2023 D3 Men's Soccer National Perspective

[Kuiper]

Quick question...

What is the attitude on these boards on current players contributing? I've been lurking on this site since my freshman season in 2021, and it's become something I check on a daily basis (both for fun and to stay informed on the national D3 soccer landscape). I've thought about posting a few times, but never really knew when to jump in, and I wasn't ever sure if active players are generally accepted as posters on here. If for whatever reason it's frowned upon or problematic, I'll gladly go back to being a silent reader of the boards, just felt like the start of a new season was a good time to ask. Is there precedent for it? Are some of the common contributors active players and I'm just not aware?

Also, didn't know which board to throw this on or whether to start a new subject (not sure of the proper board etiquette) so I figured the national board was as good a place as any. I know it can get annoying when the boards get too off-topic, so I apologize if I've done just that.

In any case, I am happy to have finally hit the 'post' button after a couple of years of considering it.

Welcome to the board!  Old-timers would know better whether there is any precedent for this (and it's possible some posters are current players and we just don't know it).  There do seem to be some recent alums who pop up from time to time.  I would suggest that the bigger question is whether your coach would approve.  That might depend upon what you post and whether you could do so without revealing your identity.  You probably wouldn't want to reveal any team secrets (including player injury info) or provide any bulletin board material for your opponents just in case your cover is blown.  Beyond that, though I'm sure you have general insights that would be quite useful for parents who are asking about recruiting and you could make welcome contributions on a number of topics that are discussed from time-to-time on these boards, such as your views on rule changes, how players manage the demands of travel and fixture congestion, attitudes toward spring practices and sitting on the bench etc. 

[PaulNewman]

What he said...just don't let it create a problem for you with your team/program.

[PaulNewman]

Wil be very curious to get some detailed color on the OWU 2-1 win over St Olaf.  Guerra scored a nice one around the 84th minute.  St Olaf is good and tough...went down 1-0 inside of 2 minutes which is always brutal...and then played with 10 men for 65 minutes.

Kenyon eeks out a 1-0 win over Hanover which the Panthers easily could have taken by the same score.  The Owls had far more of the ball and won the stats but Hanover had its opportunities.  No matter....desperately needed win for Kenyon.

Random stuff....I missed that Emerson beat Bates a couple of days ago...good win for a team that lost its coach.  Bates loses to Bowdoin tonight 1-0.

Emory gets by Pac Lutheran 2-1 in the PNW.

Babson just leveled with Montclair 1-1 under 10 left.

Calvin nips ONU in what the stats suggest was a very even game.  Calvin just knows how to win.

[PaulNewman]

Oh boy....Montclair scores at 88:44.  2-1.

[Kuiper]

Lots of intra-regional action in Region X tonight with Socal (SCIAC) teams taking on Northwest Conference teams and SCAC teams taking on ASC teams, plus a few inter-regional games as well. 

Short summary:

SCIAC is way UP
SCAC is way UP
NWC is way DOWN
ASC is way DOWN

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (SCIAC) out-classed Willamette (NWC) in Salem for a 3-0 victory.  CMS looked a lot better than against UC Santa Cruz (where they won 2-1), scoring on some nice one-touch combination play through the middle of the Bearcat defense.  Speaking of the middle, Willamette's midfield is a problem. They can't seem to play through the midfield and they can't stop the other team from playing through the midfield.  And starting out the season 0-3 effectively rules them out of an NCAA bid other than through the AQ.  They only have one more non-conference game against Emory and it will be exclusively conference play here on out.  And given the other conference results in non-conference games, those games aren't going to exactly help their strength of schedule.

Emory (UAA) came from behind to beat Pacific Lutheran (NWC) 2-1.  Pac Lu didn't play badly, but they have Claremont-Mudd-Scripps coming up on Sunday and they'll need that to get another quality win.  Right now, they are 1-1-1 and Colorado College might be their only quality win of the season the way the NWC is looking.

Southwestern (SCAC) beat Whitman (NWC) 2-1, scoring the winning goal in the 88th minute.  The game was otherwise fairly even, with both teams scoring within 10 minutes of each other early in the first half and then trading shots the rest of the way.  Southwestern has now beaten both Willamette and Whitman from the NWC.

Whittier (SCIAC) beat George Fox (NWC) 2-0 on two goals in the latter part of the second half.

Redlands (SCIAC) crushed Life Pacific (USCAA) 9-0.  Gabriel Martinez had a hat trick and Phillip Kostenko had a brace for Redlands.  Cal Tech beat Life Pacific 5-1 earlier this week, so this is a team that is a punching bag for the SCIAC in its first year of operation.  For some reason, Life Pacific has an exhibition match scheduled for 9/18 against D1 San Diego State.  That will be a blood bath even if SDSU plays only its deep bench players.

La Verne (SCIAC) beat Linfield (NWC) 3-0.  Adan Villarreal had a brace.  The junior college transfer already has 6 goals in 3 games (143 minutes) on the season.  Perhaps even more impressive, he has 6 goals on 11 shots.  He is a clinical finisher.  If he keeps up a 2.00 goals/game average this year, he's going to shatter some records.  He's already putting the SCIAC on notice that they're going to have to game plan for him.

UC Santa Cruz (C2C) beat Pacific OR (NWC) 2-0.  UCSC controlled the game and probably should have won by more.

Austin (SCAC) beat Ozarks (ASC) 1-0.  Austin is 3-0 on the season and has beaten three straight ASC foes (including East Texas Baptist and LeTourneau). Ozarks has the best record in the ASC, having beaten Centenary LA of the SCAC and they are 2-1.

St. Thomas TX (SCAC) beat Concordia TX (ASC) 3-1.  St. Thomas continues their top form.  Taty Aleman had 2 goals and 1 assist, to give him 5 goals and 1 assist in 3 games on 14 shots.

Texas Lutheran (SCAC) beat Mary Hardin-Baylor (ASC) 2-0.  Texas Lu continues its hot start after beating Occidental and Cal Lu on its LA trip.  It's now beaten the preseason coaches poll favorites in both the SCIAC and the ASC.

Trinity TX (SCAC) beat UT Dallas (ASC) 4-1 to join St. Thomas and Texas Lu atop the SCAC with perfect 3-0 records.

Schreiner (SCAC) beat Howard Payne (ASC) 2-1

[PaulNewman]

A few results that caught my eye....

PS-Abington 2 Rutgers-Newark 0.........like really?

UMass Boston 4 MIT 0.....the Beacons might be a problem...odd game with MIT dominating stats but losing by 4

Union 1 New Paltz 1....Union starting to feel a little different...and host UMass Boston next

St Joseph's (ME) 1 JWU 0....big regional win for the Monks

Chicago 4 UWEC 1...didn't watch but noticed this one was 2-1 pretty deep into the match

CWRU 1 Capital 0....CWRU quietly 4-0...and goes crosstown to visit JCU

Ohio Northern 1 Colorado College 1...so the Polar Bears have cooled a touch

Trinity (CT) 0 Hamilton 0....not the start the Continentals have been dreaming about for 8-9 months

Scranton 0 Kean 0....Scranton stuck its neck out to see the view and check whether they wanted attention...and the Royals are not so sure

Skidmore 0 WPI 0....like, yeah, what did you expect?

Wabash 0 Berry 0....ditto

[PaulNewman]

Btw, no recent mentions of Messiah, including by myself...and to be clear that's 95% because Messiah doesn't need anyone to be talking about them.  Rest assured we'll be talking about the Falcons plenty soon enough.

[paclassic89]

I've watched most of the past 2 Messiah games and they don't seem to be firing on all cylinders offensively yet (odd thing to say about a team who has scored 14 goals in the first 4 games but Messiah is held to a different standard).  Macdonald only 1 goal and 1 assist through the first 4 games.  A bright spot is freshman Sam Phillips who has 4 goals.  Also, All-American Lent-Koop is injured to start the season and has yet to feature.  The Mary Washington game on the 23rd will be a big one

I didn't see a mention of this yet but what is going on with NYU (1-3)?  Lost 4-1 to TCNJ who were winless heading into today

[Kuiper]

A few interesting (and a few expected) results involving WEST and NORTH teams

Occidental beat Lewis & Clark 5-0.  No surprise against the second year L&C team that is still winless.

Chapman beat NAIA side Bethesda 2-1.  The only mild surprise here against the 0-4 Bethesda team is that it was this close.  Redlands beat them 4-1.

Cal Tech tied NAIA side Hope International 1-1.  Cal Tech's goal was scored on a well-placed curving free kick just outside the box by Ishaan Mantripragada (I had to look up the spelling - and may still have gotten it wrong!).  This extends Cal Tech's unbeaten streak to 4 games, which may be an all-time high.  More interesting is that Hope International, unlike Bethesda or Life Pacific, some other NAIA teams SCIAC teams have faced, is pretty good.  They were 5-1 entering the game and had just beaten Chapman 1-0 two days ago.  So, for Cal Tech to tie them is a pretty good measuring stick for them.  While the Beavers have been beating up on pretty weak teams thus far, this was a legit opponent.

Colorado College completed their Ohio roads swing with a 1-1 tie at Ohio Northern.  That's a big result for Colorado College, which had lost to Pacific Lutheran in the first game of the season and needed something from this game to establish some measure of credibility outside of Region X.

Loras ties Saint John's University 1-1.  Loras has been beating up weaker teams and just tied Gustavus Adolphus 1-1.  Saint John's won three straight after losing to SCIAC team La Verne 4-2 to open the season.  Maybe Saint John's is better than we thought?

[Gregory Sager]

Ohio Northern has a heck of an interesting week ahead. On Wednesday the Polar Bears are at Ohio Wesleyan. Then they'll turn around and get right back on the bus as they travel to Chicagoland next weekend to take on North Central in Naperville on Friday and North Park in the Windy City on Saturday.

[Falconer]

I've watched most of the past 2 Messiah games and they don't seem to be firing on all cylinders offensively yet (odd thing to say about a team who has scored 14 goals in the first 4 games but Messiah is held to a different standard).  Macdonald only 1 goal and 1 assist through the first 4 games.  A bright spot is freshman Sam Phillips who has 4 goals.  Also, All-American Lent-Koop is injured to start the season and has yet to feature.  The Mary Washington game on the 23rd will be a big one

I didn't see a mention of this yet but what is going on with NYU (1-3)?  Lost 4-1 to TCNJ who were winless heading into today

I've seen 3 of the 4 Falcon games in person. Nothing is wrong in Grantham, except the loss of Lent-Koop, probably the best CB returning from last year's incredibly talented group of top CBs around D3. His absence, thus far, is mainly on the offensive end. Defensively the Falcons have been top notch, but they haven't really been tested yet. Lent-Koop is dominant in the air on both ends. There are certainly other Falcons who can bury headers (McDonald's goal was a header), but he's the best they've had on set plays in many years as his scoring last year showed. McDonald's playing at the same level he was last fall; it's just that he gets a lot of attention and his hard shots on goal (many so far) have been blocked or saved. And, with back-to-back games in back-to-back weekends, he's played quite limited minutes like everyone else. Other than the keeper, not one starter finished the first half last night. McD was almost solely responsible for Phillips' second goal, when he did his usual thing: he used his speed and inner drive to outhustle the defense to a ball in the box against the run of play, and even though he could have shot it himself under pressure, he made the short pass to a wide-open teammate. So far this season, that's his one assist. However last night he could have had 1 or 2 more assists, off perfect balls across the goal that weren't finished. Another play this weekend was a brilliant long pass from in front of the visitor's bench halfway down the field to a winger at full speed, whose defender did well to fend off an open shot. That could have been another assist. McD's background as a defender came into play there. As a striker, he wanders all over the field and often drops briefly back into spaces where he looks and plays like a DMF. In short, he gets lost, and takes advantage of that.

As for the FR Phillips, who scored 35 goals as a HS senior, evidence suggests that he's even faster than McD (there's a video showing him being timed at 11.0 for 100 meters at a track meet). Certainly he has a nose for the goal. His second score last night was a gimme (though he gets credit for making it), but the other 3 haven't been cheap. His first last night was just brilliant.

[paclassic89]

See, it's like the bat signal.  Just need to post something that is even the slightest bit critical of Messiah and the Falcons posters will come out of the woodwork to let everyone know they are playing like Pep's Barcelona 

[SierraFD3soccer]

Univ. of Mary Washington, not new recently obviously, but people may want to track this team.  They are continuing and building on their success from last year.  People may be talking about this team, but I don't remember recently.

Currently up 5-0 over Lycoming and have scored 15 goals over 4 games (4-0 over Hopkins) and look really strong.

Game to put high, high on the watch calendar Sept. 23rd against Messiah at Messiah.

[Another Mom]

W&L 0-0 at halftime. I am pretty disappointed in how they are playing.

[PaulNewman]

Univ. of Mary Washington, not new recently obviously, but people may want to track this team.  They are continuing and building on their success from last year.  People may be talking about this team, but I don't remember recently.

Currently up 5-0 over Lycoming and have scored 15 goals over 4 games (4-0 over Hopkins) and look really strong.

Game to put high, high on the watch calendar Sept. 23rd against Messiah at Messiah.

Absolutely concur...any ideas about a flash in the pan are done.  Top 5 team, maybe top 3, and a legitimate contender for Final Four again if key guys stay healthy.