The Butler Grizzlies clinched their 10th national tournament with an at-large bid on Tuesday. The Grizzlies will head to Georgia as the third seed in the NJCAA Tournament, playing in a group with Monroe Community College and Salt Lake.
The Grizzlies will be seeing familiar faces, having dispatched Monroe in the first game of the season with a 3-0 victory. The Grizzlies and Salt Lake are well acquainted, having faced off in the national tournament two consecutive years. It was Salt Lake finding the victory in both contests.
The Grizzlies kicked off their trip to Evans with a press conference at BG Stadium. Coach Adam Hunter, Yossi Vilagrana, Brooke Sullivan and Brooklyn Hunter were there to take questions from reporters.
"I think the girls were pretty excited to get an at-large bid," Grizzlies Head Coach Adam Hunter said. "We set out this year knowing we had a very good team and tried to put together a schedule that was going to make it difficult for the committee to keep us out of the tournament."
The Grizzlies will be in the tournament for the third straight year. Super sophomores Kim McAlpine and Ashton Conley will be playing in their third tournament while 12 sophomores will be heading to their second.
"I think we'll go in way more prepared," Vilagrana, a sophomore midfielder, said. "We already know how the nerves feel and we'll be pretty prepared to calm down the freshmen if there are nerves and there will be, but that's a good thing."
The Grizzlies have experience against the best teams in the country, having played six of the 12 teams in the tournament already this season. The Grizzlies come off a heartbreaker to Barton in penalties in the Region VI championship, and the Grizzlies played Hill, Seminole State, Iowa Western and Laramie County during the non-conference portion of the regular season.
"There's a group of about a half dozen teams in this thing that I think are good enough to make a run at it," Hunter commented. "If you're not able to defend in this tournament you're probably not going to be able to make it."
"I think our whole team is playing our best soccer right now," Brooke Sullivan said. "We've just grown as a team, I think everyone's contributing their part and I think we're all playing our best soccer."
"I feel like everyone's at the same level, I think we're playing at our peak," Villagrana said.
The Grizzlies come into the tournament with a record of 18-2-2. Butler will kick off the tournament with the first match on Sunday against Salt Lake at 2:00pm CT before finishing the group against Monroe on Tuesday at 2:00pm CT.