2015 D3 Season: NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

[lastguyoffthebench]

York earns a draw vs CNU.   MSU should be sliding into the #1 slot for South Atlantic region

[lastguyoffthebench]

Even with Kean having played a soft schedule, the Massey Ratings prediction was Kean 46% Camden 41%.


NSCAA south Atlantic movement

MSU
CNU
Kean
Camden
Rowan
Maryville
Newark
Salisbury
Lynchburg
Stockton


Kean moving ahead of Camden wouldn't surprise me, so expect them at #3 or #5.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park handles Millikin down in Decatur, 2-0, as NPU advances to 9-2-0, 1-0-0 and the Big Blue drops to 8-2-0, 0-1-0. In the other conference opener involving one of the CCIW's Big Two, Wheaton loses a double-overtime decision at Elmhurst, 2-1, dropping Wheaton to 6-3-1, 0-1-0. That's quite a surprise, since Elmhurst appears to be really down this season.

[Nutmeg]

North Park handles Millikin down in Decatur, 2-0, as NPU advances to 9-2-0, 1-0-0 and the Big Blue drops to 8-2-0, 0-1-0. In the other conference opener involving one of the CCIW's Big Two, Wheaton loses a double-overtime decision at Elmhurst, 2-1, dropping Wheaton to 6-3-1, 0-1-0. That's quite a surprise, since Elmhurst appears to be really down this season.

Wow, and everyone picked Wheaton as the best team in the country this year... Now, it's possible they may may not make the tournament unless they win out...

[TennesseeJed]

Yep, Nutmeg, maybe I can get the whiskey from Tennessee Jed.  Sounds like a good bet!

As long as you don't mind sharing, I'm your huckleberry...   Aleve won't cut it! 

Amolo honestly couldn't move without getting called for an offensive foul. I've seen some poor, one sided officiating before but honestly never this bad in a college game.  Kenyon deserves credit for dominating regulation play but failing to find the net with high teens number of shots. Defensively, I thought the Lords are holding up well relative to pre and early season concerns. The game today ain't gonna help their rankings but I hope it serves as a call to up their game focus and intensity and press even harder near the box. Not bad today but should have been a regulation time W and a 9-0 record. Lords struggling to score when under pressure. 5-0 against Wittenberg not significant; 4 against CMU was.  0 against DePauw is a loss, even if DePauw hadn't gotten lucky on a bad call and a lucky bounce to get one in in OT.  If the lords want to make a legit NCAA run and play with top 10 teams, the team has to deliver goals, under pressure.  Period.

I think and hope they'll rise to the challenge. They have the ability.

[D3soccerwatcher]

North Park handles Millikin down in Decatur, 2-0, as NPU advances to 9-2-0, 1-0-0 and the Big Blue drops to 8-2-0, 0-1-0. In the other conference opener involving one of the CCIW's Big Two, Wheaton loses a double-overtime decision at Elmhurst, 2-1, dropping Wheaton to 6-3-1, 0-1-0. That's quite a surprise, since Elmhurst appears to be really down this season.

Wow, and everyone picked Wheaton as the best team in the country this year... Now, it's possible they may may not make the tournament unless they win out...

Wheaton certainly came into the season with arguably one of the most talented rosters in the country.  The wildcard was their new head coach, who had a limited track record coming in.  He doesn't seem to have gotten nearly the best out of his team yet.  Let's see how they do down the stretch.  But their margin for error at this point is very slim.

[D3soccerwatcher]

Falcons defeat Hood 3-1, playing very well on both ends. Hood's top scorer (came in with 15 goals, you read that correctly) got only 2 shots (I think), one of which was blocked by the defense. There is some evidence that they are starting to right the ship, starting with the second half vs Etown on Wednesday, which Messiah wholly dominated but failed to score (this is a common scenario for them this fall, going back to the scoreless game vs Gettysburg that they also totally dominated.

I agree with the analysis here that they will need to play their way into the tournament this year, given that they already have 4 blemishes and zero quality wins. I hope the last 3 halves will give them a real head of steam that doesn't run out of fuel the rest of the way. It's an extraordinarily young team for the Falcons, who almost never started 4 or 5 freshman in the past (it might have happened a few times with the first championship class in the late 1990s). We'll see.

The best Falcon on the field most of the time has been outside defender Jocob Bender. A defensive bulwark on the right side, he's also probably the second best attacker. He doesn't usually get to shoot, but more than 70% of his shots are on frame, including a wonderful free kick from far out early in the season. He's so shifty and skilled with the ball and comes way forward, not just on overlapping runs but also during buildups in the center of the field. In the second half vs Etown, I noticed that he was at least once or twice the closest Falcon to Etown's goal. If he keeps playing this well, I would not be surprised to see him get some AA nominations, even though with the Falcons in a down year I doubt he'd actually be named one. I cannot recall seeing a Falcon outside defender ever play as well as he's playing this year.

According to Messiah website, the final score was...
Messiah - 4
Hood - 1

[TennesseeJed]

NCAC,

I thought you wanted them to lose a game or two before the NCAA's....Usually this will help teams re-focus and get their team goals in order.

Didn't want them to lose.  Just didn't want them to be overhyped.  And definitely wanted the Case game win or lose to be ready today.  They've handed the regular season to OWU YET. AGAIN.  And CANNOT lose home games in a tight conference race.

Agree with you nencac--on not wanting a loss or overhyping.  Hoping it's too early to concede defeat on NCAC championship though!!  OWU is looking strong but they've got some tough games ahead too.  Wabash isn't DePauw or Denison, and let's remember that Kenyon beat them as a better team last year too, despite the obvious fall in round 3.  With a shot of jack Daniels already down, (note the nod to TN whiskey over KY bourbon, as much as I like both...  ) I'm feeling optimistic. Pls join me! 

[TennesseeJed]

Surprising that Denison didn't put up a stronger result than 1-0 vs Hiram at home. I couldn't watch game but would have expected stronger showing.   Thought Brandeis looked very good in 1h against cmu. Didn't see 2h but 3-0 1h score was appropriate. Glad cmu stepped it up in 2h but Brandeis looks and plays like a serious NCAA challenger to me.

[Falconer]

Yes, I misreported that score for Messiah's game. It was 4-1, not 3-1. Sorry for the typo. Should have proofread it before sending.

[PaulNewman]

Well, the day after a couple of drinks and a Dave Chappelle concert (guy is a genius), I'm feeling just a smidge better.

First of all, congrats to DePauw.  They've beaten Loras and Kenyon in the first half of the season.  The Tigers are in an excellent position, especially with a major conference road win under their belt.  Whether they should have won is irrelevant.  They hung around and walked away with a W.

Secondly, thank you TennesseeJed for what your wrote about the refereeing.  No one wants hear a die-hard partisan complain about that.  I wasn't there live, but many of the calls (and non-calls) looked bad.  Looked like DePauw decided the strategy is to rough up Amolo as much as early and as much as possible.  Within the first 3 minutes DPU's D1 transfer (maybe it was D1 football?) took out Amolo and seemed unphased about earning an early yellow for his troubles, and a few minutes later another DPU player took Amolo out.  No doubt Tony played up the fouls with a little drama but he could have been seriously injured too.  Those seemed to be the worst, but they held and bumped him and pulled his shirt the whole game.  When Amolo tried to just hold his position to receive a throw-in he got called for a foul.  He must have been called for 10+ fouls himself.  As I suggested last night, Tony was all over the ref and no doubt complaining too much.  And teams are going to keep mugging him until that doesn't work anymore.

I'm not much for silver linings, but Barnes returned to action, albeit as a sub, and I thought looked good.  They need his energy, competitiveness, and bite in the midfield and offensively.  They aren't getting as much as they should out of the midfield in general, and I thought Carmona looked a little too passive, dropping very deep to start the offense just as content to play the ball back to the back line.  The field conditions I'm sure had something to do with that, but the Lords need him to penetrate and make some plays.  I'm sure they don't want to but I wonder about inverting Eudy and Carmona.  One of the juniors really needs to step up in any case, and no clear-cut running partner for Amolo up top has emerged (although another frosh had close to an open net in the 80th minute but chose the wrong post for the shot which would have been enough on the day).

Lastly, the Lords exchanged one pressure for another.  The #1 stuff is gone (and being undefeated) which I thought wore on them last year as we went down the stretch so that sort of is a silver lining.  On the other hand, Kenyon now has a smaller margin for error.  The goal is to earn a NCAA bid and give yourself a chance at a run, and with mostly likely 4 teams vying for 2 or at most 3 bids, Kenyon doesn't have much cushion left.  Amazing how that works, as teams like Kenyon and Tufts now have some pressure on them to win the majority of their remaining showdowns.

[TennesseeJed]

We'll said NENCAC. I should have congratulated DePauw too to be more sportsmanlike. They did walk away with away with a W against an undefeated, ranked team on the road.  Kudos.

As to your diehard partisan point, I may as well out myself as a Kenyon Lords fan here and now too, even though it may not be clear from my measly 8 or 9 posts.  That said, I'm trying to be as ruthlessly honest about their play as I can be.  Unlucky yesterday, perhaps. The solution was to score in regulation play.  Unfortunately they didn't make it happen and DePaul capitalized on their opportunity. The rest is just noise. I hope to see the Lords shake it off quickly and double down their resolve and intensity. Wish they didn't have Wooster next week and that the pressure was going to remain higher going into the Oberlin and Denison games. 

You are right--there's really no margin for error.  Plus, the Case coach (former OWU player and 5yr asst coach to jay Martin) is now the regional NCAA rep and I'm guessing that his favorite team in the ncac is not the Lords.

[PaulNewman]

TJed, can't stop laughing at your last line. And great to have another strong Lords supporter on board.

And I can't imagine the Case coach will be accommodating about re-scheduling (and in fairness, probably shouldn't be).

[PaulNewman]

Congrats to my friends at Brandeis. THIS is a team that is determined and tough, and their confidence (well earned) must be sky high.  They may get the #1 ranking, although I'd vote for Amherst just based on being unblemished.

[Midwest Soccer]

Wasn't Chris Brown the regional representative for the Great Lakes for a number of the last few seasons?

And didn't OWU get in last year very questionably ahead of JCU?

I don't think that "biases" (as you may suggest) will play a role in it. If they did, OWU wouldn't have made the tournament last year.

It is too bad that the Case vs Kenyon game has not been rescheduled yet. I still think it was questionable to just cancel it. I'm curious why they didn't play it on 1 of their many training fields? It was a day game and the stadium field doesn't have lights so that shouldn't have been an issue. I imagine the training fields are in better condition than the game field.

NCAC, did you hear any more on this topic or if a re-scheduling has been discussed?