2023 D3 Men's Soccer National Perspective

[Falconer]

As for today's game, I agree that Messiah outplayed an excellent team and deserved to win, despite the terrible conditions that hurt both teams about equally. Many times, players lost their footing while having possession or while defending the ball. The scariest moment of that type, for Falcon fans, involved the keeper falling down. Both keepers played well, despite conditions, though there was more sustained pressure on the MW keeper, who thus came up big more often. The Falcon keeper's best play involved a fully-extended, high-on-the-air, one-handed deflection of a very dangerous ball over the top of the defense.

I would not see today's game as definitive, given the conditions; Messiah isn't necessarily better (at this  point in the season) than MW. But, they were clearly better today. With a bit less bad luck, both teams might have scored, but the Falcons would have scored at least 2 more than they did. In the second half, in addition to the great goal by Lefever, a ball hit the post and another hit the crossbar. A third was a screamer, but right at the keeper--who should be commended for holding it fast in any conditions, let alone those applicable today.

[Kuiper]

Colorado College 3 - Christopher Newport 2

Great win for CC.  The game was tight in the first half with CC gaining the lead 1-0 on a PK.  In the second half, CC blitzed CNU, breaking out to a 3-0 lead on a brace 11 seconds apart by Oliver Ramirez, whose pace down the middle clearly exceeded the CNU defenders.  Then a curious thing happened.  CNU pulled their GK at 3-0 down at the 67th minute and put in a senior who had only played 16 minutes all season (and I think none for a few years before that according to the play by play guy) and those 16 minutes were yesterday when CNU won big.  It looked like a giant white flag and a reward for a kid in his final season.  Instead, within 3 minutes CNU scores and less than a minute later CNU scores again to make it 3-2.  I'm not saying the new GK had anything to do with it, but for some reason the Captains were really energized and revived and the GK switch didn't hurt and may have helped.  Who knows?  Either way, Colorado College regrouped and weathered the storm until Ramirez was able to come back on after a quick breather and provide a counter-attacking threat to see the game out.

As the play-by-play guy noted, CC is one of those teams that runs hot and cold.  This game, they played like the team that tied Ohio Northern in Ada rather than the team that lost to UT Dallas in Dallas.  For CNU, I think this was a case study on the difficulty of playing two games in a row at altitude with the second game against the home side.  Day two is always going to be tough wherever you play and at altitude that's actually when the effects become worse.

[Another Mom]

Washington & Lee 2 - 1 Shenandoah. The first half was shambolic, with Shenandoah outshooting the Generals 10 to 8, and scoring a goal. A switch was flipped at halftime, and the Generals played like the great team they have been, outshot Shenandoah 16 - 1, and scored twice, first in the 88th minute, and then again in the 89th, with 8 seconds remaining. We will have to see if this better version of W&L holds.

[SierraFD3soccer]

Overall fantastic job by the long-term announcing crew per usual, esp given the issues encountered broadcast-wise...but of course as they almost always do without fail they drop their grade from an A+ to an A- with one of their classic meltdowns in the dying seconds of the game when the ref awarded a free kick to MW with 2 secs left (from distance, so not something the taker was going to be to score on directly).  It is stunning how quickly those guys can turn from the most reasonable and fair guys on earth to rabid, crazed, "omg, we're getting cheating again."  After another quick swipe at the ref (who they had complimented for 89 minutes) after the 2 secs expired, and of course with the win in hand, they reverted back to being generous with everyone.

Yeah, very funny and obviously having a good time which they should. Also every time Messiah had the ball in the 18, they sounded like it was a sure goal. Incredibly tough to follow the feed with the scuba camera, but like I said you get what you paid for.  Messiah definitely played well and got the result. UMW keeper kept it a one goal game.

[calvin_grad]

Calvin defeats JCU 5-3. Was not able to attend or watch, so don't have many details. I know JCU has a lot of weapons on offense, so their 3 goals doesn't surprise me, although 1 was an own goal. Nice to see Calvin's offense wake up a bit.

[PaulNewman]

Enough news to warrant this thread...

Not a good day for some of big names in Great Lakes...already covered the Kenyon debacle in the other thread.

Denison lost 1-0 to fellow Great Lakes squad CWRU at CWRU.  Very good win fcor CWRU as the Spartans continue good form, but Denison is no longer unbeaten.

Ohio Northern got upended at Rose Hulman....also not that surprising given that Rose Hulman is solid and ONU must be absolutely exhausted after a non-conference that now looks like is was too aggressive.

Also not surprising but significant...Calvin rebounds to best John Carroll 5-3 in a wild one.  I only saw the last 20-25 minutes and wasn't watching closely, but Schau had another wonder goal to put Calvin up either 3-2 or 4-2...lead stretched to 5-2.  If you didn't know the score and were watching at least from that point JCU repeatedly getting off inside the 18 shot with real pace, and Calvin looked to be barely holding on.  Very impressed with how JCU battled to the end...I mean the last 10 minutes was like a shooting gallery...as their passion and determination rose they also bordered on boiling over into self-destructive chippiness.  My opinion if JCU has not moved at all.  Calvin came in wounded too and played more desperate than I usually see them, resorting to taking down JCU players who were about to break free.  Saw at least one yellow for that.  Highly competitive match.  But despite believing the Blue Streaks are still a legit contender they are now 5-2-1.  Btw, that Chris Schau for Calvin is a hell of a college soccer player.

I do think Otterbein rallied to beat Hanover, but I could have that backwards.  And finally, Capital came from behind to nip DePauw 2-1.

[Kuiper]

Occidental 2 - Redlands 0

This was the big game in the SCIAC tonight and Occidental lived up to its preseason number one ranking, beating Redlands on the road to hand the Bulldogs their first loss of the season.  The first goal started with a great chipped pass by Vicente Navarro to his onrushing former club teammate Tyler Na-Nakornpanom in the box.  Na-Nakornpanom took it down and hit a beautiful shot from the far left side of the box to the far right of the goal.  The second was a bit of a lucky bounce as a shot by an Oxy player was deflected off a Redlands defender to the feet of another Oxy attacker who pushed it passed the GK.  Redlands had its chances, but Oxy's defense was on its game and I thought its GK Riley Nyhan had one of the more complete games I have seen from him, coming off his line for dangerous crosses and potential breakaways.  Oxy moves to 7-1 overall and 4-0 in the SCIAC and Redlands drops to 6-1 and 2-1 in conference.  You probably have to think about including Oxy in the national rankings even though this was arguably their first win against a quality opponent.  Oxy's only loss was to Texas Lutheran in its first game of the season.

Pacific Lutheran 9 - George Fox 0

The Lutes never took its foot off the gas on the truck that ran over George Fox in this game.  Not bad marksmanship when you take 15 shots and score 9 of them.  Pacific Lutheran has scored 19 goals in its last three games (4-1 over Whitworth, 6-0 over Whitman, and 9-0 over George Fox) and its loss to Emory, tie with CMS, and win over Colorado College in Colorado Springs may start looking better in retrospect.  I still think the Lutes need to win the NWC to get in the tourney, but if they keep brutalizing the rest of the NWC, they may creep into the national conversation.  Craig Johnson now has 8 goals in 7 games.

[Freddyfud]

Is there a consensus about an East Coast bias?  How do teams from outside the East perform in the postseason?

[Gregory Sager]

Is there a consensus about an East Coast bias?  How do teams from outside the East perform in the postseason?

Ask these guys:

[Domino1195]

Calvin defeats JCU 5-3. Was not able to attend or watch, so don't have many details. I know JCU has a lot of weapons on offense, so their 3 goals doesn't surprise me, although 1 was an own goal. Nice to see Calvin's offense wake up a bit.

I believe the video is still available on their You Tube channel. Watched the whole thing - pretty entertaining game - all 5 Calvin goals are worth seeing - I don't think the JCU keeper could have done a thing differently to stop them. Maybe his defenders stepping to the ball quicker - but those bangers from outside the 18 were golasos.

[Kuiper]

Is there a consensus about an East Coast bias?  How do teams from outside the East perform in the postseason?

I don't know about an east coast "bias,"  but Region X schools definitely have it rougher.  The biggest structural obstacle for Region X teams is even getting to the postseason.  There are only four conferences in an area that roughly covers half the country (ASC, SCAC, NWC, and SCIAC), plus one team from the Coast-to-Coast conference (UC Santa Cruz).  In some years, only the champion of each will qualify, which usually makes for a neat little four team pod in the first two rounds and only one team advancing out of that pod to the third round.  In other years, Region X has one Pool C bid and so there is one team added to a pod somewhere else (typically the upper midwest).  By contrast, in parts of the mid-atlantic and northeast, there are so many teams and regions where conferences overlap that some top conferences can get 3-5+ teams into the tournament pretty regularly.  In Region X, you can be a team that regularly contends for a conference title and go four years without ever qualifying for the NCAA tournament because your team's strength-of-schedule is never high enough in comparison with the east coast schools that can't help but play a lot of top ranked teams.  Players have to be satisfied with a goal of making the conference tournament if they choose a school in Region X because there's a decent chance that's as far as they will ever get.

From the perspective of succeeding in the postseason, there's a structural bias in the sense that more game sites are on the east coast, which means non-east coast teams have to travel more than other teams.  Travel isn't determinative of who wins of course.  Chicago won last year.  Nevertheless, I would distinguish between far west teams and midwest or southwest teams in talking about travel burdens.  Not only is the travel time half as much for a midwest or southwest team, but the one hour v. three hour time difference makes a big difference.  The farthest a far west team (and only one far west team) will usually get is the third round since one team will win the Region X pod.  Winning that third round game is really rough given the travel. For example, in 2021, Redlands lost in the third round against eventual champion Conn College 1-0 in Medford, Mass six days after beating Pacific Lutheran in a game held in Tacoma, WA.  That's a lot of miles to travel in a quick period, plus the added difficulty of the three hour time difference and the temperature difference between Tacoma, Redlands, and Medford, MA.  In 2022, St. Thomas TX made it to the third round (but didn't have the earlier travel Redlands did because the pod was in Texas) and lost to eventual champion Chicago 4-1 at Chicago.  There was less travel and no time difference compared to a far west team, but still a significant temperature difference and home field advantage for Chicago.

Beyond the simple reality that a far west team will have harder travel demands than an east cost team after the first couple of rounds (and even travel within Region X in the first two rounds can be rougher than any travel an east coast team will endure during those rounds), the Final Four is usually held on the east coast.  So, if a far west team did make it that far, it would have a longer flight and a time difference against most opponents.  The last seven times the Final Four has been held, it has been in either Salem, VA or Greensboro, NC.  There was a period from 2009 through 2015 when the Final Four was held in San Antonio or Kansas City, which came closer to equalizing the travel and time difference burdens (although far west teams still had more of a time difference), but the only time the Final Four was actually held on the west coast was in 1991 at UC San Diego, which UCSD won  In fairness, UCSD (which since transitioned to DII and now to DI) also won the national championship in 1988 in Rochester and in 1993 in Williamstown, both of which have to be some of the most extreme travel and temperature difference for a team from San Diego at that time of year.  So, it's not like a far west team can't win when they have to travel.  In this century, Redlands made it to the final four in 2001 when it was held at Messiah and UC Santa Cruz made it in 2004 in Greensboro, NC, but both teams lost in the finals.  When dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, CMS lost in the finals to UNC Greensboro in 1983 at Greensboro and UCSD lost to UNC Greensboro, again at Greensboro, in 1986, but those are the only other times a far west team has made it that far.

One interesting note is that the 2024 Final Four is scheduled to be in Las Vegas, a city and state that doesn't have a single D3 athletics program (UNLV is serving as host).  It's not exactly the west coast, but close enough and the closest it has been since 1991.  If a SCIAC team was picking a year in which they would go for broke with transfers, high priced coaching hires, and trips to improve strength-of-schedule and to get the boys ready for prime time, that might be it.  It might be the only Final Four in my lifetime that I will be able to get to fairly easily by car (since I wasn't living in LA in 1991).

[Dark Knight]

Calvin defeats JCU 5-3. Was not able to attend or watch, so don't have many details. I know JCU has a lot of weapons on offense, so their 3 goals doesn't surprise me, although 1 was an own goal. Nice to see Calvin's offense wake up a bit.

I believe the video is still available on their You Tube channel. Watched the whole thing - pretty entertaining game - all 5 Calvin goals are worth seeing - I don't think the JCU keeper could have done a thing differently to stop them. Maybe his defenders stepping to the ball quicker - but those bangers from outside the 18 were golasos.

Calvin may have squeaked out a victory in the score, but JCU had an absolute blowout in sportswriting following the game. The vividness! The pathos! The absurd metaphors! Do yourself a favor and give it a read.

https://jcusports.com/news/2023/9/23/mens-soccer-falls-at-11-calvin-in-goal-filled-match.aspx

[PaulNewman]

Calvin defeats JCU 5-3. Was not able to attend or watch, so don't have many details. I know JCU has a lot of weapons on offense, so their 3 goals doesn't surprise me, although 1 was an own goal. Nice to see Calvin's offense wake up a bit.

I believe the video is still available on their You Tube channel. Watched the whole thing - pretty entertaining game - all 5 Calvin goals are worth seeing - I don't think the JCU keeper could have done a thing differently to stop them. Maybe his defenders stepping to the ball quicker - but those bangers from outside the 18 were golasos.

Calvin may have squeaked out a victory in the score, but JCU had an absolute blowout in sportswriting following the game. The vividness! The pathos! The absurd metaphors! Do yourself a favor and give it a read.

https://jcusports.com/news/2023/9/23/mens-soccer-falls-at-11-calvin-in-goal-filled-match.aspx

LOL.  Gianluca strikes again!  Please listen to a JCU home game some time and tell me if you think they couldn't be the same person.  He's the JCU PbP guy...and is really good at that.

[PaulNewman]

I have nearly completed the formal paperwork to transfer my allegiance to Bowdoin.

[northman]

I have nearly completed the formal paperwork to transfer my allegiance to Bowdoin.

Say what you will...but that was a convincing win by the Polar Bears on Cole Field in the beautiful Purple Valley of Western Mass.