CCIW

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, did you say on the Wednesday broadcast that a couple of regulars will miss tonight's game for NPU?

Erik Lundeen was out with a concussion. Erlend Kemkers is down with a lower body injury. No idea when either one will be back. Both would've been very useful this evening. Kemkers would've started, and Lundeen would've either started or come in early off of the bench. They're only sophomores, but they played a lot of minutes in important matches last season.

As an NPU fan, I actually feel pretty good even with the loss.  Only 3rd game of the year with a lot of first year players.  Several correctable mistakes and I think they'll learn from this and benefit through the rest of the season.

That's my read as well. In terms of the run of play and the stat sheet, North Park -- which started three freshmen and used five more off of the bench -- more than held its own against an extremely experienced and talented opponent. The match came down to mistakes: North Park made a few, and Chicago jumped on them, as good sides do. The Vikings will eventually be very good, but they have to work through the growing pains. They need to improve reads and communication, and they need to rein in the sort of what-were-you-thinking mental mistakes at the defensive end that cost them those last two goals late in the second half.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park, after an indifferent 2-1 win at Aurora on Wednesday, ran Dominican off of its own pitch this afternoon in River Forest to the tune of 2-0. The Stars only put two shots on frame the entire day, both early in the first half. The Vikings outshot the Stars 19-3, and outcornered them 9-0, while totally controlling the run of play. NPU will be back home on Wednesday to take on a 4-1-2 Albion side that intrigues me, given that the Britons locked up Wheaton to a 2-2 draw eleven days ago over in the mitten.

Speaking of Wheaton, the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance had an interesting week. They recorded an impressive 1-0 victory at #18 Luther today, which should erase some of the bad taste from Wheaton mouths incurred in that 4-0 pasting at the hands of Chicago on Wednesday.

I was going to rag on Carthage for letting the league down after falling to St. Norbert, 2-1, last weekend, but the Norbies have acquitted themselves so well thus far this season that it appears that they're much more formidable than anyone ever expects a MWC side to be. Carthage lost to Loras today, 3-2, at Keller Field on a Duhawks goal struck with only six seconds left in the first overtime, and it appears that the Red Men played well despite the loss to a Loras side that is going to be one of the best outfits in this part of the country this season.

Of the other CCIW squads that might make some noise, Illinois Wesleyan is now 5-1 on the season, although the Titans have yet to play anybody even remotely impressive. The up-and-coming program in this league, I think, is North Central. The Cardinals are only 3-2, but they shut out Dominican on Wednesday, and they hung around until the second overtime before succumbing 3-2 to #4 St. Thomas last Saturday.

The mystery side this season is Elmhurst. How does a Dave DiTomasso club start a season 1-6? It's not as though the Bluejays are running a gauntlet of Top 25 opponents, either. This weekend they went downstate and lost to a pair of SLIAC outfits, Greenville (on a header with one second left in the second OT), and a 4-1 drubbing at the hands of Principia today, despite putting more shots on frame and garnering more corners than did the Panthers. It's a head-scratcher.

[Gregory Sager]

Carthage is really struggling all of a sudden. The Red Men lost their third in a row tonight, 1-0 to Hope in Holland, MI. Granted, the three sides that have beaten the Red Men over the past five days have a combined record of 12-3-1 in their non-Carthage matches, but Steve Domin's troops are now 3-4 and are kinda digging themselves a hole -- especially since, in addition to their CCIW slate, they still have upcoming matches against #8 St. Thomas and #2 Chicago.

North Park (5-1) is starting to find its groove, as the Vikings put away Albion easily tonight, 3-1. The Vikings outshot the Britons 20-3, and were one close-in defensive miscue away from playing a perfect match against a side that's really not too shabby. (Just ask Wheaton.) NPU is still missing a number of key players, including two starters and a third projected starter as well as an important bench player, but at least they got Erik Lundeen back tonight from his concussion. He picked up his first point of the season with an assist early in the second half.

Speaking of Wheaton, the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance (5-1-1) picked up a 1-0 victory tonight at Joe Bean Stadium on a goal in the 87th minute. In spite of that, it doesn't look as though the contest was close at all in terms of run of play, as Wheaton outshot the Foresters by a whopping 24 (4) - 5 (0) margin, and logged ten corners to LFC's two. Nice job of hanging around by the Foresters in a match in which they couldn't even put a shot on frame all night.

Millikin (4-3) handed Webster its first loss of the season down in St. Louis tonight after the Gorloks had registered seven straight shutout wins in their first seven matches. That's a nice result for the Big Blue, regardless of the fact that Webster hadn't really played anybody to date.

Chicago opened up the floodgates on Carroll (0-7-1) on the South Side, scoring seven goals in the first 38 minutes and then holding the Pioneers scoreless with their backups in the second half en route to a 7-0 rout, while Augie (2-3) and UW-Platteville were in a scoreless tie at the half in southwestern Wisconsin when it was postponed due to lightning.

[Gotberg]

Carthage is really struggling all of a sudden. The Red Men lost their third in a row tonight, 1-0 to Hope in Holland, MI. Granted, the three sides that have beaten the Red Men over the past five days have a combined record of 12-3-1 in their non-Carthage matches, but Steve Domin's troops are now 3-4 and are kinda digging themselves a hole -- especially since, in addition to their CCIW slate, they still have upcoming matches against #8 St. Thomas and #2 Chicago.

North Park (5-1) is starting to find its groove, as the Vikings put away Albion easily tonight, 3-1. The Vikings outshot the Britons 20-3, and were one close-in defensive miscue away from playing a perfect match against a side that's really not too shabby. (Just ask Wheaton.) NPU is still missing a number of key players, including two starters and a third projected starter as well as an important bench player, but at least they got Erik Lundeen back tonight from his concussion. He picked up his first point of the season with an assist early in the second half.

Speaking of Wheaton, the Sonic Atmospheric Disturbance (5-1-1) picked up a 1-0 victory tonight at Joe Bean Stadium on a goal in the 87th minute. In spite of that, it doesn't look as though the contest was close at all in terms of run of play, as Wheaton outshot the Foresters by a whopping 24 (4) - 5 (0) margin, and logged ten corners to LFC's two. Nice job of hanging around by the Foresters in a match in which they couldn't even put a shot on frame all night.

Millikin (4-3) handed Webster its first loss of the season down in St. Louis tonight after the Gorloks had registered seven straight shutout wins in their first seven matches. That's a nice result for the Big Blue, regardless of the fact that Webster hadn't really played anybody to date.

Chicago opened up the floodgates on Carroll (0-7-1) on the South Side, scoring seven goals in the first 38 minutes and then holding the Pioneers scoreless with their backups in the second half en route to a 7-0 rout, while Augie (2-3) and UW-Platteville were in a scoreless tie at the half in southwestern Wisconsin when it was postponed due to lightning.

Greg, who are the 3 potential starters you're referring to?  I'm sure one is Kemkers.

[Gregory Sager]

He's the projected starter.  The two players currently missing due to injury who actually began the season as starters are Matthias Stulen and Marrion Alvaro.

The upside to Stulen wearing street clothes the past two matches has been that it's given John Born the chance to look at his highly-touted freshman keeper Edin Sabovic from Niles West in live action. Ironically, Sabovic's first start was against the school he almost chose, Dominican (where I'm pretty sure he would've been the immediate starter, given that the starting keeper for the Stars is also a freshman). He's looked good thus far (last night's goal for Albion was off of a defensive miscue that put the Britons attacker at the edge of the crease with the ball, giving Sabovic no chance to defend anything that wasn't hit right at him), making a terrific run off of the line to smother a potential breakaway at the edge of the penalty box against Dominican that had been touched slightly too far by the onrushing Stars attacker. Other than that, though, he hasn't really been tested at all. The few times that either the Stars or the Britons managed to string together multiple passes in the North Park end were invariably broken up by NPU's veteran back line.

[Gotberg]

He's the projected starter.  The two players currently missing due to injury who actually began the season as starters are Matthias Stulen and Marrion Alvaro.

The upside to Stulen wearing street clothes the past two matches has been that it's given John Born the chance to look at his highly-touted freshman keeper Edin Sabovic from Niles West in live action. Ironically, Sabovic's first start was against the school he almost chose, Dominican (where I'm pretty sure he would've been the immediate starter, given that the starting keeper for the Stars is also a freshman). He's looked good thus far (last night's goal for Albion was off of a defensive miscue that put the Britons attacker at the edge of the crease with the ball, giving Sabovic no chance to defend anything that wasn't hit right at him), making a terrific run off of the line to smother a potential breakaway at the edge of the penalty box against Dominican that had been touched slightly too far by the onrushing Stars attacker. Other than that, though, he hasn't really been tested at all. The few times that either the Stars or the Britons managed to string together multiple passes in the North Park end were invariably broken up by NPU's veteran back line.

Thanks, I didn't know Stulen was injured and was curious about the change at the position - that clears it up.

[Gregory Sager]

I think that he's expected back soon. I said hi to him last night, and he looked fine. Whether he'll play in the CCIW opener at Augie on Saturday is something that I don't know.

[gustiefan04]

He's the projected starter.  The two players currently missing due to injury who actually began the season as starters are Matthias Stulen and Marrion Alvaro.

The upside to Stulen wearing street clothes the past two matches has been that it's given John Born the chance to look at his highly-touted freshman keeper Edin Sabovic from Niles West in live action. Ironically, Sabovic's first start was against the school he almost chose, Dominican (where I'm pretty sure he would've been the immediate starter, given that the starting keeper for the Stars is also a freshman). He's looked good thus far (last night's goal for Albion was off of a defensive miscue that put the Britons attacker at the edge of the crease with the ball, giving Sabovic no chance to defend anything that wasn't hit right at him), making a terrific run off of the line to smother a potential breakaway at the edge of the penalty box against Dominican that had been touched slightly too far by the onrushing Stars attacker. Other than that, though, he hasn't really been tested at all. The few times that either the Stars or the Britons managed to string together multiple passes in the North Park end were invariably broken up by NPU's veteran back line.

Not to take away from NPU's new keeper, but Dominican's Keeper, Daniel Dominguez is a legit STUD. He was arguably the best player on the pitch in most of club games I saw him play in this last year.

Looking forward to seeing North Park play in a few weeks. Some impressive results so far.

[Gregory Sager]

The first day of league play is in the books:

North Park (6-1, 1-0) scored three goals in the first twenty minutes and then coasted to an easy 4-0 win over Augustana (2-4, 0-1)  in the Quad Cities. Ricky Pimentel, who as a center back doesn't get into the scoring column much, scored a brace of goals on headers off corners by Peder Olsen. John Born got 24 players into this match.

Millikin (5-3, 1-0) upended North Central (4-3, 0-1) in Naperville, 4-1, a result that shocked me. I tuned in for a few minutes of this one when NCC was up, 1-0, and the Cardinals were in utter possession of the run of play. They outshot the Big Blue, 22-6, including 9-4 on frame; however all four shots that MU managed to put on target in the match found the back of the net.

Carthage (4-4, 1-0) got a goal halfway through the second half to take down Carroll (0-8-1) by a score of 1-0. I watched the last ten minutes or so of this one, which was my first look at the Red Men this season. They're athletic as all get-out, but they just don't connect well on their passes. As inept as the Pioneers appear to be, they had the ball on their feet about as much as Carthage did. Doesn't matter as far as Carroll's concerned though; the Pioneers have still only scored one goal this entire season, which means that they've been shut out eight times.

In other contests, Illinois Wesleyan (6-1) squashed Earlham, 6-0. Given the usual state of Earlham athletics and the performance of the Quakers to date this season, this is not a particularly noteworthy result for IWU.

The mystery regarding Elmhurst's bad start deepens. Today the Bluejays (1-7) lost at Langhorst Field, 4-1, to a Kalamazoo side that came into today's action with a 2-5 record, having been outscored 10-2 by the four previous CCIW opponents that the Hornets had faced this season.

And Wheaton (5-2-1) lost at Wash U in double overtime, 2-1, when a corner kick slipped through the hands of Wheaton GK Drew Cammarano and fell at the feet of two Bears, one of whom drilled home the game-winner.

[Gotberg]

I was reviewing the roster for Dubuque tonight and noticed several German players and 3 student-athletes from Sweeden.  Is Sweeden near Sverige?

http://www.dbq.edu/Athletics/MensAthletics/Soccer/

[Gregory Sager]

I watched the last thirty minutes tonight, and the Vikings did not look sharp. They seemed a bit erratic, failed to properly settle the ball on a couple of occasions, and had a couple of defensive breakdowns as well. Nevertheless, they clearly had the run of play against a less-than-overwhelming Dubuque side and had numerous chances close in. The Spartans had only one, on a really good cross into the box that was headed over the crossbar (by a few feet, not by inches as indicated in the UD gamer). As a young squad, NPU is still prone to inconsistency and to the odd letdown here and there against a mediocre outfit; it happened against Aurora a couple of weeks ago, and it happened out in eastern Iowa tonight. I'm hoping that they shore some things up before another letdown actually bites them in the behind. I mean, sure, they're 7-1, but they're supposed to be 7-1 against this schedule. They've gotta get better in the second half of the regular season, because this is the important half and they'll be challenged more regularly in it.

[Gregory Sager]

Some big surprises thus far this week:

* Elmhurst, awful record and all, carried a 1-0 lead over Chicago ten minutes deep into the second half before the Maroons finally found the equalizer. Four minutes later Chicago put a brace of shots into the back of the net in the space of half a minute and won 3-1, but for awhile there in the second half it was something interesting.

* Albion came back from being down 1-0 in the last thirteen minutes to beat Carthage, 2-1. The Red Men are now 4-5, and it's obvious that even if they have someone hook up cables to them and give them a mid-season jump-start they'll still be in a must-win position as far as postseason play is concerned. I don't think that they'll get in without the CCIW's automatic bid.

* The big surprise, to me, was North Central's 2-1 win over Wheaton tonight in Naperville. After having seen both sides in bits and pieces of various matches this season, I was pretty sure that Wheaton was the better of the two. But tonight's result doesn't appear to have been a fluke, as the Cardinals put seven shots on frame to Wheaton's four. NCC is now 5-3, 1-1, and has bounced back nicely from that shocking loss to Millikin at home the other day, while Wheaton, after playing its first CCIW match, now finds itself at 5-3-1, 0-1.

[Gregory Sager]

Millikin beat NPU 3-0 in one of the most improbable matches I've ever seen in my life. An upset certainly wasn't out of the question, and we've all seen matches in which one team dominates play but the other team wins -- that's part of what makes soccer soccer. But the dominance by North Park was wholly lopsided, as the Vikings kept the ball in the Millikin end all night. The Vikings outshot the Big Blue 28-7 (including 9-4 on frame) and outcornered them 11-0. To top that off, Millikin outfouled NPU 22-11, giving the Vikings more set-piece opportunities tonight than any side could ever want. And yet, on the other side of the ledger, how do you explain a 3-0 result the other way out of all that?

A big part of the answer was Isaac Hopper, the Millikin keeper, who was phenomenal. But the bigger part of the story was that Millikin simply wanted it more. The Big Blue worked harder and were more physical, yet stayed in control of themselves all night and managed to exploit the few opportunities they had. They played a mistake-free match, while North Park's few mistakes ended up in the back of the North Park net.

A bit of self-examination is in order for the Vikings after tonight, because Carthage on Wednesday isn't going to give the Vikings an ounce of respect and is probably champing at the bit to take it right at the Vikings after watching the tape of this match.

Wheaton got dumped again, losing at Illinois Wesleyan 1-0 and falling to 0-2 in CCIW play. When's the last time that North Park and Wheaton lost CCIW matches on the same day? Carthage easily handled Elmhurst at Langhorst, 2-0, and Augustana toppled Carroll on the road, 1-0.

[WUPHF]

I have only watched Wheaton play one game, but I think they have reached enigma territory.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park easily handled Carthage tonight, 3-0. The Red Men (5-6, 2-1) only put two shots on frame all night, the first one an easy trickler in the 68th minute, and then a more tricky header off of a corner in the 88th minute, after the match had long been decided. Nevertheless, even though he barely got any work tonight, it was great to see Matthias Stulen back between the pipes for NPU (8-2, 2-1) after a five-match absence due to a leg injury. The Vikings are still a M*A*S*H unit, what with three other starters continuing to sit out with injuries and a fourth projected starter still yet to see the pitch this season, but getting Stulen back is huge.

The Vikings were bigger and stronger, which kept Carthage from possessing anything in a tight spot and gave the Vikings all of the 50/50 balls, but they were also a lot more organized than the Red Men, which surprised me. The Red Men are quick, but they don't seem to all be on the same page when it comes to putting together a coherent attack.  That's probably why there's so much dump-and-chase by Steve Domin's boys this season, and on a night in which the wind was gusting up to 25 mph you can't rely upon an air game to take the easy way out in terms of opening up an offense. As is characteristic of an NPU/CC match, it got pretty chippy -- 33 fouls were whistled, 17 on the Red Men and 16 on NPU. The Vikings did a nice job of keeping their composure and not blowing their cool over cheap fouls.

Another surprise tonight, as North Central upended Illinois Wesleyan in Bloomington, 2-0. NCC (7-3, 2-1) has certainly rebounded nicely from that loss at home to Millikin last week. As for the Titans (8-2, 1-1), they had a seven-match winning streak snapped. They'll play host to North Park on Saturday night in what should be a pretty good contest.

Augustana (3-6, 1-1) lost at Beloit, 3-1. When you lose a match by two goals to a side whose only previous win in ten tries was against Maranatha Baptist -- in double overtime, no less -- then you've officially entered train-wreck territory.

Carroll and St. Mary's (MN) played to a 1-1 draw in Waukesha. The tie probably felt like a win to the Pioneers, who "upped" their record to 0-9-2 and snapped a three-match losing streak. (I'm still trying to figure out how Carroll tied St. Norbert by that same score, since the Green Knights are 9-0-1 and all alone in first place in the MWC.)