2024 Schedules

[Kuiper]

An eastern PA focus to this post (and given the number of teams in this area, it could be many posts if I wanted)

Clarks Summit

After reading that Clarks Summit has furloughed ALL of their employees indefinitely (see post #3138 on the "Future of Division III" thread under the "General Division III issues" section of the Boards), I checked their Men's Soccer page and was a little surprised to see that they do have up a 2024 schedule.  I guess they did insist that they are not closing.  I'm not expecting that TBA game on 9/11 will be filled anytime soon though.

Penn State Schuylkill

Interesting that they are playing Lancaster Bible College's JV team in an exhibition.  I haven't seen many varsity teams play JV teams of other DIII schools in exhibition matches, but I suppose it's a good way to play nearby schools while keeping the games competitive.

Bryn Athyn

All but one of their nonconference games are home games.  Second game against Ursinus gives them a chance to gauge improvement against a team they lost to last year 3-0 away.

Rosemont

Road trip to Christopher Newport and Virginia Wesleyan the first weekend of the season is a challenging opener.

Gwynedd Mercy

Adds Lancaster Bible College and Misericordia this year

Misericordia

This schedule was basically done by the former coach now at Scranton.  Lycoming, Muhlenberg, and Ithaca were all close games last year that might have gone either way.  Widener may be the true barometer of whether they have improved under the new coaching staff because they lost that one last year 4-1.

[SierraFD3soccer]

Amherst

They may not have a headliner non-conference opponent as they did last year with Montclair State, but Emerson won't be easy and Suffolk is better than Yeshiva.  An early season matchup in Amherst against Conn College will be a game to watch.

Saw that they also play WPI and Babson. Both very strong teams last year who made the NCAAs and lost in OT or PKs. So they could definitely push Amherst.

Interesting as they play Williams so early as well. Not saying Williams is top team within NESCAC, but ancient rival like Haverford/Swarthmore and maybe Harvard/Yale, Lafayette/Lehigh or Army/Navy. Just like to see this at the end of the season.

[SierraFD3soccer]

Rosemont

Road trip to Christopher Newport and Virginia Wesleyan the first weekend of the season is a challenging opener.

Sorry to see that they are not playing F&M this year. First time they played a great game on their one of kind grayish turf.  Was an other world experience - sort of like watching Boise State in football. https://rosemont-ravens.com/sports/2014/1/9/GEN_0109143449.aspx

[Freddyfud]

but ancient rival like Haverford/Swarthmore and maybe Harvard/Yale, Lafayette/Lehigh or Army/Navy.

Ahem.  The proper term is and always will be Lehigh/Lafayette!

Signed,
'93 Lehigh grad 

[Kuiper]

Some Region X schedules

Redlands

Interesting schedule that demonstrates the challenges of increasing SoS in a conference like the SCIAC. They are playing two exhibition games against DII opponents (Cal State San Bernardino and Cal State San Marcos) and then they open the season with a game at DII power Cal Poly Pomona, a team that was 14-2-5 last year, lost in the 3rd round of the DII NCAA tournament, and was ranked #10 in the final DII men's soccer USC rankings.  Really tough opening game of the season and I don't even know how that is factored in for SoS purposes.  Then they host Luther, Puget Sound, and Whitman - which could be good games, but may simply be who they could get to fly to them since they last flew out of state in 2022 and they may not have the budget to do it again so soon.

Pacific Lutheran

Different kind of challenge, but similar goal as Redlands.  PLU's issue is that the NWC's double round robin leaves very little space for non-conference games, all of which require travel from them or someone else if they want a countable game.  They are starting with a trip to Santa Cruz to play Pomona-Pitzer and UC Santa Cruz, then travel to Willamette for a big game against Calvin.  If, as I suspect, P-P and UCSC aren't really big SoS boosts, then everything kind of rides on the Calvin game as to whether they get an adequate amount of quality wins if they don't get the AQ.

Pacific

Pacific is a smaller school that likely doesn't have the budget to do more than what they are doing.  They host UC Santa Cruz in the last non-conference game before opening NWC play, but all the rest of their non-conference games are against local NAIA opponents. 

Whittier

Opens with a visit on Friday Aug 30 from Albion College in Michigan (who must be playing another SCIAC team on Saturday or Sunday of the same weekend) and then travels to Santa Cruz to play UC Santa Cruz.  All of the other non-conference games are against NAIA foes.

La Verne

Hosts Whitman on Friday 9/13 and then UC Santa Cruz on Wed 9/18.  All the rest of the games are against non-NCAA teams.  The team labeled "Southern California Leadership Academy" must be "Southern California Leadership University," which is still seeking accreditation.  It is starting a brand new men's soccer team this year.

[SierraFD3soccer]

but ancient rival like Haverford/Swarthmore and maybe Harvard/Yale, Lafayette/Lehigh or Army/Navy.

Ahem.  The proper term is and always will be Lehigh/Lafayette!

Signed,
'93 Lehigh grad 

Hahahaha - that's great!! I did not make a mistake!! Born and raised in Easton and lived on College Hill while spending tons of time on the Lafayette campus sneaking into sports events and just having a great time as a kid. Grew up with most of the faculty kids. Dad, after failing his freshman year (spent to much time in the movies as he seemed to recall) spent a year as a hungry Leopard and went back to Yale for another 3 years. Dad's first job was working for Bethlehem Steel, but at Sparrows Point. He actually worked summers for BS next to Lehigh. Mom was in Lafayette's Comptroller Office for many years. Actually spent a lot of time in  Lehigh's Saucon Valley facility playing soccer growing up.

FYI, Lehigh - great college, middle kid almost picked it for engineering (should have stuck with "Engineers" as opposed to "Mountain Hawks") but for the horrible colors - sh1t brown and white.  Just kidding, price of going was insane in 2020.

[Freddyfud]

but ancient rival like Haverford/Swarthmore and maybe Harvard/Yale, Lafayette/Lehigh or Army/Navy.

Ahem.  The proper term is and always will be Lehigh/Lafayette!

Signed,
'93 Lehigh grad 

Hahahaha - that's great!! I did not make a mistake!! Born and raised in Easton and lived on College Hill while spending tons of time on the Lafayette campus sneaking into sports events and just having a great time as a kid. Grew up with most of the faculty kids. Dad, after failing his freshman year (spent to much time in the movies as he seemed to recall) spent a year as a hungry Leopard and went back to Yale for another 3 years. Dad's first job was working for Bethlehem Steel, but at Sparrows Point. He actually worked summers for BS next to Lehigh. Mom was in Lafayette's Comptroller Office for many years. Actually spent a lot of time in  Lehigh's Saucon Valley facility playing soccer growing up.

FYI, Lehigh - great college, middle kid almost picked it for engineering (should have stuck with "Engineers" as opposed to "Mountain Hawks") but for the horrible colors - sh1t brown and white.  Just kidding, price of going was insane in 2020.

We will agree to disagree    Some of my best friends played soccer for both, and our mutual hometown friends would visit for the football game.  It was a competition to see who threw the best parties movies and why I made sure they knew the correct term.  While I was there they changed the old wooden field goal posts to metal to prevent the violence after the game.  We also had 3 mascots--the Engineers and the Hawks but with a provisional one in between.  The Brown and White    And the tuition is always insane!!

[SKUD]

Amherst

They may not have a headliner non-conference opponent as they did last year with Montclair State, but Emerson won't be easy and Suffolk is better than Yeshiva.  An early season matchup in Amherst against Conn College will be a game to watch.

Wild take to comment on Emerson and Suffolk over the 2 NCAA Qualifiers on the road mid-week.

[Kuiper]

Amherst

They may not have a headliner non-conference opponent as they did last year with Montclair State, but Emerson won't be easy and Suffolk is better than Yeshiva.  An early season matchup in Amherst against Conn College will be a game to watch.

Wild take to comment on Emerson and Suffolk over the 2 NCAA Qualifiers on the road mid-week.

I typically focus on what is different about a team's non-conference opponents from the previous year, especially in a conference where they play relatively few non-conference games and where they usually shy away from difficult games because of the strength of the conference opponents.  They switched out Montclair State and Yeshiva for Emerson and Suffolk, which is why I mentioned them.  Babson and WPI should be tough games again for sure.

[Kuiper]

Tufts

Babson will again be a tough non-conference game (that's for you SKUD  !), but I think an interesting change may be omitting Maine-Farmington, who they crushed 7-0 last year.  That's not because the team they replaced them with, Husson, is dramatically better (although Husson did beat Farmington twice in head-to-head last season), but because I think the Farmington game came early in the season, before a rest may have been required, and could have disrupted their progression going into the Amherst game (a 3-1 loss).  I get why it was placed there as part of a double game weekend with Conn College, but maybe the game itself could have come later.  Husson, by contrast, will be right before the last game of the season when they may need the break from conference games to gather themselves before the tournament.  By the same token, playing Colby, Conn, Salem State, and Hamilton in one week from 9/14-9/21 this season might make the Salem State game important for rotation.

[Kuiper]

St. Mary's College of Maryland

Whether because of proximity or ambition, this team always seems to play a reasonably strong schedule.  Considering they only lost 1-0 to John Carroll in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year, they certainly have a right to be ambitious.  This year, they open with TCNJ and Rowan, then play three Centennial Conference teams in a row in Washington College, Dickinson, and @Johns Hopkins and then play @Mary Washington before the Lancaster Bible game in conference.

Wesleyan

They've added Babson to the non-conference schedule in the second game of the season, which should be pretty challenging.  Considering they lost to both Western CT St and Eastern CT St last season, those games could be pretty tough, especially with the first right after Amherst and the second right after the Bowdoin game.

[SierraFD3soccer]

St. Mary's College of Maryland

Whether because of proximity or ambition, this team always seems to play a reasonably strong schedule.  Considering they only lost 1-0 to John Carroll in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year, they certainly have a right to be ambitious.  This year, they open with TCNJ and Rowan, then play three Centennial Conference teams in a row in Washington College, Dickinson, and @Johns Hopkins and then play @Mary Washington before the Lancaster Bible game in conference.

St Mary's College of Maryland is actually not a religious school, but maybe of the smallest public college (at least in Maryland) and is named after the county it is in.  Beautiful location with a great coach and program which has been on the cusp for a while. Most players come from some very good Maryland programs. Simple Coach interviewed him last year = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCgOlMPkN_Q 

[Kuiper]

The College of New Jersey

Playing two tournaments to open the season, at Salisbury against St. Mary's College of Maryland and Salisbury and home against Farmingdale State and Union.

Utica

Adds Skidmore, Marywood, and SUNY Morrisville in place of Pittsburgh-Bradford, Plattsburgh State, and SUNY Poly, which might make for a slightly better chance of winning 2 out of 3 rather than 1 out of 3, but with Cortland, Oneonta, and Hamilton still on the non-conference schedule, it will be tough regardless.

Capital

Capital has been a tough out of late and seems to have the potential to upset a top team at any time, like they did beating John Carroll in University Heights last year 3-1.  This year, hosting Texas Lutheran on Friday 9/6 and then traveling to play at Denison on Monday 9/9, with Hanover in between on the 7th, seems like a tough stretch of games.  Once again playing Ohio Wesleyan before starting conference play.

[Kuiper]

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.

Thiel

Loading up on Penn State branch camps this season, with Beaver and New Kensington replacing Alfred State and Heidelberg

Greensboro

Rough 0-15-1 season last year.  Not sure where wins will come from in this year's schedule, but at least they took off a few teams like Lynchburg and Roanoke and replaced them with Ferrum and Piedmont

Randolph

McDaniel making the fairly long trip down to Lynchburg to play Randolph on Sat 9/14.  I wonder if they are staying in the area and playing Lynchburg or another team on Sunday.

[stlawus]

Oneonta

Very similar to last year.