Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Wright State soccer coach Jake Slemker could sense something positive developing as his team warmed up for the first NCAA tournament match in program history at Notre Dame on Thursday.
Because they’d played a quality schedule — and built confidence with a late-season surge — no one seemed to be in awe of the Irish or content just to have made it that far.
“We talked about that as a staff,” Slemker said. “We could tell there was a certain focus with the guys. It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, we did it.’ It was, ‘Let’s keep going.’
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“That’s why we schedule the way we do. When we play an ACC or Big Ten team, it’s just another game that we’re ready to play. We’ve played those big-name schools before. We’re not worried about that. We’re focused on what we can do.”
The Raiders advanced to the NCAA Round of 32 with a 3-2 victory — the first win in the tourney by a Horizon League school in five years.
They’ll play 13th-seeded Michigan (11-4-5) in Ann Arbor at 1 p.m. Sunday. The game will be broadcast on the Big Ten Network-Plus.
