Funny that Centre tied the Knights (Bellarime University D2) on August 24th, 1-1… and while the match is listed on the Bellarmine WSOC website, the match result is omitted from the Centre WSOC website...Massey picked it up in their rankings tho...
Wesleyan's low SOS is ultimately would doomed them in the end. There out of conference scheduling was too blame as their numbers were .30 points lower in SOS than most of the at large selections.
Most intriguing first round match-up? Williams / Gettysburg? Randolph-Macon / Haverford? Centre / Scranton? Suny Geneseo / Mary Washington?
Williams 1 Gettysburg 2 in OT Randolph-Macon 1 Haverford 1 Randolph-Macon advances on PKs Centre 3 Scranton 1 Suny Geneseo 2 Mary Washington 1
Can I ask where you are getting the Bennett Rank data from? I checked Herosports and also googled Bennett Rank and was led to this page: https://herosports.com/colleges/sports/d3-womens-soccer The rankings on the left-hand side of that page appear to be from last year. Also, when selecting any of those teams, I was given results from last year. Am I missing something or looking at the wrong data? All divisions, for the men and women, do not appear to have been updated. Pointyball info, at least the FBS teams, appears to be current at Herosports. I haven't looked at any other sports like basketball, etc.
The link that was posted took me to last season also...The link below goes to Hero Sports rankings for WSOC and was updated on November 13, 2019. https://herosports.com/rankings/college-d3-womens-soccer
I had the same problem earlier this year when trying to access the Herosports rankings using my Bookmark. At the time, I think I went to the main Herosports page and clicked back through to D3 Woso for 2019. Then I updated my Bookmark. @SoccerSwattie 's link works, Thanks! I have found Herosports does not update D3 Woso in as timely a fashion as Massey does, so often I don't even look at Herosports.
A few notes on the Matchups. Wheaton hosts the only Friday games: Wheaton vs.Webster and CWRU vs. Wooster. Cal Lutheran is hosting: a rare Far West first and second round. I'll be at William Smith vs Utica and Geneseo vs. Mary Washington; forecast partly sunny high 26 degrees, no precip. Matchups that look interesting to me: Randolph- Macon vs. Haverford (have never seen either team) Pacific Lutheran at Trinity (TX) (geography) Emory vs. Claremont Mudd Scripps at Cal Lutheran (geography) Centre vs. Scranton (I'd like to see Centre play) Johns Hopkins vs. Penn State Berks (have not seen JHU this year and PSU Berks is always high scoring). 14,916
There a few long trips this year. I thought at the D3 level they tried to not make the travel so taxing on the girls. GA to CA , CA to TX and Scranton to Ada is a 8 hr bus trip so sure those girls will be flying. It would be nice to see some of those teams win a game after a long trip like that. PSU Berks is in my back yard and have seen them play this yr. They are not the same team that they have been in the past yrs. This yr they beat the teams they were suppose to but lost to everyone else. Their 2 best results were a 1-0 win in OT over Scranton and a 0-1 loss to Dickinson. They do play a tough OOC schedule. They played JH already and lost 4-2. I am not sure the game was that close because at one point it was 4-1.
Off Topic – Jené Baclawski, new head coach of the Saint Kitts and Nevis women’s national soccer team, comes out of D3. She assisted at Emory during 2006-2008 and was head coach at D3 Southwestern University in the SCAC from 2008-2014. She is a USSF Coaching Instructor. Jen Cooper has an awesome conversation with Baclawski on the Mixxed Zone soccer podcast. Saint Kitts and Nevis won the Caribbean pre-qualifying tournament, putting them into the CONCACAF Olympic Qualifiers in the group with Canada, Mexico, and Jamaica. Start at about 36:20 in the podcast: https://www.bgn.fm/the-mixxed-zone/ or wherever you get your podcasts. 15,301
Interesting results for Round 1. 1. # 10 Centre ousted in the first round despite what appeared to be a dominant conference run...and by an unranked Scranton team... 2. All 4 teams from the NESCAC advanced... 3. 3/5 teams from Centennial and UAA advanced... 4. Emory had it's best season in a while yet was ousted by at-large selection Claremont McKenna who finished 5th in their western conference and did not practice for 9 days bc they did not think they would get in... 5. #21 Case Western Reserve #14 Genseco and # 15 Arcadia "upset" by unranked opponents...
Centre is an interesting topic...using Massey #s...they were 20-0-2 going in and had a rank of 115 on their SoS. They were ranked a 2 in offense but a 43!! on defense. Scranton was 10-5-4 going in. Offense at 49 and defense at 39. But...their SoS was 30 and they had squared off in close losses to the likes of Haverford, Stevens Tech, Misericordia and NYU...all solid sides. Centre had only one match with a team ranked higher than 50, Emory. The big game prep must have been the difference.
Yesterday, I saw William Smith 3 – Utica 0 and Mary Washington 3 - Geneseo 0. It was 28 degrees when I got out of my car at 10:45 am and it was 28 degrees when I got back in at about 3: 30 pm. The sun was out and there was not much of a breeze. The grass field got a little slick toward the end of the first game, but I did not see much slipping or sliding during the second game. WS outclassed Utica; but I did not realize by how much until I saw the 25-1 SOG stat. The game was played in half the field and WS did not allow Utica’s top striker Mikayla Blumenstock (Sr, Poland, NY) to see the ball. WS off-the-bench player Sarah Gray (So, Littleton, CO) scored 2 of the 3 WS goals. I think Geneseo is a pretty good side and I did not know anything about Mary Washington. I felt that Mary Washington ran circles around Geneseo. The shots and corners stats were not as lopsided as in the first game, but I was impressed that MW looked like they knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing and were skillful enough to execute it. MW forward Mikaela O’Fallon (Fy, Harrisonburg, VA) and left fullback Corinne Carson (Sr, Falls Church, VA) were on my side of the field first half; both were outstanding. William Smith’s outside right forward Sheila McQuillen (Jr, Natick, MA) is going to have her hands full working against Carson today. Nearly all the players wore gloves yesterday, but I did not see a lot of tights. MW wore long sleeve uniforms, while Geneseo wore short sleeves over UnderArmour shirts. That, and the fact that MW went inside during half time and Geneseo stayed outside during halftime indicates to me that the MW coaching staff prepares for their players to be successful. I like that. Today is supposed to be 38 and sunny, but the 10 mph winds are going to make it feel a lot colder.
I agree on Centre's lack of a schedule making it difficult when they get to the playoffs. I think there is a general lack of respect of the SCIAC teams...3 teams got in the tourney and Chapman who did not is MIT's one loss on the year. The geography makes it hard for the west but there are some quality teams. CWRU had the better of the game but had a PK in regulation blocked and didnt finish their chances...
@CoachJon the west and SoCal in particular placed two in the sweet 16 which seems like a new development to me...Claremont defeated Emory and Cal Lutheran to get this far...I think this might be the last season for Pomona's coach who I think is being promoted to be the school's AD after this season so maybe a little extra motivation on her part to cement and extend her legacy by advancing past UofChicago in the sweet 16...For perspective, Pomona and Claremont campuses are literally right across the street from each other...lots of talent in a concentrated area for sure...
So Pomona and Claremont get to share a plane to St Louis for the Sweet 16. How these kids can function in school this time of year is a mystery. WS 2 – Mary Washington 0. It was 38 with a small breeze; not the biting cold of Saturday. The field was quite a bit softer and there was more slipping by players. The player of the game was Mary Washington’s starting goalkeeper #88 Allison Nork (So., Harrisburg, PA) who made 11 saves, nearly all of them of maximum degree of difficulty. She played only 78 minutes because she was taken out with about 12 minutes left in the first half after a collision – we assume concussion protocol was executed. She returned to start the second half. I was wrong about WS’s Sheila McQuillen and MW’s Corinne Carson – it was Carson who couldn’t keep up with McQuillen, who had 3 SOG and scored #2 for WS in the 51st minute. WS scored in the 17th minute and was able to play more openly after that. Per the Heron write-up: Senior defender Emile Sauvayre fired the free kick from on cage from just outside the 18-yard box. Nork punched the shot up into the air, and senior defender Eileen Rath, who was crashing the right goal post, volleyed the loose ball into the back of the net. Me: I wouldn’t say Sauvayre has a cannon for a right foot, but she’s close. The second half was pretty much quintessential WS – it was pretty much played entirely in the opponent’s half of the field. The Hobart soccer team was present and boisterous in support of the Herons on Sunday, after bowing out of the NCAA tournament on Saturday. I’m happy that WS is hosting next weekend, so I can watch live. Games are scheduled for the grass field, but could get played on turf at the football stadium – Rain and snow are predicted for Friday and snow on Saturday. 16,105
Granted the USC national rankings are a week out of date when the brackets are published, but since we are down to the Sweet 16, let’s look back and see how the top 20 have done.... 1 Messiah 16-1-1 1 2 William Smith 14-1-1 2 3 Washington (Mo.) 15-1-1 3 4 TCNJ 14-1-1 4 5 MIT 17-1-2 6 6 Wheaton (Ill.) 16-1-1 7 7 Christopher Newport 15-1-3 8 8 Pomona-Pitzer 15-1-1 9 9 Middlebury 12-1-3 10 10 Centre 19-0-0 11 11 Dickinson 13-1-4 16 12 Johns Hopkins 12-2-4 5 13 Tufts 12-2-2 13 14 SUNY Geneseo 14-2-1 14 15 Arcadia 14-2-3 15 16 Chicago 12-2-2 12 17 Ohio Northern 15-2-2 20 18 Stevens Institute Of Technology 13-3-1 18 19 St. Thomas 14-2-2 19 20 Amherst Only 11 of the top 20 made the cut. Not great! Might be time for the coaches to turn over the rankings to an Algorithm. And if you looked at just the top 16, then just 50% made it. I’m betting Massey did better.
First, it's 12 teams because Dickinson are (is?) still in. And second, half of the remaining 8 teams were eliminated by other teams in the top 20, so only 4 of the top 20 are not in the last 16 because they were eliminated by teams not in the top 20 (MIT, Centre, SUNY Geneseo, and Arcadia). From that, had Centre won, they would have come up against Ohio Northern, and 1 from the group would have been eliminated anyway, same with SUNY Geneseo who would have played William Smith. Then you had the Claremont section and the Trinity section that had no top 20 teams in them, so really there were only 14 spots up for grabs for the top 20. So really, out of the top 20, there are only 2 big disappointments about not being in the final 16, Arcadia and MIT.
I think I can re-construct Massey from before the tournament. I had the data in a table about conference representation that I never posted. 1 Messiah 2 Wheaton 3 JHU 4 WashU 5 Pomona P 6 Centre 7 William Smith 8 Dickinson 9 Randolph Mason 10 MIT 11 C Newport 12 TCNJ 13 Amherst 14 Chicago 15 CWR 16 Swarthmore 17 Stevens 18 Haverford 19 Middlebury 20 Gettysburg
As astutely pointed out by HouseofCards, Dickinson eliminated Amherst and did so in convincing fashion...Dickinson advanced into the Sweet 16...to face none other than Hopkins for round 3 between the teams this season...