The NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship kicks off today, Friday, November 15th, with 18 of the 32 First Round matches. On Saturday, 13 additional matches will be played, while just one lone match is scheduled for Sunday.
Almost all first round matches will be streamed live through various services, although most matches will either require an underlying cable or satellite subscription or a separate subscription to a digital-only service. However, some matches should be free, including all matches hosted by Pac-12 teams, as well as Santa Clara and West Virginia.
The bottom of this article includes a complete schedule of the first round matches, in chronological order, along with streaming provider, if available.
I highly recommend bookmarking the official interactive bracket (link below) in order to follow the live scores. Each match should have a direct link to the online video stream, if available, as well as live statistics.
NCAA.com – 2019 Interactive Bracket (Division I)
Another option for official streaming details is this NCAA.com article, which should be updated after each round: 2019 DI women’s soccer championship: Bracket, schedule, scores, how to watch.
A quick note on seedings and rankings…
Unlike the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, only the overall top sixteen teams are seeded. Most match-ups take into account geographic proximity, primarily for economic (travel costs) reasons, as first round matches are almost always hosted by one of the teams involved in the fixture.
Thus, in the first round, it is possible for similarly ranked teams to face opponents with significantly different rankings, such as #1 seed Florida State, which is ranked 4th in RPI, facing 63rd ranked South Alabama, while all of the other #1 seeds will face teams ranked much lower in RPI. And, due to geographic proximity and relative isolation, unseeded Colorado (RPI rank 43) will host in-state minnow Northern Colorado (RPI rank 224), a team that is significantly lower in RPI rank than #1 seed Virginia’s opponent who face 139th ranked Radford, while the other #1 seeds, Stanford and North Carolina both face teams with 200-plus RPI ranks.
Likewise, it is possible to have a match-up between two highly-ranked teams that would not be possible if the bracket was fully seeded. For example, Florida and South Florida face each other today, even though they are 23rd and 24th, respectively, in the latest RPI ranking. These positions are also their ranks in the tournament field, as all of the top 31 teams either qualified automatically or were chosen for at-large slots. If the RPI ranks were strictly followed, both Florida and South Florida would be #6 seeds, and thus in different bracket regions.
Service Explanations:
- ACCNX (ACC Network Extra): Essentially, the “ESPN3” equivalent of the ACC Network. If you have the ACC Network in your cable or satellite line-up, you should have access to these streams.
- byuTV: A cable/satellite channel for Brigham Young University. If you have cable or satellite, you may have the channel in the sports or religion tier.
- BTN+ (Big Ten Network Plus): Subscription service
- ESPN3: Online/app streams of sporting events. If you have ESPN and ESPN2 in your cable or satellite line-up, you should have access to these streams.
- Flo Sports: Subscription service
- Pac-12 Plus: Streaming-only content produced by individual Pac-12 universities. Should not require a subscription – pac-12.com/plus
- SEC Network Plus: The SEC Network equivalent of ACCNX
- Stadium: Free online/app streaming service. Also has a free OTA channel. For Santa Clara matches, see watchstadium.com/network/wcc-network/
- Texas Tech TV: University-specific subscription service
ACCNX, ESPN3, and SECN+matches can be viewed online at www.espn.com/watch/ or through the ESPN app.
A few matches (marked with “?” question marks) do not have any known live streaming or television coverage, at least according to NCAA.com (as of the time this article was published).
Official NCAA RPI (Rating Percentage Index) ranks are provided for each team in parentheses, in order to give a rough idea of relative team strength. The team with the higher RPI rank is listed first.
Asterisks(*) after the name of the streaming provider indicate matches that should not require any subscription.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15TH (all times Eastern)
5:00 PM
Virginia Tech (15) vs. Xavier (42) – ACCNX
Vanderbilt (33) vs. Clemson (36) – ACCNX
6:00 PM
Penn State (22) vs. Stony Brook (110) – BTN+
Louisville (28) vs. Lipscomb (112) – ACCNX
Duke (14) vs. Utah (51) – ACCNX
Wisconsin (17) vs. UW-Milwaukee (50) – BTN+
7:00 PM
Rutgers (13) vs. Central Connecticut State (149) – ?
NC State (19) vs. Navy (90) – ACCNX
Michigan (25) vs. Bowling Green (84) – ?
Florida (23) vs. South Florida (24) – SECN+
7:30 PM
Arkansas (6) vs. North Texas (47) – SECN+
Texas A&M (21) vs. Texas (48) – SECN+
Texas Tech (20) vs. Pepperdine (46) – Texas Tech TV
8:00 PM
Oklahoma State (11) vs. South Dakota State (118) – ESPN3
BYU (12) vs. Boise State (76) – byuTV
Memphis (26) vs. Washington State (27) – Pac-12 Plus*
9:00 PM
UCLA (7) vs. Lamar University (87) – Pac-12 Plus*
10:00 PM
Stanford (1) vs. Prairie View A&M (246) – Pac-12 Plus*
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16TH (all times Eastern)
12:00 PM
West Virginia (31) vs. Georgetown (35) – YouTube (BIG EAST)*
12:30 PM
Brown (10) vs. Monmouth (44) – ESPN3
1:00 PM
Hofstra (16) vs. Loyola Chicago (56) – Flo Sports
2:00 PM
Colorado (43) vs. Northern Colorado (224) – Pac-12 Plus*
4:00 PM
Southern California (8) vs. Cal. State Fullerton (102) – Pac-12 Plus*
Santa Clara (29) vs. California (30) – Stadium* (watchstadium.com)
6:00 PM
North Carolina (2) vs. Belmont (219) – ACCNX
Florida State (4) vs. South Alabama (63) – ACCNX
South Carolina (5) vs. Samford (58) – SECN+
Kansas (9) vs. Iowa (45) – ESPN3
7:00 PM
Virginia (3) vs. Radford (139) – ACCNX
8:00 PM
Arizona (40) vs. TCU (55) – Pac-12 Plus*
9:00 PM
Washington (18) vs. Seattle U (119) – Pac-12 Plus*
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17TH (all times Eastern)
1:00 PM
Notre Dame (34) vs. Saint Louis (38) – ACCNX
Women's Soccer Express 