Arkansas, N. Texas players are familiar foes

FAYETTEVILLE — For many players on the University of Arkansas soccer team, pregame introductions won’t be necessary when the NCAA Tournament kicks off tonight at Razorback Field.

Arkansas and North Texas each have several players from the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area who grew up playing against — or in some cases with — one another in high school or on club teams. The Razorbacks have nine Texans on their roster, while the Mean Green roster is comprised entirely of in-state players.

“Any team we would have gotten would have been difficult to play against, but I know some of the girls that I grew up playing back in Texas,” said Arkansas senior midfielder Stefani Doyle, who is from Lewisville, Texas, about 16 miles from the North Texas campus in Denton. “We’re just going to have to come out hard and be Arkansas.”

The teams don’t need an introduction to playing in the NCAA Tournament,

either. Arkansas is in the postseason for the fourth consecutive season and the sixth time since 2013. North Texas is in the NCAA field for the third consecutive season and the fourth time since 2015.

The Razorbacks are a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The top four teams in all four brackets are given seeds, indicating they are among the top 16 teams in the 64-team field.

“We’ve never been seeded before,” Arkansas Coach Colby Hale said. “We told them, ‘We’ve got to see both sides of this coin.’ On one end we want to be a 1 seed, and we want to win all our games, and we want all of those things, but at the end of the day we’ve accomplished a lot and we’re not done.”

The Razorbacks are hosting a first-round game for the third time since 2016. Arkansas defeated Memphis 2-1 in overtime in its first NCAA home game three years ago and defeated Arkansas-Little Rock 5-1 last year.

This season the Razorbacks are 7-1-1 on their home field. Players said they aren’t taking their status as a multitime host for granted.

“It’s so hard,” Doyle said. “This tournament is so challenging to make.”

The Razorbacks (16-3-2) like the format of this tournament better than the SEC Tournament in which they finished runner-up last week in Orange Beach, Ala. In the SEC Tournament, Arkansas had to play three times in less than a week, whereas the NCAAs are more spread out.

If the Razorbacks win tonight they won’t have to play again until next Thursday at the earliest, against either North Carolina State or Navy.

“The big thing is that we don’t have to play three games in six days,” Hale said. “We’re not really built for that [because] we work so hard.”

North Texas (15-5-1) had the second-best record in Conference USA during the regular season, but earned the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament with a 5-2 victory over Florida Atlantic in the conference championship game.

The Mean Green are led offensively by junior forward Berklee Peters, who has scored 14 goals this season. North Texas goalkeeper Kelsey Brann was the C-USA goalkeeper of the year and defensive back Dominique James was the C-USA defensive player of the year.

Arkansas and North Texas have one common opponent this season, Alabama, which the Razorbacks defeated 1-0 at home on Sept. 22, one week following the Mean Green’s 3-1 loss to the Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

“That’s a really good team, but we’re ready,” Hale said. “We’re excited.”