Whether you're just starting your recruiting journey, or you're starting to narrow down your choices, you need to familiarize yourself with the landsc
Whether you’re just starting your recruiting journey, or you’re starting to narrow down your choices, you need to familiarize yourself with the landscape of college soccer in the USA.
At some point in your recruiting journey, you’ll eventually come face-to-face with a college coach. During that conversation, you don’t want to start spewing forth data and stats that you’ve memorized about college soccer, but a solid knowledge college soccer as a whole will show in your conversation, and you will gain even more of the coach’s respect.
Here’s a fun quiz for women’s college soccer in the USA. You’re welcome.
Q: Which school has won the most NCAA D1 women’s soccer championships?
A: North Carolina (21), most recently in 2012.
Fun fact: Out of 332 D1 women’s soccer programs, only 11 have won a national championship.
Q: Who won the 2015 D1 Women’s championship?
A: Penn State in a 1-0 win over Duke in front of a crowd of 10, 676.
Fun fact: The 2017 D1 women’s championships will be held at the brand new Orlando City Stadium in Florida.
Q: Which D1 school has made the most tournament appearances?
A: Duh. North Carolina has been to the tournament 32 times and made the final four 26 times.
Fun fact: Notre Dame and Santa Clara have each made the NCAA post-season tournament at least 20 times.
Q: Who won the 2015 D2 Women’s Championship?
A: Grand Valley State out of Allendale, Michigan
Fun fact: Grand Valley State has won back-to-back-to-back D2 championships: 2013, 2014, and 2015, and all by shutouts.
Q: Who won the 2015 D3 Women’s Championship?
A: Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts
Fun fact: Williams lost the championship game in 2014 in penalty kicks to the Lynchburg Fighting Hornets and came back the next year to win the national title 2-1 over Washington University.
We can’t leave out the guys. Here’s an NCAA Men’s Soccer quiz:
Q: Which school has won the most NCAA D1 men’s soccer championships?
A: Saint Louis (10), but they haven’t won since 1973.
Fun fact: Unlike women’s college soccer, the NCAA Men’s Soccer landscape isn’t dominated by a handful of teams. Out of 205 D1 Men’s soccer programs, twenty-four different schools have won the national championship.
Q: Who won the 2015 D1 Men’s championship?
A: Stanford in a 4-0 win over Clemson in front of a crowd of 4,081.
Fun fact: Akron is the only team in NCAA D1 history to lose the championship game (2009) then come back to win the national championship the next year (2010).
Q: Who won the 2015 D2 Men’s Championship?
A: Pfeiffer. The championship capped off an undefeated season (25-0-0)
Fun fact: NCAA college soccer is unique in that the game is played with a running clock. Pfeiffer men’s soccer made their way to the NCAA final four by way of a 5-4 win over Palm Beach Atlantic, in which Pfeiffer scored an extremely rare buzzer-beater goal as the clock hit zero. WATCH THE LAST 25 SECONDS OF THAT GAME HERE.
Q: Which D2 school has made the most tournament appearances?
A: Seattle Pacific (32).
Fun fact: D2 Men’s Soccer post-season is not dominated by a handful teams, as is the case with other NCAA soccer divisions. 2012-2015 saw four new teams in every final four — sixteen different teams over four years.
Q: Who won the 2015 D3 Men’s Championship?
A: Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Fun fact: Since 2000, Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, PA has won a staggering TEN D3 national championships.
