Mid-Atlantic Region

[PaulNewman]

MAF - Region 4 and 5 get pretty thin after your top 3 or so.

• Stevens is definitely beatable.  I feel they're hanging on by a thread and wouldn't be surprised to see them to get bounced early in either conference or NCAA.
• You know what you're getting from Montclair.  They have the talent and potential to make a Sweet 16 or E8 run, but I'd be hard pressed to pick them beyond that.
• Misericordia/St. Mary's I haven't seen yet, but I have seen Lycoming and Stockton and was just not impressed.
  



• Messiah is definitely cream of the crop in Region 5.
• Hopkins is very good, but like Stevens they're hanging on by a thread.  I think they're better than Stevens and would expect them to advance further.
• F&M doesn't thrill me this year and I can see them getting bounced early too.
• Surprised not to see Etown ranked over Drew after their 2-0 win. They've won 6 in a row and will fight with Catholic for #1 Landmark seed.

Interesting your thoughts on Stevens and Montclair, I mention two weeks ago that Montclair is a deeper team and was basically laugh at!

If you were laughed at it was because you threw out a definitive statement in one line as a hard and fast truth with nothing else....no data, no argument, nothing but just your authority that you knew something nobody else did.  Iirc you made some statements about Kean as well.

[Hopkins92]

PN in feisty, ombudsman mood tonight.

For the record, I'm just not up on the NJAC and I'll stick with that lack of overall lack of knowledge to stay out of the fray.  I do think it's pretty clear Montclair is a perennial power and nothing from their results points to a deviation.

I will say, their one loss is to Alvernia, which we've talked about today. Pesky. But still, in terms of elite teams, not a great loss. Nitpicky, for sure, but that's the point of the season we are now occupying.
         

[PaulNewman]

PN in feisty, ombudsman mood tonight.

For the record, I'm on record as just not being up on the NJAC and I'll stick with that lack of overall lack of knowledge to stay out of the fray.  I do think it's pretty clear Montclair is a perennial power and nothing from their results points to a deviation.

I will say, their one loss is to Alvernia, which we've talked about today. Pesky. But still, in terms of elite teams, not a great loss. Nitpicky, for sure, but that's the point of the season we are now occupying.
       

LOL.  Had a rough day.  My apologies.  But these comparisons and complaints because someone is ranked #9 and another team is #10 drive me crazy (as do the sentences that aren't sentences that seem to be missing six words out of the eleven total and whatever point the poster is trying to make is indecipherable).  Like I had Bowdoin at #8 I think but I'm not going to cry foul if Amherst is #9 and Bowdoin #10.  Another and I think better method to see if pollsters got it way wrong is to look at the points comparisons.   Hopkins (168), Stevens (167), Calvin (163) all within 5 points and whatever order one wants to puts those makes sense to me.  Then very close behind NPU (152) and Midd (145), then a bigger drop to Amherst (126) and the next cluster of Bowdoin (115), Montclair (115) and W&L (113), and a bigger drop again to GAC (92), and so on.

I have voted Montclair around #10 for several weeks.  The program's success speaks for itself.  Someone can love Montclair AND Stevens.

[paclassic89]

Looking ahead to the first Regional Rankings, which will now be 7 teams for every region with the exception of Region 2 at 6 teams.  I've recorded every active status D3 vs D3 match and calculated RPI ratings for each team per the D1 rating formula.  Credit to Chris Thomas (Amherst alum)https://sites.google.com/site/rpifordivisioniwomenssoccer/Home who was kind enough to provide me with assistance.  These are the rankings by RPI

Region IV
Team/RPI

1. Stevens .6587
2. Montclair .6253
3. NYU .6115
4. Misericordia .5882
5. Lycoming .5869
6. Rowan .5738
7. Stockton .5569

Possible inclusions
8. RU-Newark .5559
9. Lancaster Bible .5537

Region V
Team/RPI

1. Messiah .6961
2. Hopkins .6493
3. F&M .6459
4. Drew .6359
5. Catholic .6007
6. Etown .5834
7. Gettysburg .5825

Possible inclusions
8. Alvernia .582
9. Swarthmore .5703

The first  release will only be listed in alphabetical order and not ranked.  History tells us that the D3 committee puts more weight on SOS compared to the D1 system so it will be interesting to see which teams make it in and how the committe handles the extra draws this year.

[Hopkins92]

I know I went to Hopkins, but I'm really REALLY bad when it comes to Maths, so... For anyone else that doesn't know (and paclassic, by all means, correct or add or edit) the RPI is an index that:

Takes a percentage of a team's winning percentage, a team's opponents winning percentage, and a team's opponent's opponents winning percentage to calculate a number that helps sort out the overall strength of a team's results.

I don't know how they're currently doing stuff, but I know that in certain sports, they weight wins relative to home vs. away games, I don't think there are other variables? It's a pretty good way to sort stuff, but not as sophisticated/complicated as Massey. Would actually be interesting to see what the deviation is... Not that I can pull that off.

[paclassic89]

That pretty much sums it up!  I'm only doing the unadjusted RPI.  There is an adjustment that the NCAA uses based on bonuses/penalties depending on opponents rank and depending on home/away/neutral.  This adjusted RPI actually has a minimal effect on the final rankings compared to the unadjusted RPI with almost two-thirds of teams experiencing changes of 1 or fewer rank positions and more than 90 percent having changes of 3 or fewer so I decided it wasn't worth the hassle.  Here's a good breakdown if anyone is interested https://sites.google.com/site/rpifordivisioniwomenssoccer/rpi-formula  and here is a good comparison of the RPI systems compared to Massey https://sites.google.com/site/rpifordivisioniwomenssoccer/modified-rpi  (they are very close)

Anyway, the hardest part is grabbing and parsing the results and keeping it up to date (I have 2695 matches recorded through Sunday)

[CF91]

The post a few days ago about perennial doormats popping up and having good seasons got me thinking... what programs have been trending in the wrong direction the last few years?

First one that comes to mind is Haverford. A look at records since the run to the Elite 8 in 2015:

2015: 18-4 (9-0 CC), Centennial Champs & NCAA Elite 8
2016: 14-3-4 (8-1 CC), Centennial Champs & NCAA Round of 32
2017: 10-5-3 (5-3-1 CC), lost in CC first round
2018: 14-4-1 (8-1 CC), Centennial Champs & NCAA First Round
2019: 9-6-3 (5-3-1 CC), lost in CC first round
2020: No season due to COVID
2021: 7-9-1 (4-5 CC), missed Centennial playoffs
2022 so far: 3-6-5 (1-3-2 CC), will likely missed Centennial playoffs

This was a program that, for a few years, looked like it could join Messiah and F&M as powerhouses in the region. Would have liked to see them advance deep into the NCAA tournament more than once, but three Centennial championships in a four-year span is certainly admirable. I remember their previous coach Shane Rineer left after the 2017 season (believe he took an assistant position at Colgate, not sure where he is now). Former Gettysburg assistant Zach Ward took over for Rineer and enjoyed a successful debut campaign with a conference championship and an NCAA tournament berth, but looks like he has really struggled to bring in talent since then. Can't imagine it would be the hardest sell for athletes looking to play in college - beautiful campus, solid academics, and right in Philadelphia's backyard. Anyone have any insight into Haverford/watched any games this year? 

[camosfan]

The post a few days ago about perennial doormats popping up and having good seasons got me thinking... what programs have been trending in the wrong direction the last few years?

First one that comes to mind is Haverford. A look at records since the run to the Elite 8 in 2015:

2015: 18-4 (9-0 CC), Centennial Champs & NCAA Elite 8
2016: 14-3-4 (8-1 CC), Centennial Champs & NCAA Round of 32
2017: 10-5-3 (5-3-1 CC), lost in CC first round
2018: 14-4-1 (8-1 CC), Centennial Champs & NCAA First Round
2019: 9-6-3 (5-3-1 CC), lost in CC first round
2020: No season due to COVID
2021: 7-9-1 (4-5 CC), missed Centennial playoffs
2022 so far: 3-6-5 (1-3-2 CC), will likely missed Centennial playoffs

This was a program that, for a few years, looked like it could join Messiah and F&M as powerhouses in the region. Would have liked to see them advance deep into the NCAA tournament more than once, but three Centennial championships in a four-year span is certainly admirable. I remember their previous coach Shane Rineer left after the 2017 season (believe he took an assistant position at Colgate, not sure where he is now). Former Gettysburg assistant Zach Ward took over for Rineer and enjoyed a successful debut campaign with a conference championship and an NCAA tournament berth, but looks like he has really struggled to bring in talent since then. Can't imagine it would be the hardest sell for athletes looking to play in college - beautiful campus, solid academics, and right in Philadelphia's backyard. Anyone have any insight into Haverford/watched any games this year?

Rineer spent a year or so at Colgate, tried to recruit my son to Colgate,left in the process for Drexel where my other son was playing.He left when the Drexel head coach was fired and maybe is now a director at Penn Fusion or some other club in Philly area.

[SierraFD3soccer]

The post a few days ago about perennial doormats popping up and having good seasons got me thinking... what programs have been trending in the wrong direction the last few years?

First one that comes to mind is Haverford. A look at records since the run to the Elite 8 in 2015:

2015: 18-4 (9-0 CC), Centennial Champs & NCAA Elite 8
2016: 14-3-4 (8-1 CC), Centennial Champs & NCAA Round of 32
2017: 10-5-3 (5-3-1 CC), lost in CC first round
2018: 14-4-1 (8-1 CC), Centennial Champs & NCAA First Round
2019: 9-6-3 (5-3-1 CC), lost in CC first round
2020: No season due to COVID
2021: 7-9-1 (4-5 CC), missed Centennial playoffs
2022 so far: 3-6-5 (1-3-2 CC), will likely missed Centennial playoffs

This was a program that, for a few years, looked like it could join Messiah and F&M as powerhouses in the region. Would have liked to see them advance deep into the NCAA tournament more than once, but three Centennial championships in a four-year span is certainly admirable. I remember their previous coach Shane Rineer left after the 2017 season (believe he took an assistant position at Colgate, not sure where he is now). Former Gettysburg assistant Zach Ward took over for Rineer and enjoyed a successful debut campaign with a conference championship and an NCAA tournament berth, but looks like he has really struggled to bring in talent since then. Can't imagine it would be the hardest sell for athletes looking to play in college - beautiful campus, solid academics, and right in Philadelphia's backyard. Anyone have any insight into Haverford/watched any games this year?

Might because of the Coach leaving. Our son did a visit and liked the previous coach well enough, but absolutely was astonished with the incredibly horrendous grass field. Not saying that everybody needs to play on artificial turf but it's really bad. He played on it last year and it was the same.  Muhlenburg has a field just as bad. However, McDaniel is amazing. So it is possible. Keep that in mind if you ever watch a Haverford home game. Can't really judge a team playing there.

[Hopkins92]

USC Region V rankings, as of 10/18

1   Messiah University   1   13-0-1
2   Johns Hopkins         2   11-0-3
3   Franklin & Marshall   3   9-1-3
4   Catholic University   5   8-2-4
5   Gettysburg College   4   7-3-3
6   Alvernia University   8   9-2-4
7   McDaniel College   7   8-2-2
8   Elizabethtown College   NR   8-4-2

[Hopkins92]

Region IV as of 10/18

1   Stevens Institute Of Tech.   1   12-0-2
2   Montclair State University   2   11-1-3
3   Misericordia University   4   9-1-4
4   St. Mary's College              3   9-2-4
5   Lancaster Bible College   8   9-3-3
6   Rutgers University-Newark   5   5-5-4
7   Lycoming College           6   7-3-4
8   New Jersey City University   NR   8-2-1

[Hopkins92]

Centennial game alert: Fords @ Dips tonight at 7

Not a barn-burner, but important in a mid-week slate full of games.

The rest of the conference squares off tomorrow. At this point, hard to really pluck a "game of note," but I'll be watching to see if the Bullets can solve the upstart McDaniel squad who pop up in the USC regional rankings. Hop faces a Red Devil team who just got thumped 5-1 by the Muhles. Speaking of, they play the Bears who remain winless in the CC.

Swat plays Wash in a game that still has major import for the Shoremen's aspirations for a CC playoff berth.

Drama drama drama!

[MessageBoardMessi]

Don't look past Randolph at W&L.....Wildcats have the ability to hold up W&L and have some success against the generals style of play

[Hopkins92]

To be clear, I just walked through my home turf (centennial) and didn't do a regional scan for the mid-week games. I'm sure there are a ton of great contests as we round the corner towards home in conference play across the board. (doubt anyone is ooc at this point in the year, other than Coast-2-Coast squads.)

[4samuy]

Hopkins,

The UAA is not in conference this weekend, so four teams have out of conference matchups on Saturday.

Alvernia at Rochester
Roanoke at Emory
Wilkes at New York univ.
St Joseph's, Maine at Brandeis