In the semifinal game, Tulsa was matched up against the tournament’s top seed, SMU. In the regular season, the Golden Hurricane fell in a 1–0 game to the Mustangs.
Geoffrey Dee put Tulsa on the board first, as he converted a penalty kick halfway through the first half. Then, as time was winding down in the first half, Tulsa goalkeeper Jake McGuire went to the top of the box to try and snag a high ball over a couple of field players, and ended up grabbing a Mustang forward, drawing a penalty kick call from the referee. Camara Idrissa took the spot kick for SMU, and leveled the score at 1–1 heading into the halftime break.
After play resumed, Bradley Bourgeois put Tulsa back on top, scoring a goal in the 61st minute. Once again, the Golden Hurricane found themselves leading as the half was dwindling. It appeared as though they would be advancing through to the tournament finals. The Mustangs weren’t out just yet, though. With a little more than two minutes remaining, Jared Rice took a corner kick that curved over the field and then back to hit the goalpost, deflecting off a Tulsa defender and into the net. Regulation ended with the score knotted at 2–2.
In the penalty shootout, Jake McGuire made a couple of clutch saves, and the Golden Hurricane advanced 4–3 on the shootout.
The matchup in the finals pitted the Golden Hurricane against the Huskies from UConn. In their regular season matchup, the game ended in a 1–1 after the Huskies scored a goal at the buzzer.
Tyler Leeman got the scoring going quickly in the championship, putting the ball into the net in the third minutes to give the Huskies a quick lead. Miguel Velasquez found the back of the net shortly before halftime to bring the score level again.
Neither team scored in the second half, nor did either of them manage to score in the overtime periods.
In the shootout, the Golden Hurricane went down early after failing to score their first kick. However, McGuire made more clutch saves, including one in a do-or-die situation on the fifth Husky kick, and Tulsa won 4–3 in the shootout.
This is the second consecutive season that the Golden Hurricane have won the conference tournament. In each of their tournament games this season, they won in PKs. Tulsa now awaits its draw for the NCAA tournament on Monday.
