2021 NCAA Tournament

[D3Navy]

Anybody have insight into key players to watch?

Ones who seem to be well known and have been mentioned this season include Giammattei with Amherst, Aroh with Tufts, Travis van Brewer at Tufts, Gomez with OWU, Olsen with North Park, Lukovic for Montclair, and Groothoff for Messiah.  Of those the only one apparently out due to injury is Groothoff.  Twigg at Calvin is another, and Turittin for John Carroll who I guessed was struggling with an injury earlier in the season but now based solely on watching internet video appears at full strength.  Anyway, I don't know who the MVP-type players are for Wash U, Chicago, NYU, Trinity, F&M, Emory, St Olaf, CNU, W&L, Oneonta, Hopkins, etc, etc.

Michael Meese at Trinity is terrific.  A threat to score anytime he's near the ball.  Several multiple goal games and he tied TU's consecutive game scoring streak this season.

[PaulNewman]

Anybody have insight into key players to watch?

Ones who seem to be well known and have been mentioned this season include Giammattei with Amherst, Aroh with Tufts, Travis van Brewer at Tufts, Gomez with OWU, Olsen with North Park, Lukovic for Montclair, and Groothoff for Messiah.  Of those the only one apparently out due to injury is Groothoff.  Twigg at Calvin is another, and Turittin for John Carroll who I guessed was struggling with an injury earlier in the season but now based solely on watching internet video appears at full strength.  Anyway, I don't know who the MVP-type players are for Wash U, Chicago, NYU, Trinity, F&M, Emory, St Olaf, CNU, W&L, Oneonta, Hopkins, etc, etc.

Michael Meese at Trinity is terrific.  A threat to score anytime he's near the ball.  Several multiple goal games and he tied TU's consecutive game scoring streak this season.

And a freshman!!!

How the heck did a kid from Williamsburg, VA end up at Trinity (TX)? 

Another enormous roster.

[Ejay]

Anybody have insight into key players to watch?

Ones who seem to be well known and have been mentioned this season include Giammattei with Amherst, Aroh with Tufts, Travis van Brewer at Tufts, Gomez with OWU, Olsen with North Park, Lukovic for Montclair, and Groothoff for Messiah.  Of those the only one apparently out due to injury is Groothoff.  Twigg at Calvin is another, and Turittin for John Carroll who I guessed was struggling with an injury earlier in the season but now based solely on watching internet video appears at full strength.  Anyway, I don't know who the MVP-type players are for Wash U, Chicago, NYU, Trinity, F&M, Emory, St Olaf, CNU, W&L, Oneonta, Hopkins, etc, etc.

Michael Meese at Trinity is terrific.  A threat to score anytime he's near the ball.  Several multiple goal games and he tied TU's consecutive game scoring streak this season.

Kid has a great background - transfer from William & Mary where he was a starter.

https://tribeathletics.com/sports/mens-soccer/roster/michael-meese/11491

[PaulNewman]

Anybody have insight into key players to watch?

Ones who seem to be well known and have been mentioned this season include Giammattei with Amherst, Aroh with Tufts, Travis van Brewer at Tufts, Gomez with OWU, Olsen with North Park, Lukovic for Montclair, and Groothoff for Messiah.  Of those the only one apparently out due to injury is Groothoff.  Twigg at Calvin is another, and Turittin for John Carroll who I guessed was struggling with an injury earlier in the season but now based solely on watching internet video appears at full strength.  Anyway, I don't know who the MVP-type players are for Wash U, Chicago, NYU, Trinity, F&M, Emory, St Olaf, CNU, W&L, Oneonta, Hopkins, etc, etc.

Michael Meese at Trinity is terrific.  A threat to score anytime he's near the ball.  Several multiple goal games and he tied TU's consecutive game scoring streak this season.

Kid has a great background - transfer from William & Mary where he was a starter.

https://tribeathletics.com/sports/mens-soccer/roster/michael-meese/11491

Wow.  My new favorite player, and I'll be pulling hard for Trinity.

Do you know why the change?  Parents' alma mater, playing, apparently doing well as won some non-soccer award at W&M, etc.  I know Trinity is a great school, but that is quite a change.  Would have thought W&L, Swat, Hopkins, Haverford, Emory, NESCAC-land, etc would have been all over this kid if he was known to be downsizing to D3.

[Hopkins Walk-On]

@Hopkins92, I don't know LaFevre's status. With all the doctors at Hopkins, I imagine they can rustle up a medical team to treat his head injury (concussion?). If he doesn't play, they are in trouble, although he hasn't been as good this year as he has been in previous years.

[PaulNewman]

This kind of stuff like the Trinity player is what I love.  The stories are so worth telling and sharing.  And with enough detail all of them are interesting...regardless of whether it's a player or coach from Williams or Keuka or Hope or Wisconsin Lutheran or Chapman or Montclair.  The stories are right there waiting to be told.  One of the best things on this site were RH's coach interviews for the Final 4.  I've always thought a weekly feature on a coach or player, with a transcript interview and/or accompanied by video would be fantastic.  That's hard to do formally without money and resources, but that's where amateurs here doing their thing and offering their own little habits and features on the site can be valuable or make coming her more enjoyable.  Features on alums by schools would be fantastic and great for recruiting.  I tried to get Kenyon to do more of this to no avail.  Parents could do more of this but often that will be seen as just nakedly self-interested.  This is why I think the coaches and schools that frequently put videos on their sites and add a quote from the coach with a couple of sentences in recaps are really smart and it's such a small, very easy, but important touch. 

[Mr.Right]

Yetishefsky....This has to be my favorite name in D3...besides being a prolific goal scorer every time I read his name I chuckle cause I immediately think hammer and sickle.

[Maine Soccer Fan]

Chase Gwynn at Gordon College, my alma mater. Played at Wheaton (Ill.) for 3 years then transferred to Gordon after his junior year to play there. Of course, no senior year because of COVID. Comes back for a fifth year and thus far has:
19 Goals
5 Assists
...and is playing in the tournament. I'm very happy for him and for how it worked out, when for a while it looked like it hadn't worked out at all.
Of course, I'm also happy for Gordon College...

[d4_Pace]

Now that you've outed yourself as a Gordon alum I can pose a question to you that I've been thinking of lately. It seems like the problem had a bit of a dip that last few years. In 2017 they beat Tufts early in the year and had a great year. They had the one blonde center mid they stole from Messiah who was a multi time all american and people thought they might start getting more players like him on a regular basis and turn into a Messiah-lite. It seems like they never built on that momentum. Do you have any insight? I'm sure i'm missing like 90% of the story.

[Maine Soccer Fan]

Yeah, Caleb Cole was a maestro.

They had a coaching change the year after beating Tufts (2017?) when an alum and former MLS player, Matt Horth, became the new coach. He's been trying to implement a more technical and attacking style of play and has had some success. I attribute their down year in 2019 to a lack of seniors and the leadership they bring. Having said that Horth has won the conference 2 out of the 4 seasons he's been there.
But, yes, they are definitely trying to incorporate a lot of Messiah's methods and approaches.  Of course, as we all know, to play like Messiah requires technical skill, great conditioning, tactically astute players, etc. and if you are weak in one of those areas, you can get beat up pretty badly. Also, I think it's taken Horth a few years to build a recruiting network, particularly as he didn't arrive from another school in the region.

This year they have scored a bunch of goals and have been fun to watch. I don't make any great promises about the tournament as they have a tough opening game in Montclair St.

[Gregory Sager]

Gordon recruits from the same pool of high-school players as does Messiah, Eastern, and Wheaton (IL). If Matt Horth is doing it right, he'll not only bump into the coaches of those other schools when going after the top players from that pool, he'll start winning some of those recruiting battles. Gordon has a lot to offer aside from soccer, especially if you're a New England kid.

[Maine Soccer Fan]

Gordon recruits from the same pool of high-school players as does Messiah, Eastern, and Wheaton (IL). If Matt Horth is doing it right, he'll not only bump into the coaches of those other schools when going after the top players from that pool, he'll start winning some of those recruiting battles. Gordon has a lot to offer aside from soccer, especially if you're a New England kid.

Definitely have a lot to offer NE kids who want to stay there but they actually haven't landed many players from NE on a relative basis. Gordon does leverage its location to attract kids from other regions of the country who might like to study in NE. That really seems to be working. Gordon's student body is fairly geographically diverse when compared to Messiah, Eastern, and Calvin.

Ok. Now full disclosure. I have a son who played at Gordon and a son who's playing at Messiah.

[PaulNewman]

MSF,  I looked at Gordon's roster and even living in MA I had no idea that Gordon had that type of geographical pull.

[Gregory Sager]

Gordon recruits from the same pool of high-school players as does Messiah, Eastern, and Wheaton (IL). If Matt Horth is doing it right, he'll not only bump into the coaches of those other schools when going after the top players from that pool, he'll start winning some of those recruiting battles. Gordon has a lot to offer aside from soccer, especially if you're a New England kid.

Definitely have a lot to offer NE kids who want to stay there but they actually haven't landed many players from NE on a relative basis. Gordon does leverage its location to attract kids from other regions of the country who might like to study in NE. That really seems to be working. Gordon's student body is fairly geographically diverse when compared to Messiah, Eastern, and Calvin.

Calvin's a different animal altogether. Although the feeder system of Christian Reformed high schools in Michigan that traditionally fed Calvin most of its talent in its various sports has waned, Ryan Souders still does recruit most of Calvin's players from the mitten, augmented with a fair amount from Chicagoland suburbs (although the Calvin roster also indicates that he has contacts in greater Charlotte and in Auckland, NZ). Interestingly, for a Wheaton alumnus he doesn't place an emphasis upon recruiting evangelical academies as do Messiah, Gordon, and Eastern as well as his alma mater; most of Souders' players are from public schools or from the traditional Christian Reformed feeder schools in western Michigan.

He obviously has a read on not only where to draw from in his recruiting, but on what is a good fit for his school.

[Maine Soccer Fan]

When my sons were looking at college's to attend, I was surprised at how large a percentage of the rosters of Calvin, Eastern, and Messiah were from each college's state. For Calvin, it was way over 50%. Messiah's roster this year is 1/3 PA. Eastern I believe is similar.

Gordon isn't like that at all, for better or worse. It bears very little relationship to the HS-age soccer cultures of MA & CT - kind of ships passing in the night.
Calvin is MI. Eastern and Messiah are primarily the Mid-Atlantic.

Given their success, I had expected Messiah's roster to be full of kids from CA, TX, FL, NC, MI, WA, MA, IN, CT, etc. - like Tufts or Amherst. Not to mention some internationals.