LeiLanni Nesbeth and her fellow Florida State University team-mates are fired up for their NCAA Championship quarter-final against visiting Pitt at Seminole Soccer Complex today.

The top-seeded Seminoles are heading into their sixth straight appearance in this stage of the competition and are firing on all cylinders after banging in 11 goals without reply in the previous three rounds of the national tournament.

“Super excited to be heading back to the Elite Eight,” Nesbeth told The Royal Gazette. “I’m looking forward to being back here at this stage of the tournament and the entire team is looking forward to Friday.”

Florida State beat No 11 seeds Pitt 2-0 in the previous meeting between the two schools in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship semi-final at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina on November 2 and will be looking for repeat success tomorrow as they seek to make further inroads towards the national title.

“We are obviously playing a familiar opponent this Friday,” added Nesbeth, who was named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team this week.

“We just need to make sure we come out hard, try to score early like we did on Sunday and stay consistent defensively.”

Senior midfielder Nesbeth was alluding to her team’s 5-0 demolition of Texas A&M in their previous outing at Seminole Soccer Complex last Sunday.

“That was one of our best performances in the season thus far,” she said. “All-round just a solid performance from start to finish against a really good opponent with some dangerous attacking players.

“I thought we executed the game plan well, limited their threats and really created some quality, clean attacking chances and were clinical on the offensive side.”

Three-times defending champions Seminoles clinched their spot in the NCAA Tournament after edging No 7 seeds Clemson 2-1 in the ACC Championship final on November 5.