NESCAC

[Brother Flounder]

Mr. Right, what have you heard about Tufts and their recruits, and what is your forecast for next season?

[Nutmeg]

Mr. Right, what have you heard about Tufts and their recruits, and what is your forecast for next season?

Tufts will be good again. They lose some of their top starters but retain most of their championship team. They have an excellent midfield and goalie....and will be fine up the middle. Teams will be gunning for them however and they will have to play with intensity...

[lastguyoffthebench]

Mr.Right by far my favorite poster on the forum... my buddy saint of old second. ....but NESCAC is a fickle mistress.

Yes, Tufts should be good but I see them finishing third in league.  Combination of league depth plus hangover.   

[Mr.Right]

Thanks Lastguy. I am gushing and also love your posts as well. Humorous with plenty of D3 knowledge especially knowledge of the NJAC with which we never get many people posting about.

[1970s NESCAC Player]

Great to have Mr. Right back.  These boards are nowhere near as fun without him!

[FourMoreYears]

Partial 2015 NESCAC Men's Soccer schedule posted:

http://www.nescac.com/sports/msoc/2015-16/schedule?confonly=1

I do not believe this is a complete schedule ... it looks like each school has 9 conference games instead of 10.
Is there a chance soccer has adopted football's $#$%^* idea that one shouldn't play all other team's in the conference?

Looks like the schedules have been removed from the NESCAC website.  Either posted in error prematurely, or being finalized to post the final schedules.

[Mr.Right]

They need to be finalized with exact dates and times. Usually June 1st is when they will be posted.

[Corazon]

Only 5 months until the season starts!  Since things are slow, I'll try to get things going with my predictions for the upcoming year.

NESCAC Champs:  Amherst - this is the year the Jeffs put it all together and go to the Final 4.

Player of the Year:  Nico Pascual Leone , Amherst - the classy senior is finally recognized for his skills.

Coach of the year:  Ewan Seabrook, Colby - his vaunted recruiting class gives him ammo to continue the Mules' improbable climb up the NESCAC ladder.

Freshman of the Year:  Archii Hakaapelittaa, Williams - the Finnish sensation takes Williamstown by storm and proves he's no mirage.

Thoughts? What are your predictions?

[nescac1]

Funny, Corazon, re: the Finnish sensation. 

[Corazon]

Funny, Corazon, re: the Finnish sensation.

Ha! Well, it is April 1 (almost). In all seriousness, I thought long and hard about the incoming recruits and given I've only seen 2-3 guys play, I realized I have no clue. I doubt even the coaches have a great grasp given the lack of publicity in D3 and particularly with NESCAC and its policy of no press releases, etc.  We'll just have to watch the kids play for a couple of months, then begin the speculating.

[Brother Flounder]

Only 5 months until the season starts!  Since things are slow, I'll try to get things going with my predictions for the upcoming year.

NESCAC Champs:  Amherst - this is the year the Jeffs put it all together and go to the Final 4.

Player of the Year:  Nico Pascual Leone , Amherst - the classy senior is finally recognized for his skills.

Coach of the year:  Ewan Seabrook, Colby - his vaunted recruiting class gives him ammo to continue the Mules' improbable climb up the NESCAC ladder.

Freshman of the Year:  Archii Hakaapelittaa, Williams - the Finnish sensation takes Williamstown by storm and proves he's no mirage.

Thoughts? What are your predictions?

NESCAC Champs:  Amherst - this is the year the Jeffs put it all together and go to the Final 4.  Maybe the NESCAC but FINAL 4?

Player of the Year:  Nico Pascual Leone , Amherst - the classy senior is finally recognized for his skills. Possible, if he is the leading scorer.  The award frequently goes to the highest scorer.  There are several great all-around players (including playmaker midfielders and defenders who should win the award but don't).

Coach of the year:  Ewan Seabrook, Colby - his vaunted recruiting class gives him ammo to continue the Mules' improbable climb up the NESCAC ladder. Remains to be seen.

Freshman of the Year:  Archii Hakaapelittaa, Williams - the Finnish sensation takes Williamstown by storm and proves he's no mirage.  Now this is a tough one.....

Thoughts? What are your predictions?

I think the battle will be between Amherst and Tufts.  I give Amherst the nod at this point since all will be gunning for the defending National Champions (who lost some key players).  Tufts will  have to battle this dilema and fight threw a championship hangover. They still have excellent players and an exceptional midfield and goaltender.  We just have to wait to see of they can rise to the occasion.  No one expected them to do much in the NCAA tourney last year and they had several doubters, but they basically dominated all of their tourney games (except Messiah) with a historical run. They will have to dig deep as everyone in the NESCAC will have extra motivation to take down the champion.

[Mr.Right]

Rumor of the week..Topic-Colby.....Their new president is from Stanford and WANTS a big emphasis on athletics. With a new AD from Harvard and new Dir. of Admissions, they have committed to spending millions to upgrade their athletic facilities. With everyone on board Colby will be sneaking some kids in that have no business matriculating there. More to come later on this but a prime example is the youngest Aoyama brother wanted to follow his 2 older brothers and go to Amherst. His grades / boards did not meet Amherst standards let alone any Nescac school but Colby got him in.

[All NESCAC]

Rumor of the week..Topic-Colby.....Their new president is from Stanford and WANTS a big emphasis on athletics. With a new AD from Harvard and new Dir. of Admissions, they have committed to spending millions to upgrade their athletic facilities. With everyone on board Colby will be sneaking some kids in that have no business matriculating there. More to come later on this but a prime example is the youngest Aoyama brother wanted to follow his 2 older brothers and go to Amherst. His grades / boards did not meet Amherst standards let alone any Nescac school but Colby got him in.

Interesting rumor....Colby wouldn't be the first NESCAC to relax it's standards for a few years to revamp its athletics, and thus reinvigorate the alumni base.  Second rumor of the week has massive roster changes down at Conn.....they lose 7 seniors to graduation and could be up to 7 other players not returning....they better have a large and skilled group of freshman coming in to plug those roster holes.

[1970s NESCAC Player]

Rumor of the week..Topic-Colby.....Their new president is from Stanford and WANTS a big emphasis on athletics. With a new AD from Harvard and new Dir. of Admissions, they have committed to spending millions to upgrade their athletic facilities. With everyone on board Colby will be sneaking some kids in that have no business matriculating there. More to come later on this but a prime example is the youngest Aoyama brother wanted to follow his 2 older brothers and go to Amherst. His grades / boards did not meet Amherst standards let alone any Nescac school but Colby got him in.

Mr. Right, you are mostly correct regarding Colby.  The president is a Hamilton grad and was most recently E.V.P. at U. Chicago.  Don't think he ever worked at Stanford, but did have an important position at Brown before Chicago.  Colby will probably bring in a large group of freshman (12-15?) including young Aoyama.  [I don't know anything about his admissions credentials; it may be that he just wanted to forge his own path and not follow in his brothers' footsteps.]  Several of the group are USDAP players and/or have other impressive soccer credentials.  Coach Seabrook has covered a lot of territory in the last 12 months and we will see if his efforts pay off.  Of course, this may take a couple of more seasons.

Hopefully, Colby will place greater emphasis on athletics.  The new administration does seem committed.  Facilities will definitely be upgraded.  Applications rose by nearly 50% this year (to almost 8,000), so Colby shouldn't have to sacrifice quality to make the athletics teams a bit more competitive with those schools to whom it would like to compare itself.

[Corazon]

I am certainly intrigued with Colby.

They initially caught my attention with Seabrook's recruitment of some players I thought would go on to stronger soccer programs. Seabrook used to be the Seacoast U18 Academy coach so not surprised he was able to snag some good players but what surprises me is that I've also read about Colby's huge increase in applications - guessing admit rate will be 20% or less this year (down from 26-28% in past years) so I don't know how they synch their emphasis on greater selectivity with the supposedly large and talented soccer recruiting class. My niece was rejected this spring with great credentials, and I honestly thought she would be a lock for admission.

If Colby continues their surge in NESCAC soccer, an already loaded conference will get even tougher. Imagine that.