{"id":384920,"date":"2026-07-03T13:03:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T13:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/384920\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T13:03:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T13:03:35","slug":"university-of-san-francisco-appoints-alexis-mata-as-interim-head-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/384920\/","title":{"rendered":"University of San Francisco appoints Alexis Mata\u00a0as interim head coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO, CA \u2013 University of San Francisco Director of Athletics Brent Blaylock<\/a>\u00a0announced today that assistant coach\u00a0Alexis Mata<\/a>\u00a0has been elevated to interim head women\u2019s soccer coach for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited to have\u00a0Alexis Mata<\/a>\u00a0lead our women\u2019s soccer program,\u201d said Blaylock.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer genuine passion for the University of San Francisco, strong commitment to the holistic development of our student-athletes, and tireless dedication to competitive success make her an exceptional fit for the program. We look forward to the positive impact she will have on our program and our USF community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming to the Hilltop in spring 2024, Mata served as an assistant coach under Pinder Nijjar for the past two seasons. She joined the Dons after serving as a volunteer assistant at the University of Oregon in 2023. While in Eugene, Mata\u00a0coached at the club level locally. She holds a United States Soccer National C License, an advanced soccer coaching certification focused on U-13 to U-19 age groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been part of this program as an assistant coach, and I know firsthand what these student-athletes are capable of,\u201d said Mata.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m deeply invested in helping each of them grow as players and as people. I\u2019m honored to step into this role to continue supporting their development and driving this program forward. This team has my full commitment, on and off the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

During her first two seasons at USF, the Dons have yielded notable success, including five All-West Coast Conference (WCC) selections:\u00a0Lindsey Chau<\/a>\u00a0(2024 \u2013 Honorable Mention, 2025 \u2013 Second Team),\u00a0Tyra Bengtsson-Stenseth<\/a>\u00a0(2025- All-Freshman),\u00a0Alicia Osegueda<\/a>\u00a0(2025 \u2013 All-Freshman), and\u00a0Kaitlyn Sasadeusz<\/a>\u00a0(2025 \u2013 Honorable Mention). As a team, San Francisco recorded a notable victory with a 2-0 shutout of No. 18 Texas Tech at home on Aug. 24, 2025.<\/p>\n

Primarily responsible for working with USF\u2019s goalkeepers, Mata helped Bengtsson-Stenseth shine in her debut season on the Hilltop as she showed her promise as one of the best backstops in the conference. The freshman started in the cage in all 18 matches for San Francisco, playing all 90 minutes in each match this season. She was one of only two Dons to play every minute this season, alongside defender\u00a0Danica Lunceford<\/a>. Overall,\u00a0Bengtsson-Stenseth\u00a0finished with 69 saves, five shutouts, and a 0.697 save percentage. She would go on to finish fourth in the WCC in saves and fourth in shutouts.<\/p>\n

Academically,\u00a0Gabby Rizzo<\/a>\u00a0(2024) and\u00a0Natalie Drotzmann<\/a>\u00a0(2025) both earned spots on the WCC Women\u2019s Soccer All-Academic Team, with San Francisco also earning 10 academic honorable mentions each year. As a team, the Dons maintained a 3.74 cumulative GPA in 2024 and a 3.67 cumulative GPA in 2025.<\/p>\n

In her playing career, Mata was a goalkeeper at the University of Hawai\u2019i, as she was named Big West Goalkeeper of the Year in 2019 in addition to earning All-Big West honors her final two years (2018\/Honorable Mention and 2019\/First Team). Wrapping up her career, she was also selected to the 2019 United Coaches All-West First Team. She was named Big West Defensive Player of the Week four times. Academically, she was named to the Big West Academic All-Conference Team twice (2018 and 2019).<\/p>\n

Following her collegiate career, Mata went overseas to pursue a professional career. Beginning at the\u00a0amateur\u00a0level, she started her journey in Valencia, Spain, and worked her way up to Segunda RFEF (second division in the Spanish league) playing for Levante Las Planas in Barcelona in 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO, CA \u2013 University of San Francisco Director of Athletics Brent Blaylock\u00a0announced today that assistant coach\u00a0Alexis Mata\u00a0has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-384920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}