2023 NCAA Tournament

Started by d4_Pace, November 06, 2023, 02:36:52 PM

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Saint of Old

Shout out to Amherst, real champions who are in it to win it each and every year. Not many programs can say that for the last 2 decades.


It had been wayy too long since a St. team won the whole Shabang   :)

Verry happy for these boys, from that video they seem like a great bunch.
That welcome  back from the home fans has to be the most enjoyable part of winning a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.
Whoever said instant Hall of Fame is absolutely correct.

These men can begin planning for an induction in about 10 years.
Rings on the fingers will symbolize a connection with their teammates for a lifetime.

Future St. Olaf players will look at this team and understand that WHATEVER MAN HAS DONE MAN CAN DO. That added confidence playing with a star on your chest can do wonders for a player.
That is what you have done for your school.

Something tells me that in 25 years from now, this accomplishment will be even sweeter and more satisfying than it is even at present.

Champions live forever.

Well done young men.


Kuiper

Here is a write-up from the St. Olaf perspective in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune

https://www.startribune.com/st-olaf-oles-ncaa-division-iii-mens-soccer-championship-amherst-casey-mccloskey-hakeem-morgan/600324137/

A humble (and accurate) quote from Coach Oliver:

Quote"They had a misplaced pass in the midfield, and Shea was able to pick it up and skip past somebody, and slip Casey in, and Casey had some nerves of steel to slot in the bottom corner," Oles coach Justin Oliver said. "How it happened for us is kind of fortunate, but I mean, to get this far and win it all, you kind of need a little bit of good luck sometimes."

Here is a write-up from the Amherst perspective in the Daily Hampshire Gazette

https://www.gazettenet.com/Amherst-College-men-s-soccer-NCAA-Division-3-national-championship-St-Olaf-53240208

A quote from Coach Serpone emphasizing the positive:

Quote"I am just so proud of these guys and this team and this community and all the support that we constantly get," Amherst head coach Justin Serpone said through Amherst Athletics. "We're disappointed, but I think we have pretty good perspective about what Amherst soccer means, the fact that our friendships will last forever."

(The article also identified the Amherst players who were named to the All Tournament Team:  "Amherst senior midfielder Wyatt McCarthy, junior forward Fynn Hayton-Ruffner, junior defender Simon Kalinauskas and junior midfielder Niall Murphy were named to the All-Tournament Team.")


mngopher

Quote from: PaulNewman on December 04, 2023, 10:58:50 PM
mngopher, give us some color on how you, other alums, and St Olaf folks overall are feeling about what the Oles did.  Will this mean something special for the school or not so much?

And...congratulations!  Great run.  I think three games versus Chicago over the past two seasons and at least three to four intense nailbiters with GAC served St Olaf well...and an otherwise very solid schedule too.

I believe it is our first national championship in any team sport, so a very big deal for the school. It's already being promoted quite a bit on the school web site. My social media feed was lit up with quite a few folks celebrating it. I really just give a ton of credit to Travis Wall. The tone around the program really changed over the last few years. We always had competitive teams, and usually finished in the top half of the conference. Wall had a much bigger vision for it. He emailed alums on a fairly regular basis (sometimes for fundraising purposes, which I get is part of the job), but he would also let us in on little nuggets. For example, he let us know in February that the opening opponent for this past season was going to be U of Chicago at home. I appreciated getting that inside info, and it definitely made me more willing to donate when he asked. Even when he left he sent us all an email basically saying he couldn't pass up the opportunity for he and his fiancée to move much closer to their families.

It's a big one in my mind because it seems like a lot of D3 soccer is concentrated closer to the East Coast. While I get that a lot of the folks on this boards are either alums or fans of teams out East I do hope that this serves as a reminder that some pretty good soccer is played in the upper Midwest. (I actually prefer to think of Minnesota as the North, and not the Midwest but that's a discussion for another day.)

I like it that Coach Oliver referred to some good luck along the way, because 1) it is accurate, and 2) it is the reality of a 64 team single elimination tournament that can be easily forgotten. No team has ever won a national championship without some good fortune along the way. That's not to take away from the accomplishments of any national championship team, past or present, but is one of the reasons that it is so important to cherish and celebrate the accomplishment when your team is the last one standing. And really I'm just so happy for those seniors. No better way to go out for McCloskey, Morgan, Gaulmin, and the whole group.

camosfan

Congratulations to all involved, apart from having a good team one has to be lucky down the stretch, all it takes to ruin a season is one bad call.

Kuiper

Here's a segment on the local news about St. Olaf that includes great brief interviews with McCloskey and Shea Bechtel ("That trophy is going to be hanging up there for ... forever and that's an incredible feeling").  Plus a longer video with post-game interviews of those two and Oliver.

https://kstp.com/minnesota-sports/st-olaf-mens-soccer-team-reflects-on-winning-national-championship/

PaulNewman

College Cup semis on ESPNU....Enmorekitten's prior squad, WVU, trailing Clemson 1-0 at the half.  Second semi to follow.

Ryan Coleman

Quote from: Freddyfud on December 04, 2023, 04:23:49 PM
Congratulations to d4_Pace and paclassic89 for tying for 14th place in the d3challenge.com bracket challenge.

https://d3photo.com/

I hope we can get more users in it next year -- it's been a few years since we hosted a soccer challenge (or any challenge) so the smaller numbers this year weren't discouraging but actually made me excited to keep the project going forward.

I'll see you all in November, 2024!
--
Ryan Coleman
Publisher, d3photography.com

Photo store | X | Mastodon | Patreon

Ron Boerger

Quote from: Ryan Coleman on December 17, 2023, 09:36:17 PM
Quote from: Freddyfud on December 04, 2023, 04:23:49 PM
Congratulations to d4_Pace and paclassic89 for tying for 14th place in the d3challenge.com bracket challenge.

https://d3photo.com/

I hope we can get more users in it next year -- it's been a few years since we hosted a soccer challenge (or any challenge) so the smaller numbers this year weren't discouraging but actually made me excited to keep the project going forward.

I'll see you all in November, 2024!

Probably need to figure out some way to expose it to a wider audience.  The number of people hitting the boards is pretty tiny these days.