KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has released the teams and host sites for the 66th Annual NAIA Men's Soccer National Championship on Saturday, November 16. For the first time in program history, the Marian men's soccer team was selected to the NAIA National Tournament, as the Knights were picked as the No. 11 team in the 40-team bracket.
The 40-team field starts the NAIA National Championship First & Second Rounds presented by Select Sport America, at 16 campus locations from November 21st to 23rd. Marian, the No. 11 team in the field, will travel to Oklahoma City University to compete in the NAIA Tournament Second Round. Winners of the 2024 NAIA Men's Soccer Second Round will travel to Kansas for the final site at the Scheels Strykler Sports Complex from December 2-9, 2024, hosted by Visit Wichita.
This year's championship field includes 24 automatic qualifiers and 16 at-large selections. Automatic berths were given to teams that either won their respective conference tournament title, regular-season championship, finished runner-up at the conference tournament as determined by each conference qualification plan. The at-large bids were determined by the NAIA Men's Soccer National Selection Committee. The committee consists of one representative from each Area Ranking Committee, a representative from the National Administrative Council, the President of the Soccer Coaches Association, three at-large athletics administrators and an at-large coach. The committee evaluated teams throughout the year on various criteria.
The Knights earned an at-large bid to the NAIA National Tournament field, earning their right after playing for the Crossroads League Tournament Championship on Wednesday.
This is Marian's first-ever trip to the NAIA National Tournament, with the program's only-other NAIA Tournament experience coming in a regional game in 2005. The 2005 regional was not an official national tournament game under former structuring.
Marian has been a force to be reckoned with this season, finishing fourth in the Crossroads League, sitting just one goal away from a Crossroads League Championship in the regular season. Marian defeated No. 13 Bethel and (RV) Huntington, the former the 2022 NAIA Champion and the latter the 2024 CL Champion, in the first two rounds of their conference tournament before falling to Spring Arbor, and enter the NAIA Tournament with a 14-4-3 record on the season. Marian was one of five Crossroads League schools to qualify for the tournament, joining the aforementioned Spring Arbor Cougars, Bethel Pilots, Huntington Foresters, and the Indiana Wesleyan Wildcats.
The opponent for Marian will be Oklahoma City University, who was receiving votes behind Marian in the latest NAIA Coaches' Poll that was released on November 6. The Stars are 13-1-4 overall on the season, and finished as the No. 3 seed in the Sooner Athletic Conference regular season standings. Oklahoma City then went on to win the SAC Tournament Championship, defeating the top-seed and No. 9 rated Mid-America Christian with a 1-0 score in the final. The Stars reached the championship by first winning an 8-7 penalty kick shootout in the semifinal round against (RV) John Brown. The Stars are 1-1-3 against teams rated in the NAIA Top-25 this season.
The Knights will take on the Stars on Saturday, November 23 in Oklahoma City. The start time will be announced in the coming days, and will be updated to MUKnights.com. Fans can follow the game with updates posted to MUKnights on X (formerly Twitter), and MUKnights on Instagram.
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