St. Ambrose Claims Second Straight Women's Soccer Tournament Title
DAVENPORT, Iowa --- For the second straight year, St. Ambrose University has claimed both the 2024 Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference women's soccer regular-season and tournament championships. The top-seeded Fighting Bees completed the feat by defeating No. 2 seed Olivet Nazarene University 2-1 on a pair of Kendall Wendt goals Wednesday night.
The contest wound up being a rematch of last year's title game, which SAU also won 1-0.
Olivet Nazarene (9-5-6) was looking for revenge this time around and looked to have it when the Tigers scored on their second shot on goal at the 14:40 mark. Hannah Dela Vega did the honors, becoming the first St. Ambrose opposing player in nine games to find the back of the net.
ONU did not get another shot off the rest of the half, being held to three shots total, while the hosts were putting up 11 attempts in the opening 45 minutes. Olivet Nazarene goalkeeper Meegan Randall was up to the task, however, stopping all four shots that came on goal.
St. Ambrose (14-5-2) would go on to register seven more shots in the second half with the two eventually getting the Bees in the scoring column. Wendt's game-tying goal came at 56:29 with the follow-up approximately 22 minutes later at 78:05.
Taylor DeSplinter provided the assists on each of the tallies with Mia Hefner also contributing to the game-winning goal.
Grace Kuchar earned the victory in goal, stopping three shots, while Randall posted six saves.
As a team, St. Ambrose out-shot Olivet Nazarene 18-7 with eight shots on goal compared to four for ONU. The Bees also had 12 unanswered corner kicks.
Winners of 11 matches in a row, SAU finished its home season 9-1.
By virtue of their top two finishes in the league during both the regular season and tournament, both teams now advance to the NAIA National Tournament Opening Round on Nov. 23. The selection show announcing where both squads head next will air on Saturday at 1 pm.
The complete tournament results follow:
Wednesday, November 6 - First Round
• Match #1: No. 1 St. Ambrose 1, No. 8 Viterbo 0
• Match #2: No.4 Holy Cross 3, No. 5 Saint Xavier 3 (HCC advances on penalty kicks 3-1)
• Match #3: No. 2 Olivet Nazarene 3, No. 7 Trinity Christian 1
• Match #4: No. 3 St. Francis 2, No. 6 Judson 1
Saturday, November 9 - Semifinal Round
• Match #5: No. 1 St. Ambrose 3, No. 4 Holy Cross 0
• Match #6: No. 2 Olivet Nazarene 5, No. 3 St. Francis 1
Wednesday, November 16 – Championship
• Match #7: St. Ambrose 2, No. 2 Olivet Nazarene 1