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Women's Soccer Takes on UAB in Opening Round of C-USA Championship

Oct. 31, 2006

Confernce USA Championship Notes in PDF Format
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Five UCF Players Earn C-USA All-Conference Recognition

ORLANDO, Fla. (www.ucfathletics.com) - The No. 2 seeded UCF women's soccer team opens up the 2006 Conference USA Championship against No. 7 UAB (6-11-0, 4-5-0 C-USA) on Wednesday, Nov. 1 at 6:30 p.m. ET. The Golden Knights (11-5-2, 7-1-1 C-USA) are making their 13th consecutive appearance in postseason conference play and their second straight appearance in the C-USA Championship.

During their inaugural season in Conference USA, the Golden Knights shared the league's regular season title with SMU and earned the No. 1 seed in the 2005 C-USA Championship. After defeating Houston 3-2 in the quarterfinals, they bowed to UTEP, 5-1, in the semifinals.

UCF has posted a 3-1-1 record against this year's tournament field, including wins over UAB, top-seeded SMU and No. 6 East Carolina, but didn't play qualifiers Colorado College or UTEP during the regular season.

The Golden Knights finished the regular season strong and is unbeaten in their last six conference matches, going 5-0-1 since the loss to Memphis on Oct. 6. During that time, the Golden Knights outscored their opponents by a 13-4 margin and junior goalkeeper Jennifer Manis (Pensacola, Fla./Washington HS) has posted a 0.65 goals-against-average.

The Golden Knights and the Blazers have met three times previously with UCF owning a 2-0-1 record in the series. In the most recent match, a 2-0 UCF victory in Orlando, Fla., sophomore Hanna Wilde (Westlake, Ohio/Westlake HS) and senior Roberta Pelarigo (Sao Paulo, Brazil) scored goals, while Manis made five saves.

Should the Golden Knights advance to the semifinals, they will take on the winner of the East Carolina/Memphis match at 8:30 p.m. ET on Friday, Nov. 3. The championship game is set for Sunday, Nov. 5 at 4 p.m. ET.

The winner of the conference championship earns C-USA's automatic bid to the 2006 NCAA Tournament.

For the latest news and information on the Golden Knights, tickets or apparel log on to www.ucfathletics.com - the official site for UCF athletics.