CCIW

[Gregory Sager]

First day's in the books:

North Park 3, Benedictine 0
North Central 3, Baldwin-Wallace 1
UW-Platteville 3, Wheaton 1
Macalester 3, Carthage 0
Carroll 2, Lakeland 1
Trinity (TX) 3, Elmhurst 1
Illinois Wesleyan 1, Washington (MO) 0
Simpson 4, Augustana 0
Aurora 2, Millikin 1

That's not a particularly good day for the league, although Illinois Wesleyan's upset win over the Bears does add a bit of glow to an otherwise mediocre day for the league.

[Gregory Sager]

Saturday's results:

North Central 3, PSU-Behrend 0
Millikin 5, Illinois C. 4
Wheaton 3, Principia 0

... and Sunday's:

Elmhurst 2, Southwestern 2
St. John's 2, Carroll 0
Carleton 3, Augustana 0
Carthage 3, Concordia (WI) 2

The league sits at 8-7-1 after opening weekend. Color me unimpressed.

[Gregory Sager]

North Central defeated Benedictine last evening at Benedetti-Wehrli, 3-1.

Riley Johnson has been NCC's goalkeeper for the entirety of all three Cardinals games to date. Does anybody know what the situation is with Sid Marquardt? Is he hurt?

[Gregory Sager]

Another extensive menu was placed on the table of CCIW soccer fans today:

Dominican 2, Elmhurst 0
Knox 4, Augustana 0
Millikin 7, Blackburn 1
Wheaton 2, Lake Forest 0
Illinois Wesleyan 2, Aurora 0
Carroll 2, Illinois Tech 0
North Park 1, St. Norbert 0

A that's-more-like-it Wednesday effort puts the CCIW at 14-9-1 for the season.

[Gregory Sager]

Thursday:

Carthage 4, Benedictine 1

Friday:

Concordia (WI) 3, Carroll 0
North Central 3, Trine 1

Today:
Elmhurst 1, Hope 0
Millikin 4, DePauw 3
MSOE 2, Wheaton 1
North Park 3, Kalamazoo 2

The Vikings played like crap tonight. After netting goals from Mike Dejworek and Mathias Soerum within ten seconds of each other around the ten-minute mark, the Vikings spent the bulk of the game's remainder getting completely outworked by a Hornets squad that didn't look like it got the memo that they were supposed to roll over for a nationally-ranked team once they fell behind to them. The Vikings compounded their problem with excess chippiness by accumulating six golden ducats over the course of the contest (one of them booked on the NPU bench). They looked very disorganized and undisciplined. Fortunately, they seemed to wake up in the last fifteen minutes and not only possessed better but put good pressure on the Kazoo keeper. He ended up having to take out Soerum's legs on a breakaway opportunity, and Willy Wickman netted the ensuing PK at 77:54, after which NPU got serious and clamped down until the final horn.

But if the Vikings play anything like this when the U of C comes to the North Side on Tuesday evening, they're going to get their butts handed to them.

Wheaton got burned with only two minutes left in the game atop the parking lot up in Brewtown. The Orange and Blue are now 2-2 against a not-terribly-difficult schedule to date.

Millikin's win over a DePauw team that pulled up in the Lindsay Field parking lot sporting a 3-0 record -- which included scoring four goals against a Tigers team that'd turned in three clean sheets in their first three games -- is one of the bigger surprises of the season thus far.

[tjcummingsfan]

Millikin scored 3 of their 4 goals in the last 3:30ish.  Just a disaster for DePaul.

[Gregory Sager]

Wow! And the game-winner came with 1.1 seconds remaining!

[Gregory Sager]

Sunday's games:

Carroll 2, St. Norbert 1
Carthage 3, Trine 2
Lake Forest 2, Elmhurst 1
North Central 5, Rose-Hulman 0
Central 2, Augustana 0

Good result for Carroll against a solid opponent up in Packerland. But that's offset league-wise by a not-very-good result for Elmhurst against the heretofore winless Foresters.

North Central squashed the HCAC preseason favorite like a bug at Benedetti-Wehrli. At this moment I'd say that NCC looks like the best bet to win the league, not NPU.

Losing by only two goals is starting to look like as good a day at the office as new Augie coach Chad Flanders can hope for in 2023. His boys still haven't found the back of the net yet this season after four games.

[Gregory Sager]

Tuesday:

Carthage 6, Lake Forest 2
Congratulations to Aidan Crowder, whose four goals for the Firebirds tied a school record.

Augustana 0, Illinois College 0
Augie still hasn't scored this season, but at least the Doggies didn't lose this time. The Blue Boys got off 19 shots (to only four for Augie) but still couldn't find the back of the net in Jacksonville.

Chicago 1, North Park 0
Close but no cigar for NPU against the defending national champs, but a much better performance by the Vikings than they showed in their win at Kalamazoo on Saturday.

Greenville 1, Illinois Wesleyan 0
The Titans came crashing to earth, as that can't be interpreted as anything other than a bad loss for IWU in Blo-No.

[soccerpapa]

Conference season just starting - time for teams to step up.....Hang on for the ride

[Gregory Sager]

Right now the burning question is whether or not Augustana will score a goal this season.

[Gotberg]

Right now the burning question is whether or not Augustana will score a goal this season.

Holy smokes - I hope they get 1, but if they don't - would that be a first?

[soccerpapa]

Full slate of games tonight - things will start taking shape over the next week. 

Anything can happen in conference play but North Central looks like the team to beat but on any given night......

[SimpleCoach]

Right now the burning question is whether or not Augustana will score a goal this season.

Holy smokes - I hope they get 1, but if they don't - would that be a first?

Am being serious.  What has happened to Augustana Athletics?  They used to be dominants in a number of sport in the 80s and think into the 90s. 

[soccerpapa]

I am not sure.  Had a teammate of my son go there and he stopped after one year due to the culture.  That was before recent coaching change.   

Whatever the reason will be a large hole to dig out of to become relevant again.......As a Chicago Bear fan I feel their pain.