WILLIAMSBURG - William and Mary travels to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina this weekend for the first and second rounds of the 2008 NCAA Championships. In the field for the 23rd time in school history, the Tribe will face South Carolina out of the Southeastern Conference for the first time ever Friday night at 7:30 p.m. The winner will play again Sunday, November 16, at 1:30 p.m. against the winner of Friday's match between Radford out of the Big South, and national No. 9-12 seed Duke.

This is the fourth tournament in a row, and ninth of the past 11 tournaments that W&M has been invited to, where the Tribe is facing an opponent for the first time in the national championships.

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Complete W&M NCAA Notes

Five is Good, 10 is Better
All-American Dani Collins (Cream Ridge, N.J.) earned five major weekly awards on October 13-14 after scoring match-winning goals against Northeastern and Hofstra the previous weekend, including CAA Player of the Week, ECAC Defensive Player of the Week, and national team of the week honors from Soccer Buzz, Soccer America, and Top Drawer Soccer.

Classmate and fellow All-American Claire Zimmeck (Fairfax, Va.) repeated the feat November 3-4 after scoring two goals on Senior Night against Old Dominion, with the only difference being that she was named Offensive Player of the Week by the ECAC.

Defensive Player of the Year
Abby Lauer (Oak Hill, Va.) was named the CAA co-Defensive Player of the Year after recording one goal and seven assists while playing every minute of the season on the backline, becoming the first Tribe player to earn the award since Stephanie Loehr '99 was the inaugural winner following the 1998 season.

Proud Rookie Tradition
Diana Weigel's (Fairfax, Va.) selection to the CAA All-Rookie team continued W&M's streak of having at least one player on every rookie squad named by the conference.

All-CAA Team Wears Green and Gold
William and Mary put four players on the All-CAA first team this season, including three-time honorees Dani Collins and Claire Zimmeck, and first-time honorees Meghan Walker (Wallingford, Pa.) and Abby Lauer.

Good Things Come in Threes
All-Americans Dani Collins and Claire Zimmeck each earned first-team all-conference honors for the third time Thursday night, becoming the seventh and eighth Tribe players to ever earn three or more All-CAA first-team awards.

Collins, Zimmeck Named CAA All-Tournament
Seniors Dani Collins and Claire Zimmeck were named to the CAA All-Tournament team last weekend, the first-such award for each player. Both assisted on the Tribe's first goal of the game, and Zimmeck also scored the second.

Smart Plays On and Off the Field
Abby Lauer was named to the Academic All-District first team for the second year in a row this season by CoSIDA and ESPN the Magazine, advancing to the national ballot for Academic All-America. Dani Collins also earned all-district recognition, being named to the second-team.

First Time Scoring
Including freshmen, nine players recorded their first goals or assists in 2008. Five players scored for the first time in the 6-0 victory over Akron on September 21st.

Setting the Standard
Meghan Walker will graduate as the standard by which all other Tribe goalkeepers are measured, holding career records in goals-against average (0.73), victories (45), and shutouts (25).

Seeing Something New
This year marks the first time since the 2000 NCAA Tournament that William and Mary hasn't been sent to play at neither the University of Virginia, nor the University of North Carolina. All told, 16 of the Tribe's 29 NCAA matches entering this season took place at one of those two schools.

Against the SEC
Friday's match will be the first for the Tribe against an SEC opponent in the NCAA Tournament. Overall, W&M is 3-3-2 all-time against opponents from the Southeastern Conference.

First Impressions
This is the first-ever meeting with South Carolina for W&M, and fifth against a team from the state of South Carolina (all four previous matches came against Clemson). However, there are ties between the Tribe and the Gamecocks - former W&M assistant Lydia Scrofani was an All-SEC performer for South Carolina in the late 1990s.

Pod Notes
The Tribe has faced each of the other two teams in the Durham pod more than 10 times before, holding a 6-4-1 advantage over Radford, and a 5-4-1 all-time record against Duke.

First to Three
William and Mary was the first team in CAA history to hold the No. 1-seed in the conference tournament three years in a row.

And Then There Were Two
W&M has never had a losing season since the NCAA began tracking women's soccer, a streak of 27 years that ranks the College as one of only two schools to achieve that level of consistency. North Carolina has also clinched its 27th winning season with a spot in the NCAA field of 64.

In Good Company
Through 21 matches, William and Mary has recorded 49 assists on 41 goals. The only other season where the Tribe finished with more assists than goals was 1997, with 88 assists on 79 goals while compiling a 20-5 record and reaching the NCAA Quarterfinals.

Sight-seeing in Durham
This is only the fourth trip W&M soccer has taken to Durham, where the Tribe owns a 2-1 record all-time.

Discovering a Good Thing
The Tribe drew a record number of fans to Albert-Daly Field this year, breaking the single-match attendance record of 497 three times during the fall. 560 witnessed the season-opener against ninth-ranked Penn State, and 564 came out for the nationally-televised match against Virginia Commonwealth. Both those crowds were dwarfed by the 711 fans who came to the CAA semifinals last Friday. Through 12 matches, the Tribe averaged 322 fans per contest, well above the record-average of 234 set last season.

Gold-Medal Opposition
W&M opened the year with back-to-back matches against teams coached by Team U.S.A assistants, the only team in the nation able to claim that. The Tribe fell to Penn State and coach Erica Walsh ?97 in the first match of the season, 3-1, and defeated Syracuse and coach Phil Wheddon 2-1 in Harrisonburg one week later.

A Season to Remember for Coach John Daly
William and Mary head coach John Daly surpassed three major coaching milestones in 2008, solidifying his legacy as one of the all-time great coaches in NCAA women's soccer.

Sixth to 450th
Daly coached his 450th career match with the Tribe on September 7, at home against Columbia. He is only the sixth coach ever in Division I to coach more than 450 matches at one school

300 Wins, and Counting
Daly reached the 300 win plateau with a 2-1, double-overtime victory over Delaware on October 3. He is only the ninth coach in Division I to ever reach 300 victories, and only the fourth to do so with one school.

First to 100 in the CAA
With a 1-0 victory at George Mason on October 24th, Daly became the first women's soccer coach to surpass 100 regular-season wins in CAA play. Daly finished 2008 with a career-ledger of 102-19-11 (.814) in the regular season, 125-23-14 (.815) including tournament matches.

Unique Milestone
When Daly won his 300th match on October 3, William and Mary became the only school in NCAA Division I to have had a men's coach and a women's coach each achieve more than 300 victories at that institution. Former men's coach Al Albert ?69 amassed 401 wins from 1971-2003.

20 Years of NCAA Championships
With an at-large selection to the NCAA Championships in 2008, Coach Daly became the third Division I coach all-time to lead a team to the national tournament 20 or more years.