2024 Schedules

[SierraFD3soccer]

Hampden-Sydney

The Rhodes/Mount Union games in Richmond should be interesting. This also suggests the Mary Washington schedule, which has them visiting Mount Union and Rhodes for games the same weekend, is incorrect and those teams are actually coming to Richmond and playing UMW there.

What is also interesting is that HSC is not playing W&L this year which is a first for probably a long, long time. Website states that they played every year since 1969, but in the team records site states that they have played 67 times. 

Reason being most likely is that ODAC has 13 conf. teams and no divisions. They are obligated to play 10 of in conf. games.  Don't know if that will make a diff. in the new NCAA voodoo computations.

[Kuiper]

Saint Vincent

I'm sort of surprised they aren't pairing the Bridgewater trip for opening weekend with another team.  Maybe they are going to make the trip, which is part of a home-and-away series, in one day.

Oberlin

I keep thinking Oberlin should be somewhat better than they are given their national recruiting base and proximity to a decent-sized city and airport in Cleveland, but they haven't broken through in a long time despite playing competitive in some games.  It's not for lack of strong area competition though.  Once again, they are starting with the brutal John Carroll/Ohio Northern opening weekend (although they only lost to JCU 2-1 last year), but this year they also host Otterbein in a mid-week game this year. 

[Kuiper]

Vassar

No Middlebury this year, but they replace them with an away game at Oneonta

Pfeiffer

Hosting Wooster in mid-September for its first game against an out-of-region opponent since before the Pandemic.

Wooster

Before Wooster plays Pfeiffer, it plays Guilford the same weekend in their North Carolina swing.  They also replace Mount Union, Alma, and Albion, with Adrian.

 

[Kuiper]

Washington College

Following up the Final Four season by traveling to Lebanon Valley and Elizabethtown on opening weekend.  Other new teams on the schedule include Catholic and St. Mary's College of Maryland. In conference, playing at Johns Hopkins and at Franklin & Marshall this year.

Elizabethtown

Playing Washington College and Alfred on opening weekend and then added Immaculata to the schedule, replacing Pratt, which they beat 10-0 last year

[Ejay]

Elizabethtown

Playing Washington College and Alfred on opening weekend and then added Immaculata to the schedule, replacing Pratt, which they beat 10-0 last year

Immaculata is part of a home/home from two years ago.  Other annual games of note include the Smith-Herr Boot game vs. F&M and the Marshmallow Bowl vs Messiah.

[Kuiper]

Cornell College

Replaces Luther with Wisconsin-Whitewater at home this year, and travels to Carleton in the weekend between two mid-week conference games.

Maryville

Notable additions to this year's schedule include Berry and Oglethorpe.

Colby

Playing at RPI the day after playing Hamilton away, so it's probably part of a New York road trip that could be pretty challenging.

Wittenberg

The game against Carnegie Mellon before it opens conference play could tell a lot about whether Wittenberg's 8-4-4 record reflects a major step forward or was a mirage.

[Kuiper]

Trinity

It's only a sneak preview of the part of the schedule that fits within the shape of the state of Texas, but Trinity is hosting past and future SCAC member Hendrix and Methodist on the first weekend, Whitworth and Berry on the second weekend, and then a game against Cal Lutheran with a partially obscured date, but I'm guessing is the following weekend.  That's like a who's who of conferences in the south, west, southwest, and northwest, playing teams from the SAA, USA South, NWC, and SCIAC.  Plus scrimmages against DI Incarnate Word and DII Midwestern State University.  With 11 SCAC conference games and at least 5 accounted for, that doesn't leave much room, if any, for the ASC teams that might have been looking to SCAC opponents for non-conference games.  My guess is that they play Hardin-Simmons, if any, since that is a team that sometimes participates in the games with the non-conference opponents Trinity brings to San Antonio.

[SKUD]

Impressive, especially since I was thinking Trinity, CT!

[Kuiper]

Johnson & Wales - Providence

Almost exactly the same schedule as last year when they went 14-2-5, except that they added Worcester State, which won't exactly raise their SoS.  I guess they almost beat Rochester on PKs in the first round of the tournament, so no reason to mess with what works.

Worcester State

Adds Coast Guard and JWU-Providence this year

[Kuiper]

A couple of Texas schools

Austin College

Opens the season by traveling to Colorado College to play Concordia-Moorehead and Fontbonne.  Plays many of the ASC schools, including Mary Hardin-Baylor, Hardin-Simmons, UT Dallas, and LeTourneau

East Texas Baptist University

This is the first ASC schedule to come out and it confirms that they are playing a double round robin, which gives them 10 total conference games.  ETBU has scheduled 9 non-conference games, which suggests they are not planning on having a conference tournament.  It looks like the normal mix of SCAC schools (Univ of Dallas, Ozarks, Schreiner, Concordia TX, McMurry, Centenary), plus a few others from the SAA (Hendrix and Millsaps) and the CCS (Belhaven).

[SierraFD3soccer]

Washington College

Following up the Final Four season by traveling to Lebanon Valley and Elizabethtown on opening weekend.  Other new teams on the schedule include Catholic and St. Mary's College of Maryland. In conference, playing at Johns Hopkins and at Franklin & Marshall this year.

Elizabethtown

Playing Washington College and Alfred on opening weekend and then added Immaculata to the schedule, replacing Pratt, which they beat 10-0 last year

WC has a tough last 4 games of the season like last year, playing JHU, Muhls, Catholic and F&M at the end of the season. Only Muhls at home. Also traveling for 10 of 17 games this year.

[Kuiper]

Otterbein

Opens with games away at Case (Friday) and Trine (Sunday).  If they are coming home in-between, that's kind of a lot of driving with a 2 hours each way to Cleveland and 3 hours each way to Trine.  Hosting Texas Lutheran on the second game of its Ohio trip, which effectively replaces the W&L game from last year in terms of being an out-of-region team that offers the prospect of a competitive game that can offer some SoS boost.  Kenyon is also back on the schedule, which I didn't think was noteworthy, but I looked it up and the schools haven't played each other since 2017 as far as I can tell.  That suggests this is kind of noteworthy.

Catholic

The schedule seems constructed to face one highly-ranked team each of the first four weekends, but to pair it with one team that seems a bit more manageable.  Opening with a road trip to Roanoke and Washington & Lee, coming home the next weekend and hosting SUNY Cortland and King's College, traveling to play Virginia Wesleyan and Christopher Newport, before hosting Gettysburg mid-week and traveling to Lynchburg for the fourth weekend before starting conference play.  They also seem to typically sneak in a really hard non-conference mid-week game right before the last conference game, possibly as a way to gear up for the conference tournament.  Last year, that game was Mary Washington, which they lost 1-0, but went on to win the Landmark tournament and qualified for the NCAAs.  This year, it is Washington College.  We'll see if it works again.

Roanoke

After opening by hosting Catholic, they travel to Atlanta to play Oglethorpe and Emory and host Marrieta and Centre among out-of-region opponents.  One curious non-conference game is a road-trip on the second-to-last weekend of the regular season to play at Penn State Abington.  The game is sandwiched between mid-week conference games against Averett and W&L.  PSU-Abington had a decent season last year, but that's like a 6 hour drive each way to play a single game.  Are they planning to sight-see the morning after and check out the Liberty Bell?  Maybe the Philadelphia market has recruiting value for the school?

[Kuiper]

LaGrange

is LaGrange one of the most southern DIII schools, or at least one of the more isolated southern DIII schools, especially with Birmingham Southern's closure?  Their schedule looks sort of like a SCIAC or NWC schedule with them playing an NCCAA and a NAIA school on opening weekend and another NAIA school in the middle of conference play, suggesting their options for reasonably affordable non-conference games are limited.  After all, some of their other non-conference games include hosting William Peace, which is about 7.5 hours away, and traveling to Methodist University and Greensboro College, which are about 6-7 hours away. 

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Seen a couple HCAC teams posted, thought I'd get them all. Defiance has left the conference for NAIA, Berea has joined from the CCS

#1 Manchester (10-1-8 Overall, 6-0-3 HCAC)
#2 Hanover (9-7-2, 6-2-1)
#3 Rose-Hulman (12-5-3, 6-2-1)
#4 Transylvania (5-6-7, 4-3-2)
#6 Bluffton (7-8-2, 3-4-2)
#7 Anderson (10-7-2, 3-5-1)
#8 Earlham (4-9-4, 2-5-2)
#9 Franklin (3-10-4, 2-5-2)
#10 Mount St Joseph (2-14, 1-8)
Berea (7-11-1, 3-3 CCS)
#5 Defiance (6-6-7, 3-2-4)

[jknezek]

LaGrange

is LaGrange one of the most southern DIII schools, or at least one of the more isolated southern DIII schools, especially with Birmingham Southern's closure?  Their schedule looks sort of like a SCIAC or NWC schedule with them playing an NCCAA and a NAIA school on opening weekend and another NAIA school in the middle of conference play, suggesting their options for reasonably affordable non-conference games are limited.  After all, some of their other non-conference games include hosting William Peace, which is about 7.5 hours away, and traveling to Methodist University and Greensboro College, which are about 6-7 hours away. 

Yeah. LaGrange is out there. Huntington or Emory are probably the closest D3 schools. Losing B-SC hurts the case for the whole region. LaGrange's other problem is they aren't good. So Emory, Oglethorpe, Covenant and Sewanee, all reasonable distance OOC opponents, probably don't see much point in playing them. That leaves Berry.

Greensboro and Methodist are old USASAC conference mates. I forget how that conference split for soccer purposes but I suspect they have held on to some of those old conference opponents as OOC games.