INDIANAPOLIS — As the 2022 regular season winds down, the NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Committee has revealed its ranking of the top 10 teams.
“The NCAA Women’s Soccer Committee is very excited to do this midseason top 10 reveal for the first time,” University of Portland Vice President for Athletics Scott Leykam said. “We appreciate that it will generate excitement for the announcement of the 64-team field, which is just over three short weeks away.”
Using results through games on October 13, UCLA is the unanimous top choice by the committee. The Bruins won their first 13 matches of the season, including a pair of road wins over two other teams in this top 10 (North Carolina and Duke).
Of the remaining nine spots in the ranking, six belong to the ACC. North Carolina and Notre Dame are the first two teams featured from the league, checking in at second and third, respectively. The Tar Heels and Fighting Irish both own four wins over top 25 opponents.
Alabama is on a nine-match winning streak and ranks fourth, followed by a trio of ACC schools, with the defending national champions from Florida St. at five, Virginia at six, and Duke at seven.
College Cup: 2022-23 dates, times, schedule
Arkansas gives the SEC a second team on the list, coming in eighth, and the final ACC team, Pittsburgh, appears ninth. Northwestern rounds out the top 10, while Penn St. and South Carolina were listed as teams under consideration.
“The selection of the top 10 seeds was a very difficult process, with 12 teams discussed in depth for the 10 slots,” Leykam said. “The differences between the teams at the top seed lines are very small at this point and we expect that the final weeks of the regular season, along with conference tournaments, will bring some clarity to these seeds. We looked closely at RPI, strength of schedule, results against the top 25 RPI teams, and head-to-head results when compiling the top 10. The welcome change this year, post-COVID, was teams returning to more out of region non-conference matches, which assists greatly with comparing teams from different regions of the country.”
The 2022 championship field will consist of 31 automatic qualifiers and 33 at-large selections, which will be revealed on Monday, November 7 at 3:30 p.m. ET on NCAA.com.
The tournament opens on Friday, November 11. The championship will take place at campus sites through the quarterfinals as teams look to earn a trip to the Women’s College Cup.
The Women’s College Cup will take place at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina, with semifinals on Friday, December 2, followed by the national championship game on Monday, December 5.
For more information, please visit: https://www.ncaatickets.com/championship/womens-college-cup/champinfo
| RANK | School | record |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | UCLA | 13-0-0 |
| 2 | North Carolina | 11-3-0 |
| 3 | Notre Dame | 11-2-0 |
| 4 | Alabama | 13-1-1 |
| 5 | Florida State | 10-1-2 |
| 6 | Virginia | 10-2-3 |
| 7 | Duke | 10-4-0 |
| 8 | Arkansas | 10-2-1 |
| 9 | Pittsburgh | 11-3-0 |
| 10 | Northwestern | 12-1-2 |
Under Consideration (alphabetical order): Penn St. (9-3-2) and South Carolina (9-2-3)
