Big Ten Women’s Soccer Tournament Bracket Announced
Ohio State earns No. 1 seed for tournament, while Minnesota, Northwestern and Rutgers will also host quarterfinals on Sunday
ROSEMONT, Ill. – The Big Ten Conference announced the 2017 Big Ten Women’s Soccer Tournament bracket on Wednesday, with Ohio State earning the tournament’s No. 1 seed for the first time in school history after clinching the outright Big Ten Championship earlier in the evening.
As the top seed, the Buckeyes (14-3-1, 9-2-0 Big Ten) will play host to No. 8 seed Iowa (9-7-2, 4-5-2), which is making its first tournament appearance since 2014, in a quarterfinal match at 4 p.m. (ET) Sunday. OSU defeated the Hawkeyes, 2-0 in the schools’ regular-season matchup on Sept. 24 in Iowa City.
Northwestern (10-6-2, 7-3-1) tied Minnesota (11-4-3, 7-3-1) for second place in the Big Ten standings, with the Wildcats earning the No. 2 seed by virtue of their 2-0 win over the Golden Gophers on Oct. 12 in Evanston. Northwestern will entertain seventh-seeded Purdue (10-6-2, 5-4-2) in a tournament quarterfinal at 3:30 p.m. (ET) Sunday. The Boilermakers, who are making their first Big Ten Tournament appearance since 2008, defeated the Wildcats, 2-0 in their regular-season encounter on Oct. 1 in West Lafayette.
As the No. 3 seed, Minnesota welcomes sixth-seeded Wisconsin (12-4-2, 6-3-2) to town for a tournament quarterfinal at 2 p.m. (ET) Sunday in a contest that will be televised live on BTN. The Badgers edged the Gophers, 1-0 in the schools’ Big Ten opener back on Sept. 16 in Madison. Minnesota is the reigning Big Ten Tournament champion, earning its first title since 1995 with a 2-1 win over Rutgers in last year’s championship match.
Rounding out the field, No. 4 seed Rutgers (12-2-4, 6-2-3) will play host to fifth-seeded Penn State (10-4-3, 6-2-3) in a quarterfinal contest at 1 p.m. (ET) Sunday. The Scarlet Knights and Nittany Lions both finished Big Ten play with 21 points, with RU earning the final host berth by virtue of the third tiebreaker, which counts the best record by points against mutually-played conference teams seeded above the tied schools at the start of the process (RU had a combined four points against OSU/NU, while PSU had three points against that pair).
Following Sunday’s quarterfinals, the Big Ten Women’s Soccer Tournament will continue with the semifinals at 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. (ET) Nov. 3 and the championship match at 2 p.m. (ET) Nov. 6. The semifinals and championship match will be played at Grand Park in Westfield, Ind., with both semifinals and the title contest televised by BTN (the second semifinal and championship will be broadcast live, while the first semifinal will be televised live on BTN2Go and can be seen on BTN on a tape-delayed basis at 9:30 p.m. (ET) Nov. 3).
This year’s Big Ten Tournament champion will earn the conference’s automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament. Follow all the Big Ten Tournament action at bigten.org and on Twitter @B1GSoccer.