The Dartmouth College women's soccer team was granted two wishes yesterday by being invited to play in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament, a secondary postseason tournament in which the teams from the East Coast not invited to the NCAA tournament play.
However, their opening-round opponent Villanova notified Dartmouth late last night that they could not participate in the game scheduled for this afternoon due to an obscure NCAA rule, limiting the amount of games they could play.
Villanova has already played in 18 games this season, and if they were to advance to the finals of the ECAC playoffs, they would have played in 21 games, exceeding the NCAA-imposed limit of 20 games per season. This error was not noticed prior to the seeding, meaning another team could not replace the Wildcats.
Dartmouth now faces Penn in the second round on Saturday in Philadelphia. As a result of the forfeit, the Big Green now have an opportunity to avenge the early-season loss to the Quakers, which was one of only two blemishes on their Ivy record.
Ironically, Dartmouth, Yale, and Pennsylvania all finished 5-2 in the Ivy League, one game behind the Harvard Crimson.
Dartmouth beat Yale 4-0, but was seeded behind the No.2 Bulldogs, who received a bye, due to a worse overall record on the season.
The Big Green have now reached the postseason six straight years, playing in this tournament in '92 and '95, and in the NCAA tournament in '93, '94, and '96.
"We have a great chance to win the tournament. In our own eyes, we are the best team in the ECAC's. If we step on the field with confidence and play our game, we will go home with the trophy," Kristin Luckenbill '01 said.
