Women's Soccer

Twenty years to the day after students first crossed Scholars Bridge into the campus, UC Merced celebrated its milestone birthday with a party, a drone show, and the university’s first NCAA Division II sporting event.

To mark UC Merced’s entry into National Collegiate Athletics Association NCAA Division II competition, the university is launching the Bobcat Club – an initiative designed to support scholar-athletes and the campus’s elevated level of intercollegiate sports.

The significance of soccer in the San Joaquin Valley cannot be overstated. It’s a sport that connects communities, bridges borders and stretches across generations of fathers and mothers and daughters and sons.

So it is fitting that the Valley’s youngest university has already established a strong presence in collegiate soccer at a coast-to-coast level. Both of UC Merced’s intercollegiate soccer teams are making return trips to national championship tournaments after stellar regular seasons.

This is part of a series of profiles of new UC Merced Bobcats enrolled for the fall 2024 semester.

Alexis “Lexi” Wright gives her all, excelling in school and on the soccer field. A transfer from Saddleback Community College in Orange County, Wright also spent a year at San Francisco State helping knock out the prerequisites for attending UC Merced.

If you're looking for someone to make a late-night sushi run with and teach you the finer points of sudoku, Lexi might be your new best friend.

Between academic semesters and collegiate soccer seasons, UC Merced standout defender Preeya Singh is representing Fiji on the world stage.

Over the past eight months, Singh has played in multiple World Cup and Olympic qualifying games in addition to NAIA National Championship matches. She has scored goals, won trophies and anchored shutouts. Singh, a biological sciences major, also earned a trio of academic accolades recently and has a 3.78 GPA through four semesters.

The year just ending has been one for the college sports record books and many kudos are due to the Bobcat athletes and their coaches.

UC Merced men’s and women’s outdoor track swept the California Pacific (Cal Pac) Conference Championships in their inaugural seasons. Women’s soccer beat 14^th-ranked Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the Cal Pac Tournament Championship game and got to hoist their first trophy in front of Bobcat Nation on Bobcat Field.

University of California, Merced women's soccer defender Maddie Door has been named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District Women's Soccer First Team for her stellar performances athletically and in the classroom.

It’s an incredible time to be a Bobcat student-athlete.

In a year turned inside-out by COVID-19, UC Merced’s intercollegiate teams have risen above with atmospheric levels of success.

With all sports seasons shifted to spring because of the global pandemic, UC Merced squads burst out of the gate and racked up one success after another.

It is often said in sports that you have to struggle and overcome adversity before being able to bask in the glory of success.

UC Merced athletics has faced adversity since first transitioning from a recreation program to a NAIA member eight years ago.

But the wait for success was, well, not long at all.

It’s that time of year again - time to show your Bobcat pride at UC Merced’s annual Homecoming celebration.

Students, staff, faculty, alumni and the community are welcome to the two-day event, which will include a downtown block party for the first time.

The event kicks off Friday at the Downtown Campus Center (DCC). Since its opening in January, the DCC has helped revitalize downtown Merced and, from 6-11 p.m., it will be the site of new Homecoming events.