The Kentucky women’s soccer team has been at it for almost three months now. Not only that, the Wildcats had just returned from a weeklong road trip and a 12-hour bus ride at 6:30 a.m.Naturally, Jon Lipsitz’s wife asked him if he was tired.”Heck yeah,” Lipsitz told her. “That’s exactly how I want to feel right now.”When the alternative is sitting at home, the choice is clear.”When you get to the end of the year and everybody’s a little worn down, it’s the greatest feeling in the world,” Lipsitz said. “So many teams are done and here we are, one of the 64 teams playing in the NCAAs and one of the 32 teams hosting.”The Cats are at home, but they’re doing anything but sitting this week. UK will play host to SIU Edwardsville in a first-round NCAA Tournament matchup at 7:30 p.m. at the Wendell & Vickie Bell Soccer Complex. “A great challenge for us,” Lipsitz said. “I know that they’re very excited. First time for them and I remember what that feels like. I know that they’ll be sky high when they get here and I think a quick start for us is very important.”UK, a national seed in the tournament for the first time in school history, enters the favorite. The label, an unfamiliar one for a program still growing, is one that might pose a danger of overlooking an SIUE team that has impressed Lipsitz in watching tape. SIUE’s Ohio Valley Conference Tournament performance caught Lipsitz’s eye in particular, a game in which the Cougars overcame a two-goal deficit with less than 10 minutes remaining to punch their NCAA Tournament tickets in overtime.”That’s a pretty amazing, resilient team to be able to do something like that,” Lipsitz said.Resilient is a word that can be used to describe UK as well.A little more than a month ago, the Cats were on the outside of the NCAA Tournament looking in, sporting an RPI of 59 on the heels of four losses in six matches. Since, UK has won eight times in nine matches, only dropping the Southeastern Conference Tournament final against NCAA No. 1 seed Texas A&M.Combine that with the No. 3 seed and you have a recipe for a team in danger of resting on its laurels and expecting a win to come easily, but the Cats aren’t about to fall victim to that, not with senior captains Stuart Pope and Arin Gilliland leading the way. Within minutes of learning UK’s seeding, Pope said it no longer mattered.”It’s interesting being in training with the team because there’s been zero discussion of the things that we’ve accomplished so far,” Lipsitz said. “Obviously I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished over time, the four years with this group, but they haven’t mentioned it at all. For them it’s one game. We’re getting ready for Saturday and for us as a staff it’s one game and getting ready for it.”The first step in that preparation was recovering from playing three games in five days at the SEC Tournament, which Lipsitz said “crushes you physically.” Accordingly, UK took an off day on Monday and went light on Tuesday.”We started getting back after it Wednesday and (Thursday) was the first day I saw a change of pace in what they were doing,” Lipsitz said. “I saw some pop, as we call it, in their runs. Things started coming together (Thursday).”That happened with temperatures dropping into the 30s as will be the case on at kickoff on Saturday night. But like with late-season exhaustion, the Cats aren’t about to let a little November chill affect them.”We couldn’t care less,” Lipsitz said. “Our choice is be out on a cold night, colder than usual this time of year, playing an NCAA game or being done with the season. Yeah, I think we’re going to be excited. We’re definitely going to be excited.”