Rebel women take aim at NCAA berth

Victoria Sun

Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2001 | 9:39 a.m.

The UNLV women's soccer team finished the regular season with a winning record for the second consecutive year.

Its next goal is making the NCAA tournament.

The third-seeded Lady Rebels will play sixth-seeded Wyoming at Peter Johann Memorial Field at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the first round of the MWC Women's Soccer Championship.

Earlier this year UNLV (10-6-2, 3-3) edged Wyoming (4-10-3, 1-3-2) 3-2 in overtime.

"They don't quit," UNLV head coach Dan Abdalla said of Wyoming. "You can never turn your back on them.

"Their defensive player, Kelly McKay, caused us a lot of problems and up front, Nancy Florquist was dangerous."

The MWC winner will earn an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.

Senior midfielder Anita Pedford leads UNLV with 10 goals, three of them game-winners. Cristyn Enea is second with seven goals and also has six assists.

The Lady Rebels goalkeeper, Alice Gleason, is 6-1-1 with four shutouts, 87 saves and a 1.69 goals against average.

"If we maintain possession of the ball and take advantage of our three strikers up front, we'll do well," Abdalla said. "Anita Pedord has been phenomenal.

"Having her up there gives us a definite weapon. We just wear teams down defensively."

BYU is seeded first in the tournament. The only way UNLV will play BYU is if both teams reach the championship game, which will be played at noon on Saturday.

Abdalla is proud of the strides the Lady Rebels have made since the program was started four years ago. But he won't be satisfied until the team maintains a level of consistency.

"It's been a fun couple of years just putting ourselves on the map," Abdalla said. "We've shown we can play with anyone. We just need to keep getting better and better. Obviously, winning the conference tournament would be a good confidence boost for us.

"We've netted almost all of our goals except for reaching the NCAA tournament."