Gators Win SEC, Advance To NCAA Round Of 16

The 2012 season ended at home for the Florida Gators with a 2-0 loss to Notre Dame in the Round of 16 in the NCAA D-I tournament.

Gators coach Becky Burleigh spoke about the closeness of her team after the game when she said ‘this team has been so unbelievably awesome to work with.

“These players really love each other. They love the way that we play, they’ve bought in to everything that we’ve asked. This is a group that I just want to extend it as long as I possibly could because it was just so enjoyable.”

Florida was a #2 regional seed and earned the SEC’s automatic berth after winning the league’s tournament championship. Runnersup in the SEC a year ago, the Gators won the 2012 title with a 3-0 victory over Auburn.

They opened postseason play with a 2-0 win over Florida Gulf Coast, and then edged Central Florida, 2-1 in the second round. UCF, the Conference USA champions, had gotten past Miami in the opening round, winning a shootout 5-3 after playing 1-1 through overtime.

Notre Dame got a goal in each half against the Gators. It was the first time since the opening game of the SEC season that anyone had scored twice on Florida.

Burleigh’s team had several good chances to score in the first half, but could not put those away.

“I think early in the game we had some really great opportunities that, if you score those, that changes things tremendously,” she said.

Florida finished t…