Yes I remember Title IX very well since (surprise) I am missing a Y chromosome. Just the wrong thread for women's news so I did a double take. We all would love there to be more TX men's soccer teams (and I have family members who are Aggie alum). Wondered if I missed something!
#2 UMBC wins 2-0 at UMass-Lowell. One thing about UMBC that bears emphasis is that they're doing this with one imported player on their entire squad, and he's a normal-aged kid who isn't even a starter. In contrast, a program like South Florida has a lot more in-state talent to choose from, stacks its roster with 16 imported players, and still can't field a decent team.
Temple's emergence has been one of the nicer developments of the past couple of years, and it's been kind of out of nowhere. After today's 1-0 OT win over Cincinnati, the Owls are looking good for their first NCAA tournament appearance since 1985.
Kids. Look like world-beaters one week, can't score the next. That said, UNC's defense has been stout all year, no shame being shutout by them. And how important has Tyler Engel been for UNC this season? As goal-starved as UNC has been, imagine if Engel (5 goals, 2 assists after last night's score) hadn't transferred in?
That's just lazy coaching. George Kiefer (a, it should be noted, Ray Reid protege) should be ashamed.
Hoyas and St. John's tied 0-0 at the half, but St. John's goes down a man right before the half. St. John's player goes studs up in the attacking third. Georgetown takes exception. Some words get exchanged. St. John's players Bodoya who went studs up gets a yellow card and leading scorer Sean Sepe gets a straight red. I didn't see any punches thrown, so he must've said something really egrigous to get a straight red. He was arguing with Joshua Yarou who has made his return.
And Georgetown loses 1-0 @ St. John's as St. John's gets a goal against the run of play and Georgetown is unable to break down a compact St. John's defense. Disappointing result.
Duke lead 3-0 at HT against Pitt. Pit terrible. They have kicked only long balls. Only. I repeat ONLY. And guess, they have lost all these balls. I repeat ALL. They play like a bunch of 8 years old. They just hope that the ball will fall on a team mate and that the defenders will not catch the ball. And it never happens. They gave to Duke the three goals: free gifts. Defensive abysses and a pathetic penalty (the defender with his two arms and hands in front of him believing the referee would think he is the GK). Even the GK, who is good usually made mistakes. Duke look good, quick and fast passing, good control of the ball. But against a so weal defence, it is easy to shine. So here in the old Europe, the whole family goes to bed. Watching this at 1 am is too much: we are a caring family and usually supportive, positive fans and gluttons of hope (Hello Sandon); but tonight we are tired... really tired. Have a great evening, you all.
I watched the game and it looked like UVa had tired legs. I don't like to blame scheduling on the scoreline for college sports (as an 18 yr old, you should be able to recover after 3 days from a game no problem), but I felt like the midweek game this week for the Cavs really did them in as they only had 4 shots and one SOG, while UNC was off the whole week and just seemed quicker to most of the balls. I haven't watched a lot of UVa games, but their GK didn't have any power behind his kicks and that led to the goal as UNC took the ball out of the air and rushed it to their forwards while UVa's defense got back. UNC now has a shot at a homefield quarterfinal for the ACC tournament, while a few weeks ago there was worry the Tar Heels wouldn't even make the conference tourney altogether. I think it's been a combination of a frontloaded ACC schedule and the players finally gelling together while playing with only one natural forward in the starting lineup that has helped.
Not that there's any shortage of national coach of the year candidates, but if Pieter Lehrer were to win the Ivy League title in his first season at Harvard, he would belong in the discussion. That's a program that went 3-11-3 last year and 2-12-3 the year before. Today's Ivy results Harvard 2, Dartmouth 1 Brown 2, Penn 1 Columbia 3, Yale 3 Princeton 2, Cornell 1 Top of the standings (two games left for everyone) Harvard 12 pts Penn 10 pts Princeton 10 pts Brown 8 pts Yale 8 pts
Notre Dame wins at Wake Forest 3-1, basically assuring at least a share of the ACC regular season title with Pitt coming to South Bend in the regular season finale.
Xavier 1, Villanova 0 In its first Big East season, Xavier is currently top of the table New Mexico 3, ODU 0 In its first C-USA season, New Mexico is currently top of the table Notre Dame 3, Wake Forest 1 In its first ACC season, Notre Dame is currently tied for top of the table. In addition, George Mason leads the A-10 and Denver leads the Summit League. Beginners' luck?
Creighton beats DePaul 5-1 on a beautiful day for soccer. Up 3-nil at the half, so a lot of seniors saw the field on Senior Day. Creighton looked good on offense and scored nicely from the run of play. First goal in the opening minutes came before I could even get to my seat. Hard to tell if this means Creighton is finally starting to click since DePaul looks pretty poor. DePaul's goal came off a PK after phantom hand ball in the box (ref crew had a poor showing).
Time to give Ohio St some credit. At this point in their season, they could easily have thrown in the towel. Instead, they pulled off a 1-0 upset in 2OT against Penn St. The Nittany Lions have already clinched the Big 10 title but had everything to play for in terms of post-season seeding. With this result, IU falls into last place in the Big Ten.
Busy night in the Big West TIE - #7 UCSB 1, UC Davis 1 UC Riverside 1, #20 Cal St Northridge 0 #35 UC Irvine 2, Cal St Fullerton 1 #52 Cal Poly 4, Sac St 2 For Poly, freshman Ari Lassiter set up their first two goals with low crosses from each wing. He got the assist on the first one (from the left) and created an own goal on the other (from the right).
A few notes on the Cal Poly game: Mackenzie Pridham with a goal and assist, now has 13 goals this season; George Malki, also with a goal and a beautiful assist, is finally looking back in form and very, very strong after playing part of last year injured and early this season while getting his speed and touch back. He and Matt LaGrassa are bossing the midfield (as does Steve Palacios but he was injured slightly last game and did not see action tonight). Cal Poly records broken tonight: 41 season goals is a program best; Mac Pridham tied the program record for career goals (26); and they honored 9 seniors tonight. I think having 9 seniors who have stayed in the program is a testament to the program.
Speaking of Cal Poly's seniors, anybody who produces a national team of the week needs to include Kevin Atkins in this one. Near the end of last night's game, Paul Holocher took a gamble by subbing on the seniors who never play, Atkins being one of them. (According to his bio, he had played 5 career minutes prior to this season, and this was only his second appearance of his senior campaign.) A minute after Atkins comes on, what does he do? He scores a goal to make the score 4-2. I'm betting he'll hear the name "Rudy" for a while.
And the there's poor Pittsburgh. which apparently never heard of John Wooden's old maxim failing to prepare is preparing to fail. 0-8-2 in their first year in the ACC and outscored 18-1 with one game left... AT Notre Dame.
Then he had 35 of those! In 1999 when DC United won its third MLS Cup, Lassiter had 18 goals and 11 assists but because he played with Moreno and Etchverry he never got his due. That's a Best XI caliber season - especially considering DCU won the Cup and Shield - but folks acted like anyone in his position could have done it. And then he got traded that off-season and United promptly went in the crapper. Lassiter's importance to that team was vastly under-appreciated, most of all by Payne and Rongen.
This was an amazing moment. Basically, Kevin (didn't realize how FAST he was) quickly ran down and won a strong tackle against their defender in the middle of the pitch, the ball bounced over slightly to the right to Mac, Kevin quickly got up and kept his run with Mac. It was basically a 2 on 1 and Mac easily could have scored but he passed it to Kevin, who neatly placed it into the net. The crowd erupted... everyone knew how significant that was for Kevin who, as you noted does not get playing time, and the unselfishness of Mac.
UC Davis 1-1 UCSB Scoreless at halftime, then the cowbell mom went out to her car to get the official noisemakers. The Gaucho fans around us did not look pleased. UCD scored first, with less the 20:00 remaining. The UCSB keeper came out to grab a pass into the box like he had been all night, but couldn't keep it in his hands, and went down on the ground to boot. MacNamara controlled the loose ball on the right and passed left to Sheldon in front of the open net, who scored his 5th goal of the season. With less than 10 minutes remaining, UCSB's Boyoko ran the ball down their right side, then turned in toward center, compressing the Davis defense on that side as they responded to the ball. A pass to Garcia-Lopez running into the right-side space allowed a crossing pass to a perfectly-placed header from Miller 6 yards out running toward the far post.