SALT LAKE CITY — The preliminary games of the National Women’s Soccer League’s Challenge Cup at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman concluded on Monday night, and now it’s on to the quarterfinals for the eight teams.
The matchups for the quarterfinals weren’t decided until Monday night’s final preliminary game, which saw the mighty North Carolina Courage beat New Jersey-based Sky Blue FC 2-0. That was in large part because a whopping four teams finished the preliminary round with four points, so a series of tiebreakers went into effect.
The tournament host Utah Royals FC wound up as the 5 seed and will play the 4 seed Houston Dash. The Courage will head into the quarterfinals as the top seed, where they’ll face a Portland Thorns squad that underachieved the first two weeks of the tournament.
The upstart Washington Spirit are the 2 seed, and they’ll face Sky Blue. Washington State-based OL Reign finished the preliminaries well and are the 3 seed, setting up a quarterfinal contest against the Chicago Red Stars.
The URFC-Dash contest will be a rematch of both teams’ first preliminary game, which ended in a 3-3 draw.
Quarterfinal games will be played on Friday and Saturday at Zions Bank Stadium. North Carolina-Portland will open things on Friday, followed by Houston-Utah. On Saturday, it’ll be the Reign and Red Stars in the morning, followed by Washington-Sky Blue in the nightcap.
Like the preliminary games, the semifinals will be played at 10:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
The semifinal games on July 22 and the final on July 26 will be played at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy.