Look at the numbers - just the numbers - and it might look like the West Virginia University women's soccer team's path to this point has been an easy one.
Undefeated in Big 12 play. A 10-match streak where opponents were held scoreless. Conference champions. No. 1 in every poll in the country. A breeze, right?
Coach Nikki Izzo-Brown and her Mountaineers know the truth. Easy? Anything but. There were plenty of hurdles, plenty of times where the road became rough.
Yet WVU traversed those roads, cleared those hurdles. Now the team sits in an unprecedented spot, hoping it keeps piling up firsts in a season full of them.
West Virginia begins its NCAA tournament quest at 3 p.m. Saturday versus Northern Kentucky at Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium in Morgantown. The Mountaineers are a No. 1 seed for the first time, and could carry home-field advantage all the way to the national semifinals if they make it there.
Yet what would you have said if someone told you before the season that WVU would have to be without two of its best players for the season's first few games? That three more, including the Mountaineers' regular starting goalkeeper, would be absent for the playoffs?
Fate dealt those cards to West Virginia, and the team keeps winning hand after hand.
"I attribute it all to the character of the individuals and the will of this team," Izzo-Brown said. "At the end of the day, when the whistle blows, they're out there making things happen. One player is always rising to the occasion. And it's not only one or two, there are different players stepping up at different times."
Now there was a good reason WVU went without Kadeisha Buchanan and Ashley Lawrence at the season's start. The two were part of the bronze-medal-winning Canadian national team at the Olympic Games in Brazil.
And there was a good reason that defender Bianca St. Georges, keeper Rylee Foster and midfielder Vanessa Flores aren't around for the postseason. St. Georges and Foster are on the Canadian national team and Flores is on the Mexican national team at the U-20 World Cup.
Others have stepped up in their absence, including a name familiar to Kanawha Valley soccer fans. Former Capital High keeper Michelle Newhouse has stepped in as the Mountaineers' starting keeper and has helped keep West Virginia on its current roll.
"We've known going forward that we were going to have to call upon her," Izzo-Brown said. "Michelle has been incredibly selfless and incredibly focused. I give her a ton of credit, understanding her role and what time she would really have to shine."
Now the Mountaineers are dazzling. A team that began in 1995 has evolved into an elite national program. It's a long way from those first games when Notre Dame would blitz WVU by 10 goals.
Izzo-Brown doesn't look back much. There's too much to see looking forward. There are memories, though. The Mountaineers remember how it felt to fall in the Elite Eight at Penn State. They don't want a repeat.
So they remind themselves that this landmark season hasn't been easy. Staying at No. 1 wasn't easy. The first weekend WVU entered as the nation's top team, it lost to Georgetown.
What boosts Izzo-Brown's confidence was how, after losing that No. 1 ranking, her team clawed its way back to the top. That resilience should pay off in West Virginia's hunt for its first NCAA crown.
"Lessons were learned," she said. "We know everyone's going to try to disrupt our game. We know everyone is going to try and play us differently. It's a huge target on our backs. We've just decided we'll play our best soccer when the whistle blows and continue to focus on us and getting better."
Contact Derek Redd at 304-348-1712 or derek.redd@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @derekredd.