The Georgia women’s soccer team suffered through several tense minutes of the NCAA selection show before finding out they had made it into the 2011 tournament.

“It’s amazing,” junior midfielder Suzannah Dennis said. “Getting in is the best possible thing and I think we’re ready to play and make it far.”

Alexa Newfield and the Georgia soccer team got their ticket punched to the NCAA Tournament Monday evening. SEAN TAYLOR/Staff

Georgia (12-6-2, 6-3-2) was on the bubble last season and narrowly missed out on a chance to play for the national title.

“Obviously a much better feeling than one year ago,” head coach Steve Holeman told the excited players after the news was revealed.

Last season was Steve Holeman’s first year as head coach, and the Bulldogs finished with an overall record of 11-6-4, winning five games in the SEC. Though they won only one more game this year, it was enough to secure their spot in the tournament.

“I don’t think there’s an explanation, I think we were just on the bubble last year and things didn’t go our way,” Dennis said.

Though they didn’t win many more games, some players saw a noticeable improvement over last year.

“We did really well,” sophomore Alexa Newfield said. “Our record through the SEC [was better] this year. We didn’t tie like we did last year … This year we finished out our games better than last year.”

What they did have was higher quality wins this year, Holeman said.

“We had some significant wins,” head coach Steve Holeman said. “We had no bad losses. It’s nice to be rewarded for that.”

Though the players were optimistic, they were still nervous as they waited for the selection show to begin. The NCAA commentators seemed determined to draw out the announcement until the last minute, saving Georgia for the very end and prolonging the broadcast  by profiling other teams.

“I didn’t like the way they had that set up to where it showed one bracket at a time,” Dennis said.

Many of the players became excited when they caught a glimpse of Georgia’s bracket at the beginning of the program, but they had sit through many more brackets before the NCAA revealed the final 16 teams.

“It was too much of a tease,” Newfield said.

Eight teams from the SEC made the tournament, making the SEC the most-represented conference in the nation behind the ACC with nine selections. The other SEC teams to make the cut were Kentucky, Auburn, South Carolina, Forida, LSU, Alabama and Tennessee.

The Bulldogs will travel to Lawrence to face Kansas (11-8, 3-5) in the first round of the tournament on Nov. 13. Georgia beat the Jayhawks 5-0 last year in Athens, but the game won’t be easy this time around, Holeman said.

“We’re somewhat familiar with Kansas in that we played them last year, but I think this is a team that’s obviously much improved from where they stood last year,” Holeman. “Obviously some of the same players, but it’s going to be a big challenge for us. They have home-field advantage.”

After winning four games in a row, the team hasn’t won a game or scored a goal in the run of play since Oct 16. But the tournament marks a new beginning for the team.

“Coming off our past few games we were kind of in a slump,” Dennis said. “I think going into this we have a new start and I think we’re all pretty confident and ready to go.”