Medaille, by virtue of basically not playing anybody and thus not losing, has just cracked the D3kicks Top 25 for the first time ever this week, clocking in at #21. Reportedly Mangano celebrated by scoring a hat trick against his local U13 girls team, giving him 15,831 goals for the month. Meanwhile, a bunch of teams they couldn't stay on the field with, like Rochester, Carnegie Mellon, Baldwin Wallace, etc. took losses and fell out of the rankings.
Meanwhile, in actually INTERESTING DIII news, two-time defending National Champion Messiah actually lost in their conference tourney to Elizabethtown. It's Messiah's first loss since the 2004 Commonwealth Conference Championship game, which they lost to: Elizabethtown. Since then, Messiah has won 46 consective games. Elizabethtown Coach Skip Roderick, a legend in his own time, chalked up his 400th career win. You want to see a couple DIII forwards who really ARE all that, Messiah Juniors Patrick Lenehan and Kai Kasiguran could start for a whole bunch of DI programs, and they play for a team which traditionally plays a very challenging schedule instead of scheduling marshmallows. Wells College need not apply. For the record, Elizabethtown and Messiah are how it's done.
We'll never get to find out if the NCAA tournament would have given Medaille an at-large bid as they won the AMCC championship on Saturday, thus earning the automatic qualifier. Here's the match report from Medaille's web site: Men's Soccer Punches Ticket to NCAA Tournament (Buffalo, NY) - "The dream season continues for the Medaille College men's soccer team as they won their 18th straight game, blanking Penn State-Altoona (1-0) in the AMCC Championship game. The win adds to the Mavs record setting victory total in 2006 as they pick up their 20th win and run their record to (20-1-0) overall. The Mavs receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament with the victory, it will be their second straight trip to the national tournament. It was another epic battle between the AMCC's top two teams as they registered the same score in their regular season meeting. The Mavs would get on the board at the at the halway point of the first half on a goal by sophomore, Jared Reisdorf (Holland, NY/Holland), off an assist by the nation's leading scorer Ryan Mangano (Silver Creek, NY/Silver Creek), who now has (90) points in 2006. The goal was set up by a great individual effort from senior, Cory Cwiklinski (Lancaster, NY/Lancaster), who beat an Altoona player to the end line and played a perfect ball to Mangano at the near post, Mangano then pushed the ball across the goal mouth to a wide open Reisdorf who put it in from two yards out. With the assist Mangano became a member of the prestigious 40/40 club, a feat which Cwiklinski accomplished earlier in the year.That goal would put the pressure on Altoona and it would give the momentum to the Mavs who out shot Altoona (9-0) in the first half of play. For the 15th time this season Medaille would hold their opponent scoreless and it was senior, keeper, Craig Yanni (Hornell, NY/Hornell), who would post his 14th blanking of the year as he stopped the only shot that he faced. The NCAA selections will be coming up on Sunday evening (11/5) as Medaille will learn their opponent on Monday (11/6). The first round of the NCAA Tournament will be on Wednesday (11/8) at a site that is yet to be determined. In 2005 the Mavs fell to St. Lawrence University in the first round of the NCAA tournament."
Five Buffalo Players Honored by MAC "The Buffalo Bulls had two All-MAC first-team selections and three All-MAC second-team honorees. Senior forward Andrae Clarke and senior goalkeeper Daniel Bell were named to the first-team, while UB’s junior midfielder Daniel Stevens, senior midfielder Brian Knapp and sophomore defender Daniel Gwyther were honored on the second-team." http://mac-sports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=9400&ATCLID=676455