI rankings are ACC members, with Notre Dame No. 1, Virginia No. 2 and Stanford No. 3.

Cal was hoping to make the NCAA tournament field for the second straight year and for the third time in the past four seasons. The Bears' best finishes in the NCAA tournament came in 1984, 1987 and 1988, when Cal reached the national semifinals in each of those seasons.

Joy Biefeld Fawcett was the star of the Bears’ 1987 and 1988 teams, and she set a school single-season record with 23 goals in 1987.

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