Quote from: Kuiper on January 24, 2025, 05:33:36 PM

Quote from: Sir.MixALotz on January 24, 2025, 05:16:14 PMIt appears Cumpstone is leaving Colby after only one year.

Wow!  That's certainly unexpected considering Colby is known as a place where coaches stay.  Before Cumpstone, the school only had two men's soccer head coaches since 1976 (Mark Serdjenian, 1976-2013 and Ewan Seabrook, 2014-2023).

He's been nonstop active in CT Rush for months, a multi-pronged statewide club program, and was just announced as their general manager. That's tough for Colby, unless they had a runer up they loved that they could still get!

Quote from: Kuiper on December 10, 2024, 04:52:05 PM

Quote from: Another Mom on December 10, 2024, 12:14:51 PMMy view about posting while my son was playing:

- I never post about him

- I assume his teammates and/or coach are reading

- I never post info that might help their opponents. (Eg last year in the NCAA tournament my son's knee was lacerated to the bone, and he continued to play, even after ripping out the stitches -- the other teams didn't need to know that!)

I think it's always a good practice to assume someone you care about is reading what you posted on social media and knows you wrote it (if you did so anonymously), but I wondered if players do actually read the boards these days.  I know some longer-time coaches still do, but are active players aware of it?  I know they used to be, but I'm just not sure if they are anymore and you (and other parents of current players) probably have some insight on that.

Yes, the coaches and players are well aware and usually start reading more when things heat up in playoff season or if they are trying to track down a rumor about a recruit.

Quote from: slt1369 on December 10, 2024, 11:33:11 AMI'm a parent of a rising senior in the NEWMAC. I've enjoyed this board quite a bit over the past four years. As others have commented, I'd prefer not to post while my son is still playing. That seems like a bad idea, for a number of reasons. Having said that,because of this board, I recently enjoyed a couple of great weekends in Williamstown and Middlebury. I got the opportunity to see Messiah and Trinity (TX) for the first time. The level of D3 soccer around the country is phenomenal.

For all that post on a regular basis, please continue to do so. The information and opinions are greatly appreciated.

I wish the NEWMAC, GNAC, and the other New England conferences had a presence here! Wish they knew to find this!

Quote from: Futbolguy on December 06, 2024, 06:17:22 PM

Quote from: SKUD on December 06, 2024, 11:44:34 AMPN delay (vs continuation) was curious on that one. I felt the 2nd game crew was solid overall .

Head ref in Midd-Amherst game was weak from the start.  Let the Amherst boys have their way with physical play and Midd followed suit.  #32 kicks Mid goalie in the head when it was clearly possessed by keeper.  An automatic red but somehow he gives a yellow.  Fine, he does not want to make such a big decision with so much on the line.  Then he awards them a very weak pk.  I have watched the reply endless times.  there was no way there was sufficient conclusive evidence to award PK.  Such a shame it had to end that way and not in the run of play.  Honestly, he was very weak all around and should not be handling a semifinal game in national championships.  I dont think he will be handling key matches anytime soon.  at least I hope not.  Other than that it was a hard fought game by both side, just unfortunate it ended the way it did.

Agreed. And they let him officiate today. That ref may have gifted Amherst a national title--had they played from 1-1 it could very well be a different day for the Mammoths. They had to know that back in their hotel after the semi, what an undeniable gift that PK was.

Quote from: eaglesoccerdad on December 05, 2024, 06:16:44 PM

Quote from: stlawus on December 05, 2024, 06:10:20 PMThis game is really horrid quality.

definitely not the beautiful game

That is not the Midd game —it was turned into a wrestling match. Midd v Conn was vastly different.

Rate Final Four combatants from best to last in the following categories...

Answered the few I could, and here's an interesting question:
Without looking up the stats, which of the Final Four teams has the most yellow cards?
And which team has a red card?


Best Academic Institution
Tough one--by selectivity it would be Amherst, Midd, W&L, Conn. But Amherst has such a distinctive academic style --open curriculum and tutorials--that it isn't for everyone.

Best Coach/Coaching Staff
Tie for the good rep of Midd staff and the wow factor of W&L going to FF in first year.

Best GK
That could be almost a four-way tie. None of the teams are disadvantaged in this category, and while the obvious call is Conn's Silvestri, the others just may not have had their moment yet.


Most Attractive Style of Play
Conn & Midd, don't know enough about W&L style now

Most Resilient Team
W&L

Best Past Decade
W&L + Amherst

Best Coaching Tree
Can only be Midd!


Best Town/City Where School Located
Washington & Lee (Lexington), close second Middlebury, VT

Best Home Pitch
Tie between W&L and Midd

Best Mascot/Nickname
Camels

Most Feared Mascot (Generals, Mammoth, Camel, Panther)
Panthers but who knows, Southern Generals could be fearsome!

Quote from: skg2 on November 21, 2024, 10:00:11 PMMy predictions for the Sweet 16 - would love to hear everyone else's as well:

Midd vs CMS: 3-0 Midd
Trinity vs Babson: 2-1 Trinity
Midd vs Trinity: 1-1 (Trinity advances 3-0 on pens)

Buffalo State vs Dickinson: Dickinson 2-1
W&L vs Williams: W&L 3-0
W&L vs Dickinson: W&L 2-1

Amherst vs Wis-Superior: Amherst 3-1
WEC vs Wis-Platteville: WEC 2-0
Amherst vs WEC: Amherst 2-1

UMW vs Denison: UMW 1-0
Conn College vs Kenyon: Conn 2-0
UMW vs Conn: 1-1 (Conn advances 4-1 in pens)

Do we know if Conn's amazing GK is back in action this weekend? He came out during the F&M game, but maybe they were confident being up 3. My prediction will change if he is out.

Yikes--hope all the traveling teams get out ahead of the weather and arrive safely at their host location. Are we expecting weather at the northern host schools--snow or just rain?

Quote from: Another Mom on November 18, 2024, 12:17:53 AMThe fact that it was successful in the Centennial final may have motivated W&L to practice facing those kind of PKs once they found out they were seeded in the same pod.  It's not unstoppable, but there are different tells and strategies.

Of course W&L knew about Hopkins' unique style of taking pks, and of course they practiced.

It was a good game and as someone else said, Hopkins gave respect to the W&L team by playing 5 in their back line for the first half.
[/quote]

I would love to know how they practiced for it, the ones I watched left me guessing which way they would go!

No chance Amherst goes to Wisconsin? Seems like that makes the most cost effective sense if you take seeding out of the picture--wasn't this weekend intended to be the women's hosting turn at Amherst, too?

And if Tufts goes out, does Williams host?

Quote from: MunnyTim on November 12, 2024, 09:40:53 AMNESCAC homer here.  But even I am not all in on the NESCAC (or any conference) getting 8 teams into the field.  As someone who has been involved with other conferences around the country (NCAC, Centennial, ODAC), 72% of one league getting in doesn't feel, in a word, fair.

Leads to the perpetual argument when selecting teams for a post-season tournament - are you trying to gather the BEST teams or the ones who are MOST DESERVING?  Sometimes, those objectives align, other times they don't.  In D1 Football at the moment, one could make the argument that the Georgia Bulldogs are probably one of the best 12 teams in the country (talent wise).  But, with their resume, are the deserving of a bid over some other teams? 

Curious to see how the conference as a whole does across the first weekend.

Agreed, it seems like a lot, hard to say what the best technique for sorting really is! Interestingly, on the women's soccer side, I think only four NESCAC teams are in. There must be lots of other teams routinely stronger and better than women's NESCAC teams for the NPI to spread it out more.

Quote from: PaulNewman on November 10, 2024, 08:46:22 PMThe only silver lining is that at least seven of them (10 if you include the other 3) WON'T win it.

Has Amhate blossomed into NESC-hate?

Quote from: kansas hokie on November 07, 2024, 10:04:10 PMSorry for the confusion. The yellow is for the top 8 seeds as those are the "protected" seeds that can't meet in the bracket before the quarterfinals.

The next green are the ones that should have a right to host, but may not due to conflicts with women's team having priority, not bidding to host, or some other reason. Still, green are the rest of the "1 seeds" in a 4 team pod.

Light blue are the 2 seeds for a pod, dark blue are 3 seeds, and purple are 4 seeds. Now, the NCAA won't stick to those at all, geographic proximity will be most important (less than 500 miles), but it helps me to see where some pods may be balanced out.

Hope this helps, you aren't dense at all, thanks for asking

So great to see it visually like that, thank you!

Quote from: SierraFD3soccer on November 08, 2024, 03:32:11 PM

Quote from: kansas hokie on November 08, 2024, 03:04:50 PMMuhlenberg (32) / Franklin & Marshall (17) - Muhlenberg may need the win to stay in. F&M needs the win to move into a hosting position so implications there too.

Definitely! Though being home has not been great for F&M at least the five times in a row where they lost in 2nd round and lost in pks the last two years.

FYI, I think JHU may not host as it did last year and the women may be in line to host. The women currently are 18th.

Did they host in second weekend? 16/8? They went pretty far, yes?

Sorry for being so dense--what are the color blocks and how does this translate to brackets? Thank you for sharing this!

Quote from: kansas hokie on November 04, 2024, 11:27:31 AMI put together a hypothetical bracket (with no adjustments) using today's NPI, will be easy to update as NPI changes. Let me know how to make it better. Thanks!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FFmaYk8mMaNjCnoyEG0-j1kaN0vF_-3E7uYYmTeNUI4/edit?usp=sharing