C-USA Tournament Champions

Sunday, November 4

Norfolk, VA

10:00 AM CT

University of North Texas

15-2-3

No. 6 Southern Miss

13-6-1

Team	1	2	OT 3	OT 4	Final F
Southern Miss	0	1	0	0	1
North Texas	1	0	0	1	2

11/4/2018 1:56:00 PM | Women's Soccer

Box Score

NORFOLK, Va. — The North Texas women's soccer team won the 2018 Conference USA Tournament championship with a 2-1 overtime victory over Southern Miss Sunday afternoon and earned an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.

"First of all I want to congratulate (USM head coach) Mohammed El-Zare and his team," Mean Green head coach John Hedlund said. "I know they're hurting right now, but they had a tremendous tournament. For my players, I couldn't be more proud. Somehow again we found a way to beat a very talented Southern Miss team. I believe the late schedule finally caught up with us playing seven games in a little over a two week period and our legs were just not the same in the second half, but the girls have had this never-say-die attitude all year and we pride our selves on set pieces, and Lauryn and Elle came through big time for us to win our seventh C-USA title."

The top-seeded Mean Green (15-2-3) defended their 2017 title with a goal in 16th minute from senior Aaliyah Nolan to give them an early lead.

However, with 11 minutes remaining in regulation, the six-seed Golden Eagles (13-6-1) tied the match with a short-handed score.

With the match tied at the end of regulation, UNT was forced to play its second overtime match in a row. UNT beat fourth-seed Louisiana Tech in the semifinals in penalty kicks to reach the championship round.

In the second of the two 10-minute overtime periods Sunday, senior Lauryn Bruffet headed in the championship-winning goal off a set-piece pass from junior Madeline Guderian who connected with sophomore Elle Marie DeFrain in the air first.

In the air inside the box, DeFrain headed it towards the net, which is when Bruffett deflected DeFrain's header at a different angle so that the USM goalie couldn't stop it. Bruffett's goal came in the 106th minute and was her second goal this season.

The double assist from Guderian was her second of the tournament and her fifth in less than a month.

North Texas earned the tournament's No. 1 seed after claiming the conference's regular-season championship with an 8-1-1 C-USA record.

The title claimed Sunday is the program's 15th conference championship and its seventh in the last five years. North Texas won the 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018 C-USA regular-season titles and the 2015, 2017 and 2018 C-USA Tournament crowns.

Senior Carissa Sanders was named the tournament's defensive MVP and Bruffett was named the offensive MVP. Guderian, who had two assists and a goal in the three-match tournament, was named to the all-tournament team along with goalie Kelsey Brann, Sanders and Bruffett.

With Sunday's win, North Texas will play in the NCAA Tournament for the second-straight season and for the sixth time in the program's 24-year history. UNT will find out who it will play the first round on Monday at 3:30 p.m. CT, when the bracket is released on NCAA.com. The first round of the NCAA Tournament is scheduled for Nov. 9.