COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS – With the same four teams returning to this year’s version of the NCAA Women’s College Cup, one might expect a little contempt to go with the familiarity.

But in fact the story lines surrounding the Final Four this year are plentiful. Going along with the wide array of playing talent, it should be an event worth following closely.

In Friday’s opening match here at Texas A&M, UCLA (21-2-1) faces top-seeded Stanford (24-0-0) at 5:30 p.m. EST. The nightcap features a rematch of last year’s title game, with defending champion North Carolina (21-3-1) playing Notre Dame (21-3-1). Only the Fighting Irish were not the top seed in their bracket, having defeated Florida State last week in a quarterfinal match at Tallahassee, 2-0.

One story line is the way North Carolina manhandled both Notre Dame and UCLA earlier in the season. The Tar Heels routed the Bruins 7-2 in the season opener at Chapel Hill, then two weeks later beat Notre Dame at South Bend, 6-0.

UNC coach Anson Dorrance said there isn’t much he can take away from those wins, and added it could even work against his squad.

“What you’d rather do – any season when I’ve racked up some losses, I’m dying to play those teams again. I want them in my bracket or in the ACC Tournament, because it gives you a great motivational platform,” he said. “We don’t feel beating them early gives us much. What it does is give them a motivational platform.”

Notre Dame coach Randy Waldrum and UCLA’s Jillian Ellis both agreed.

“Well of course it didn’t go the way we planned. I think we also kind of ran into the perfect storm that night,” Ellis said. “We recognized we had a lot of work to do and a lot of growing, and we also recommitted ourselves to the adage that it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish.”

“I just told them to get ready for (the next game),” Waldrum said of his team talk after the heavy loss. “It’s best to just forget that kind of game. We’re a very different team now. We’ve worked through some injuries to players we thought would have been there at the beginning of the season, and we’ve figured out better who should be playing where on this team.”

Among the changes the Fighting Irish have made are moving Lauren Fowlkes to play in a forward tandem with Melissa Henderson. The pair were both TDS Team of the Season selections. Courtney Barg has dropped back from an attacking midfielder’s role to more of a holding, 2-way central player. Waldrum said the changes began to take effect about midway through the season and the Irish haven’t looked back, their last loss ironically coming to Stanford by a 2-0 score, 19 matches ago on September 13.

Stanford also beat UCLA 2-0 in a regular season game, while the matchups that have not taken place this year are Notre Dame-UCLA and North Carolina-Stanford.

Of course the Cardinal are another top story, entering the event with a perfect record, having outscored its opponents in 24 matches by a 78-11 count. Head Coach Paul Ratcliffe was rather concise in his press conference comments, mainly saying he was glad to be here and ready to get after it. He did stop to say he believes Kelley O’Hara is the best college player in the country. O’Hara has racked up 25 goals and 13 assists so far this year, with linemate Christen Press contributing 20 tallies and 15 helpers.

“Stanford comes in like they are shot out of a cannon,” Dorrance said. “They’ve got goalscorers at every position so you can’t just shut down one person. But if you look at the other three teams, all of us have players who are game-changers, so you can’t write anyone off.”

TopDrawerSoccer.com will have full coverage of Friday’s semifinals and Sunday’s final, along with coverage of the youth club events being held in conjunction with the College Cup.