CCIW

[Gregory Sager]

Congrats to Peder Olsen, who is just as much the obvious choice for CCIW Offensive Player of the Year as Marquardt is for DPOY. Olsen won his third straight CCIW goals title and CCIW points title today; nobody else in CCIW men's soccer history has ever won more than two titles in either category, let alone in both.

Olsen's 10 goals in CCIW play this season marks the first time that anybody's reached double figures since Wheaton's John Kightlinger scored 13 against CCIW opponents twenty years ago, and Olsen's 24 points in CCIW play is surpassed only by Eric Brown of Wheaton's 28 in 1998 and Kightlinger's 27 in 2001. Also, Olsen's two goals and two assists today marks the fourth occasion in his career in which he's scored six or more points in a game. That's one more school record that he has all to himself, as he passed Jonas Pettersson, who had three games in which he recorded six points or more.

[Gregory Sager]

Elmhurst closes out its regular season -- and the regular season for the CCIW as a whole -- by losing at home to UW-Platteville, 1-0. The 'jays end their season level at 8-8-2.

Thus, the CCIW goes 45-32-4 (.580) in non-con play for the regular season.

[Gregory Sager]

Overtime final at Hedstrand Field:

Wheaton 2
North Park 1

WC: Galvao (10) 28:54, Beamer (1) 95:04
NPU: DeCarro (7) 21:08

Sometimes a great performance by an outstanding goalkeeper can bridge a gap in talent at the field positions, and that's exactly what happened tonight, as Wheaton GK Hasten Biddlecome stood on his head in the last fifteen minutes of regulation to spur Wheaton on to the upset win in the CCIW semifinals. He didn't do it alone; Wheaton came out at the start of both halves and then overtime as well with more urgency and sense of purpose than did the Vikings. Although NPU had the run of play and dominated the scoresheet, WC coach John Gosling obviously game-planned to play over the top -- and, after decades of watching Wheaton play, to me the idea of the Orange and Blue bypassing surface streets to take the skyway, and thus eschewing the build-up "beautiful game" that has always been their signature, is really strange. But it worked -- Wheaton didn't have to deal with getting past NPU's superior midfielder corps, and Biddlecome and his backline associates Justin Hill, Drew Beamer, and Brock Seneff put one picture-perfect long ball after another right on forwards Joey Sopikiotis and Silas Galvao. One targeted to Galvao in the 29th minute set him up perfectly just outside the box, and he put a beautiful shake-and-bake on the NPU defender to give himself enough room to slot a 15-yarder past Alfie Sward to level the game at 1-1 after the Vikings had just manufactured a William DeCarro goal shortly before.

Wheaton made a huge mistake when Michael Groza picked up his second yellow of the game at 63:22, and it looked as though playing a man up would give the Vikings the opening that they needed to break the deadlock. But kudos to Wheaton, which never stopped being aggressive, countering just enough in the first ten minutes of playing a man down to reduce the amount of time NPU got in the forward third, and when WC finally parked the bus in a big way in the final fifteen minutes, putting all eleven in front of the ball, they were able to make it work by having reduced the amount of time that North Park would have left to take target practice. And, despite the packed box, NPU did engineer a plethora of chances; the Vikings got off eleven shots in the waning minutes, five of them on frame, but Biddlecome was up to the challenge of stopping each and every one of them -- and at least four of them had a pretty strong degree of difficulty.

I figured that NPU would finally crack the case in OT, but again the Vikings came out flat and Wheaton came out aggressively. The Vikings made three sloppy, dangerous plays in the back in the first few minutes of the extra session, the last one resulting in a free kick from the side of the box that Beamer headed in at the back post to claim the upset.

Wheaton goes on to play at North Central, which used an 80th-minute goal to get past Illinois Wesleyan, 2-1, in Naperville for the CCIW's automatic bid. Meanwhile, the Vikings are going to have to sweat out the selection show on Monday morning to see if they will still have any soccer left to play this season.

[Gregory Sager]

North Central 1
Wheaton 0

NCC: Enriquez (7) 50:01

Congrats to North Central for winning its first CCIW tournament since 1991 and for qualifying for the first D3 tourney appearance in program history.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park is not only in, but the Vikings will host! That's a nice bonus for me; it means that I get to call more soccer games this season! Much more important is that NPU's fans, including Foster's Finest, will get to watch the games in person on home turf.

NPU will play Carleton, while Wash U plays UW-Superior in the other contest. I feel badly for Wash U, which absolutely deserves to host but appears to be the victim of the alternating rule regarding women and men hosting; I may be wrong, but it appears that the Wash U women are hosting next weekend in the D3 women's soccer tourney.

North Central, meanwhile, will travel to Northfield, MN to play Loras in NCC's first-ever D3 tourney contest, while host St. Olaf takes on Dominican in that pod's other first-round game.

[Gotberg]

Does North Park have any plans to add the Viking broadcasting network to the Boxcast channel on roku? That would make remote viewing even more enjoyable.

[Gregory Sager]

I honestly don't know anything about that. You should send an email to Tyler Woolbright about it.

[Gotberg]

I honestly don't know anything about that. You should send an email to Tyler Woolbright about it.

I thought he may see the note on this board too

[Gregory Sager]

North Park advanced yesterday with an efficient, if not dominating, 4-2 win over Carleton in the first round of the tourney. The Vikings will have to play much better soccer than that to beat Wash U today. Peder Olsen sparked the Vikings to the win with his second hat trick of the season, and the fifth of his career, giving him 18 goals this season. Tobias Lunde sealed the win with his sixth tally of 2021.

North Central dropped a 2-1 decision to Loras up in Northfield, MN to close out their season at 18-2-1. Sam Abreu scored the lone NCC goal, his second. Congratulations to the Cardinals upon a highly successful season that culminated in their first-ever CCIW tourney title and first-ever D3 tourney appearance.

[mr_b]

North Park takes down Wash U 3-1.  The Vikings will play St. Olaf in the next round.

[Gotberg]

North Park takes down Wash U 3-1.  The Vikings will play St. Olaf in the next round.

I think you mean Loras, who beat St. Olaf today.

I would throw out their first meeting as an anomaly.

[ConnAlum]

North Park takes down Wash U 3-1.  The Vikings will play St. Olaf in the next round.

I think you mean Loras, who beat St. Olaf today.

I would throw out their first meeting as an anomaly.

St. Olaf beat Loras today. NCAA site just got the teams mixed up.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park takes down Wash U 3-1.  The Vikings will play St. Olaf in the next round.

I think you mean Loras, who beat St. Olaf today.

I would throw out their first meeting as an anomaly.

St. Olaf beat Loras today. NCAA site just got the teams mixed up.

Don't remind me. Thanks to that site I was miscalling that score on the air all day. #&*^% NCAA!

[Gotberg]

North Park takes down Wash U 3-1.  The Vikings will play St. Olaf in the next round.

I think you mean Loras, who beat St. Olaf today.

I would throw out their first meeting as an anomaly.

St. Olaf beat Loras today. NCAA site just got the teams mixed up.

Thank you, I was relying on ncaa data.

[npbaseball40]

I honestly don't know anything about that. You should send an email to Tyler Woolbright about it.

I thought he may see the note on this board too

Note found! I'm on here probably weekly, at most, so I'm glad I saw this.

Lots of things in the works, including that and/or youtube. Just trying to stick with what's been working for now. Will likely play around with other streaming channels during basketball season. My wife and parents watch the streams, too, and mentioned a platform like that would allow for easier viewing, rather than an HDMI into a laptop or mobile device. Although, 66% of our viewers watch on their phones... Not sure if that's a "have to" thing or a preference.

Thanks for tuning in! Our camera crew and ball people really braved some brutal weather today.