Division 3 - 2017

I see that the Amherst women beat Mt. Holyoke 10-0 on Thursday, probably not a good indicator of anything, and Bowdoin 1-0 on Saturday (the stats suggest a close game). I see that the Amherst men also beat Bowdoin 1-0 on Saturday, reminds me of the good old days -- one of my Amherst teammates had a twin brother who played for Bowdoin.

 

I watched RPI play Plattsburgh State. P State was the better team. P State basically outplayed RPI for the win. I also noticed the Lyons was back ion goal. So her sitting the 1st 2 games must be something they do to get the other GK time.?
I watched a replay of Messiah vs JH. That was a good game. Both teams were hustling , high pressure and possession play was nice to see.
Going to try to watch a few games today.

 

Watched a live stream of Bard vs Mt St marys college. Both teams were sloppy and the goals were off mistakes by Gks or defense. Mt St Mary seemed faster to me and had the more skilled players when real soccer was played at times.
Hoping to stream PSU-Berks vs Dickinson later tonight., PSU-Berks made a run in the tourney last yr and is ranked in the top 20 this yr.

 

Did get a chance to watch stream of Dickinson vs PSU - Berks. Dickinson outplayed PSU berks the whole game. Dickinson had 21 (18 on goal)shots to Berks 5 shots. The Berks GK kept them in the game. Dickinson has a soph Striker Zandi that looks pretty good. Dickinson looks good, 9/27 they play Messiah. I will try to get to that game live.

 

In the 2015 season the Polar Bears finished second in the NESCAC which was pretty excellent. It will be interesting to see if they can make up for last season in a tough conference.

20

 

The Polar Bears! I'd way forgotten that, if that's what they were back in the dark ages when I was in school. The Amherst Lord and Lady Jeffs now are no more -- they're the Mastadons. Lord Jeff was said to have introduced small pox infested blankets to the Native American population. With that history, I never felt good about Lord Jeffrey Amherst being the school's mascot, even when I was in school. The "Mastadons" has roots -- the school has had, for a very long time, a whole bunch of mastadon bones.

 

New rankings are out. It is early but they look about right. Surprised to see Brandeis fall out, but they will play themselves back in. Trinity still at 6?? Did not see their game against CN but they were outshot 16/9.

 

Here is the link if anyone is interested:
http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/soccer-women/d3/united-soccer-coaches

Also D3 soccer has a poll with a different lineup here :
http://www.d3soccer.com/top25/women/2017/week2

 

For the Ollie the Owl fans, Brandeis is ranked #17 in the D3 Soccer poll...

 

I saw JHU lose to TCNJ in OT...it was an exciting contest with lots of SOG despite the low score...nevertheless, JHU clearly misses Van Der Loo...

 

Funny that you "assumed" WashU would win the match vs IWU when you posted (because I believe the winners play each other on Sunday and the losers also play each other). As it ends up, you were right. WashU plays UW-Whitewater and IWU plays Wittenberg.

I watched bit of the WashU vs IWU stream. The call that awarded WashU the PK, to make it 2-0, was a bad call. Also, IWU did have chances that they couldn't capitalize on. It was probably the right result but could have swung the other way.

Interesting to note about IWU: they usually start 6 or 7 freshmen. Against Chicago last weekend IWU started 7 freshmen and a few sophomores while Chicago started 8 or 9 players from last year's final 4 team. IWU is very young and after they're seasoned a bit they could be dangerous on the postseason. One BIG negative I saw with them, though, was a tendency to not play the ball out of the back. Far too often the keeper punted the ball into a 50/50 that was lost in the midfield. Teams are much more successful when building the attack out of the back. I saw the central defenders also randomly boot the ball into the midfield as opposed to playing it out to the outside backs or flanks. Could be a youth mistake.

 

PSmpl, it seems to me that a lot, if not the majority, of college soccer teams tend towards playing some form of kickball...this tendency seems to escalate even more if a team is feeling outmatched by their opponent. I also see this in D1 women's college soccer. I have seen Williams and only a handful of other teams engage in a more possession based style of play.

 

I watched a LS of William Smith vs Misericordia . William Smith should have won by more then 3-1. William Smith had the better of the game. They were using the triangle passing to get up the sideline. They held the ball and made Misericordia chase them. They even built from the back sometimes, with the GK distributing the ball instead of a punt. They played soccer instead of kickball. I would say possession was 70/30 in favor of William Smith.

Now Misericordia did look good in spurts and the game was tied at 1-1 for a little. Their goal was scored by Jackie Stevens because of pure speed. Out raced the defender for the ball and got around her to a 1v1 on gk. It was a nice play by Jackie. The other highlight for Misericordia was their GK's leg. She had a very strong leg. Her goal kicks were going to midfield everytime and drop kick or punts ( she did both) were over midfield most of the time. I have not seen any other D3 gk with a leg as strong as hers.

 

The United Soccer Coaches Poll was updated this week. There were several notable shifts in the rankings. Looking at who moved down I would say that they did not take into account the degree of difficulty in the schedule....

Here is the link: http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/soccer-women/d3/united-soccer-coaches

Rankings - United Soccer Coaches
Last Updated - September 19, 2017
United Soccer Coaches
RANK SCHOOL RECORD PREV.
1 Washington (Mo.) 5-0-0 1
2 Chicago 6-0-0 2
3 TCNJ 4-0-0 5
4 Williams 5-0-0 4
5 Hardin-Simmons 5-0-0 7
6 Swarthmore 7-0-0 10
7 William Smith 4-1-0 3
8 Christopher Newport 6-0-1 13
9 SUNY Geneseo 5-0-1 15
10 Trinity (Texas) 5-1-0 6
11 Johns Hopkins 5-1-1 9
12 Messiah 3-1-2 14
13 Wisconsin-Whitewater 4-0-2 8
14 Lynchburg 5-0-0 18
15 Carnegie Mellon 3-1-1 11
16 MIT 7-0-0 20
17 Stevens 3-1-1 17
18 Pacific Lutheran 4-1-0 23
19 Otterbein 5-0-1 21
20 Connecticut College 4-0-1 RV
21 St. Thomas 5-0-1 NR
22 Hope 6-1-0 19
23 Misericordia 5-0-2 24
24 Nazareth 4-1-1 RV
25 Brandeis 5-1-0 RV

 

D3 Soccer has a slightly different list of top D3 soccer teams...

D3soccer.com Women's Top 25, Week 3
Through games of Sunday, September 17, 2017

# School (1st Pl. Votes) Record Pts. Prev.
1 Washington U. (11) 6-0-0 986 1
2 Chicago (3) 6-0-0 969 3
3 Williams 5-0-0 857 4
4 TCNJ 5-0-0 840 9
5 Chris. Newport 6-0-1 783 7
6 Hardin-Simmons 5-0-0 763 6
7 William Smith 4-1-0 734 2
8 MIT 7-0-0 691 10
9 Lynchburg 5-0-0 689 8
10 Messiah 3-1-2 651 12
11 Johns Hopkins 5-1-1 623 5
12 Swarthmore 7-0-0 586 15
13 Trinity (Texas) 5-1-0 557 13
14 Geneseo State 5-0-1 494 17
15 Brandeis 5-1-0 391 18
16 Connecticut Col. 4-0-1 389 16
17 UW-Whitewater 4-1-2 303 14
18 Pacific Lutheran 5-1-0 284 21
19 Springfield 6-0-0 268 —
20 Illinois Wesleyan 5-2-0 207 19
21 St. Thomas 5-0-1 186 —
22 Emory 4-2-0 180 24
23 Carnegie Mellon 3-1-1 140 25
24 Saint Benedict 5-1-0 89 20
25 Otterbein 5-0-1 61 —
Dropped out: No. 11 Amherst, No. 22 Arcadia, No. 23 Texas-Tyler

Receiving Votes: Loras 57, Amherst 54, Central 40, Western Connecticut 37, Stevens 37, Susquehanna 37, Misericordia 29, Texas-Tyler 26, Nazareth 26, Arcadia 17, McDaniel 14, Wartburg 14, Texas-Dallas 6, Brockport State 6, UW-La Crosse 6, Catholic 3

The D3soccer.com Top 25 is voted on by a panel of coaches, Sports Information Directors and D3soccer.com staff, and is published weekly.

 

I live streamed the Messiah vs Misericordia game. I felt it was very sloppy the 1st half. Both teams were playing kickball a lot and not possessing the ball. Messiah coach must have had something to say to his girls at halftime because they came out playing much better. Messiah took over the game, possessing the ball and making Misericordia chase them. The game ended 2-0 but Messiah looked much better.
LS the Dickinson vs Muhlenberg game. The game seemed slower then the Messiah game. The Dickinson game was on grass, not sure if that made a difference or not. The game was entertaining. It was a very physical battle. There were 3 yellows handed out and a total of 31 fouls called.
Messiah travels to Dickinson on Wednesday. Dickinson's new head coach will get to see if the 7-1-1 record they have is real or not. after watching Messiah a few times I believe Messiah should beat Dickinson but this is soccer.

 

GK19, I have also seen Dickinson play and came away thinking they have some very skilled players. I am impressed with the Red Devil's #10 who I saw play forward in what I think was 4-4-3. I was surprised the coach did not play her more since she seemed to create a lot of chances for their offense. She is quick, dynamic and has a laser like shot/cross.

I also watched Williams def Amherst 3-2 in the battle of two of the highest academically ranked schools in D3. Interesteng contrast in styles of play. Williams seems to play a methodical posession based attack, while Amherst seemed less organized and more direct. I was more impressed with Williams but admired Amherst's resilience. I bet some in Williams are wondering how it was so close given that Williams plays "the beautiful game" as well as any D3 team I have seem so far.

 

I LS Rochester vs Nazareth yesterday. From what I saw it was some poor soccer. No one stood out on the field. I am not sure what the temp was but everyone looked very tired. There seemed to be no speed, like everyone was running in sand. If there was a time one of the teams connected 5 passes in a row that was a lot. It was 1 turnover after another at midfield and then turned into a kickball game. Rochester split halves with the GKs, I am not a big fan of that. They put their Sr keeper and she played very well, kept them in the game.
I then LS Allegheny vs Fredonia, the game was not much better. Although both of these teams showed me more speed on the field. Fredonia actually tried to build from the back and used the GK on back passes. The GK also distributed the ball instead of just punting everytime. Fredonia did hit the crossbar twice and could have tied the game up. Allegheny also at times did work the ball around and connect on passes.

 

WOW... I was unable to watch the game but just saw Messiah beat Dickinson 2-0. The amazing thing is that Dickinson had no shots and I don't on goal. The box score says no shots, which I find amazing that Dickinson couldn't get 1 shot wide of the net. This game must have been total domination. Did anyone get to see this game?