Simon Fraser University earned a fifth overall seeding into the NCAA west region men’s soccer championships on Monday.
SFU and No. 4 seed Northwest Nazarene met in the opening round of the 35-team NCAA national Division II on Thursday (after NOW Firdeadlines).
The first-round winner will take on Great Northwest conference regular season champion Seattle Pacific in Seattle on Saturday.
The third round and quarter-finals will be played the following week. The national semifinals and finals will take place in Louisville, Kentucky on Dec. 4 and 5.
SFU advanced to the NCAA Final Four the past two seasons.
“We are ecstatic to be in the tournament after how we started, but we managed to turn things around and we are on a roll,” said SFU head coach Alan Koch in Clan press release. “We have been playing win-and-survive for many weeks now, and nothing changes for us entering the tournament. We have been playing playoff soccer for the past few weeks just to get into the tournament.”
The Clan was 2-2-2 back in September following a 3-2 overtime loss to Northwest Nazarene. Since then, the Clan has won nine of 11 games, including six in a row and a 1-0 avenging win over Nazarene on Oct. 23.
Leading the Clan into the west region tournament is SFU captain Jovan Blagojevic, who was unanimously named the Great Northwest player of the year on Tuesday.
Blagojevic, who moved into the program’s top-10 all-time scorers with 18 goals this season, was joined on the all-conference first team with senior defender Alex Kleefeldt.
Junior defender Joel Malouf and goalkeeper Brandon Watson were selected to the second team. Sophomore defender Robert Hyams was named an honourable mention.
