Author Archives: Paul Kennedy

MEN’S NEWS …  Indiana’s troubles continued when the No. 25 Hoosiers lost for the fourth time in the last six games, falling at No. 11 Louisville, 4-0. Indiana found itself down 1-0 in the sixth minute when Freddie Braun scored on a header off a free kick from Kenney Walker, and things went downhill from there.
 
Colin Rolfe made it 2-0 seven minutes later, and the Cardinals padded their lead in the second half thanks to a second goal from Rolfe and a goal by Mark Knight. Indiana had sophomore forward Will Bruin sent off for dissent. He will miss Sunday’s Big Ten match at No. 12 Northwestern.

Indiana fell to 7-6-1 with the loss. Five of its losses have been to teams ranked in the top 16: No. 1 Akron, No. 3 Wake Forest, No. 8 UC Santa Barbara, No. 11 Louisville and No. 16 Butler.

* WEDNESDAY’S RESULTS:
Top 25
No. 7 South Florida 1 (Mora 27) No. 18 Dartmouth 0.
No. 11 Louisville 4 (Braun 5, Rolfe 13, 56, Knight 82) No. 25 Indiana 0.
No. 13 N.C. State 2 (Zuerner 74, Sanchez 90) High Point 1 (Sloan 86).
No. 16 Butler 3 (Capito 6, Cardona 23, Gatzky 79) DePaul 1 (Lara 2).
No. 17 Tulsa 2 (Parada 10, Neil 83) SMU 3 (Soto pen. 13, Vasquez 26, Rosenbaum 63).
No. 23 Ohio State 0 No. 20 West Virginia 0.

Wednesday Results

* ATTINELLA SAVES USF. The Big East is loaded this season with top-flight goalies — most notably Josh Ford, who has eight shutouts in a row for Connecticut, and Zach Johnson, who has allowed only two goals in West Virginia’s last nine games. One of the best is Jeff Attinella, who came up big again for South Florida in the No. 7 Bulls’ 1-0 win over No. 18 Dartmouth. Midfielder Jorge Mora put USF ahead in the 27th minute, but the visitors from the Ivy League had plenty of chances. Attinella finished with eight saves, making several big stops in the second half.

* TULSA FALLS ON 70-YARD GOAL. No. 17 Tulsa had its 20-game unbeaten streak in Conference-USA regular-season play snapped when the Golden Hurricane fell at home to SMU, 3-2, in the pouring rain. “I think we started the game like we wanted to do,” Tulsa coach Tom McIntosh said.  “Our play in the backfield was poor tonight, and we gave away three easy goals.” The third came when Ryan Rosenbaum‘s clearance from 70 yards out bounced over Tulsa keeper Andy Aguilar‘s head and into the goal.

MEN’S NEWS … Akron achieved one of the most impressive results in its 14-0-0 season when it traveled to Ann Arbor to face the University of Michigan and returned home with a 5-1 win. The Zips had never won in Ann Arbor, but they made quick work of the Wolverines, going up 3-0 at the half with three goals in five minutes.

Darlington Nagbe recorded the first hat trick of his career to fuel the Zips. He also assisted on fellow sophomore Teal Bunbury‘s opening goal in the 31st minute, his team-leading 11th goal of the year. Michael Nanchoff added his fifth goal of the season in the second half.

“We knew this would be more of an open soccer game and I thought our attacking group was electric today,” said Akron coach Caleb Porter. “We still can learn some lessons from this game even with such a lopsided result. The nice thing is this team continues to elevate their performance in relation to their potential and because of that they are growing while winning.”

Tuesday Results

* TOP 25 ACTION. Eight other Top 25 teams were in action on Tuesday, and seven were victorious …

— Senior Zack Schilawski scored a pair of goals to lead No. 3 Wake Forest to a 3-0 victory at South Carolina. The Deacons ran their road record to a perfect 7-0 on the year.

— Jason Herrick continued his  hot streak with two goals in No. 5 Maryland’s 3-1 win over Seton Hall. He opened the scoring in the 32nd minute with his third straight game-winner.

— Stephane Diop and Max Wasserman scored their first collegiate goals as No. 6 Connecticut defeated Yale, 2-0 for its eighth consecutive shutout.

— No. 8 Harvard prevailed at Providence, 2-1, on a penalty kick by star Andre Akpan with 14 seconds left in regulation that capped a wild ending. Desmond Mitchell put the Crimson ahead in the 88th minute, Marc Cintron equalized for the Friars with only 27 seconds remaining in regulation. Just 13 seconds later, Harvard was awarded a penalty kick, and Akpan scored his team-best ninth goal of the year.

— Junior Matt Eliason scored his Big Ten-leading 11th goal in the 84th minute to give No. 12 Northwestern a 1-0 win over Loyola (Ill.).

— No. 12 Virginia shut out Howard, 2-0, on goals by Will Bates and Tony Tchani to improve its non-conference record to 7-0-1.

— No. 24 Brown had to settle for a 1-1 tie with St. John’s, the Red Storm’s eighth tie in 14 games.

— Ryan Finley, Cole Grossman and Christopher Tweed-Kent each scored in No. 24 Duke’s 3-0 win over Navy that gave Coach John Kerr his 100th career victory.

MEN’S NEWS … After a slow start, UIC is coming on. The Flames won back-to-back 1-0 games against ranked Ohio State and Horizon League rival Wisconsin-Milwaukee to improve to 5-4-4. Both goals came off corner kicks by Mike Giffin. “We’re battling things this year,” said UIC coach John Trask. “That’s who we are right now.”

The win over Ohio State was remarkable given the long list of absentees. Starters Robert Younger, Ian Sarachan, Matt Spiess and Ivan Stanisavljevic were out with injuries and Charlie Trout was suspended for the game. On top of that, center back Zach Tierney was injured in the first half and had to leave the game. Ohio State’s Joshua Breto was red carded for his foul on Tierney, a transfer from New Mexico.

The Flames are one of four teams in the top 12 in Soccer America’s preseason rankings who are not in this week’s Top 25. The others are St. John’s, Creighton and Notre Dame.

* MEN’S TOP 25 SCHEDULE:
Tuesday, Oct. 20
Michigan vs. No. 1 Akron
South Carolina vs. No. 3 Wake Forest
No. 5 Maryland vs. Seton Hall
Yale vs. No. 6 Connecticut
Providence vs. No. 9 Harvard
No. 12 Northwestern vs. Loyola (Ill.)
No. 15 Virginia vs. Howard
St. John’s vs. No. 22 Brown
No. 24 Duke vs. Navy

* SPARTANS END SKID. UNC Greensboro’s 3-1 over Gardner-Webb on Saturday ended the Spartans’ three-game losing streak and marked the return of long-time coach Michael Parker, who had been suspended from coaching at UNCG’s previous game, a 3-0 loss to Duke. Assistant coach Justin Maullin ran the team in Parker’s absence. Witnesses say that Parker launched a verbal assault at players and a coach at UNCG’s Southern Conference game against College of Charleston.

* LEADING SCORERS:
1. Andrew Bulls, UMBC 15
2. Matthew Skonicki, Winthrop 11
3. Issa Tall, Adelphi 11
4. JC Banks, Green Bay 11
5. Saeed Sulemana Baba, Western Mich. 10
5. Teal Bunbury, Akron 10
5. Matt Eliason, Northwestern 10
5. Levi Houapeu, UMBC 10
5. Andrew Wiedeman, California 10
5. Conor O’Brien, Bucknell 10
(Statistics through games played Oct. 18.)

Men’s Player of the Week: Austin da Luz (Wake Forest)
Team of the Week

MEN’S NEWS … No. 1 Stanford had a little luck in its 2-0 win over No. 4 UCLA in their much-anticipated Pac-10 matchup that drew an overflow crowd of 2,400 at Cagan Stadium on Sunday afternoon, but Coach Paul Ratcliffe insisted the Cardinal had created its own luck.

As it has done all season, Stanford had a big edge in the play but couldn’t score on the Bruins until well into the second half. Until then, the best chance fell to UCLA’s Olympic gold-medalist, Lauren Cheney, who hit the post. When the Cardinal’s first goal came, it was an own goal — scored when a clearance deflected crazily over goalkeeper Chante’ Sandiford and into the goal.

“You need a little bit of luck in soccer, and if you’re doing the right things, you create your own luck,” Ratcliffe said. “We created our own luck there. We put them in an awkward situation, putting them under pressure, and it ended up deflecting into their own goal.”

The second Stanford goal came less than two minutes later when Camille Levin, who was inserted at forward for the first time this season, headed in a cross to the far post from New Zealand international Ali Riley. “Cami had done very well in that spot, so I thought it would be a good element to throw out there,” Ratcliffe said. “I thought Cami was fantastic. She was a huge spark off the bench. She’s a player who should be starting. She’s that good.”

* GAME OF THE WEEK:
Oct. 18 in Palo Alto, Calif.
Stanford 2 UCLA 0. Goals: own goal 72, Levin (A.Riley) 73.
Stanford — Maker, Quon, A.Riley, Jenkins, Garciamendez, Noyola, Taylor, Nogueira, McCann, Press, O’Hara. Subs: Levin, Verloo, Heath.
UCLA — Sandiford, Cook, Belcher, Wilmoth, Barnes, Bywaters, Cline, Wright, Larsen, Cheney, Leroux. Subs: Williams, Smith, Metz, Zadro, Lee, Bearde.
Referee: Cory Dean.
Att.: 2,400.

This week’s Top 25

* HAGEN CARRIES MILWAUKEE. Wisconsin-Milwaukee clinched its 10th straight Horizon League regular season championship Sunday when it beat Wright State, 1-0, on a goal by Sarah Hagen, who set a school record with at least one goal in nine straight games.

Things didn’t look so great for Milwaukee earlier this season. The Panthers had gone winless with five losses and a tie in their final six non-conference games. Since then, Hagen has carried them with 15 goals in seven games, at conference wins. The sophomore sensation has 19 goals for the season, only five less than the conference-record 24 goals she scored as a freshman.

“It was a huge win for us,” UWM coach Michael Moynihan said. “We had a lot on the line today. If Wright State could have come in here and knocked us off, they would have most likely been hosting the conference tournament. It was important for us to play it here.”

WOMEN’S NEWS … No. 1 Stanford earned its first win over No. 4 UCLA since 2002 with a 2-0 victory Sunday before an overflow crowd of 2,400 at Cagan Stadium. The Bruins were riding a 22-game Pac-10 winning streak heading into the contest.

For only the second time in 14 games, high-scoring forwards Kelley O’Hara (18 goals) or Christen Press (14) didn’t score for the Cardinal, who won on an own goal and goal by sub Cam Levin 116 seconds apart in the second half.

The Stanford defense, anchored by freshman Alina Garciamendez and senior Alicia Jenkins in the middle, did an outstanding job against UCLA, which had won 12 straight games.

— In another Top 25 matchup of Pac-10 teams, No. 9 USC beat No. 17 California, 3-2, on Alyssa Davila‘s golden goal.

* TOP 25 UPSETS. Three Top 25 teams fell to unranked teams on Sunday:

— Freshman sensation Morgan Marlborough scored her 20th and 21st goals of the season to lead Nebraska to a 2-1 win over No. 16 Texas A&M.

— No. 18 Michigan State lost at Wisconsin, 1-0, on Alycia Herczeg’s early penalty kick.

—  A header by sophomore Tahnai Annis was all Florida needed to beat No. 24 Georgia, 1-0, in front of a season-high crowd of 2,023 in Athens.

(Click here for more weekend women’s results.)

* TOP 25 RESULTS:
Sunday, Oct. 18
Pac-10: No. 1 Stanford 2 (own goal 72, Levin 73) No. 4 UCLA 0.
(Game draws an overflow crowd of 2,400.)
WCC: Loyola Marymount 0 No. 2 Portland 4 (Enyeart 26, Chandhoke 39, Schmidt 46, Winters 65).
(Michelle Enyeart has three assists to go along with goal.)
SEC: Tennessee 1 (Imgram 70) No. 5 South Carolina 2 (Grimsley 33, Small 56).
(Game draws a season-high 1,332 fans at the Regal Stadium.)
Big East: No. 8 Notre Dame 2 (Knaack 17, Clark 27) Providence 0.
Pac-10: No. 17 California 2 (White 74, Morgan 78) No. 9 USC 3 (Freyer 19, Davila 31, 93) (OT).
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ACC: No. 10 Maryland 3 (Grove 81, Dreska 88, own goal 96) N.C. State 2 (Parrilla 26, Blosser 35).
ACC: No. 11 Virginia Tech 0 No. 7 Boston College 1 (G.DiMartino 9).
ACC: No. 13 Wake Forest 2 (Harrington 47, Logue 53) Miami (Fla.) 0.
Conference USA: Houston 1 (Vela 85) No. 14 UCF 2 (Thomas pen. 75, pen. 86).
Big 12: Nebraska 2 (Marlborough 20, 82) No. 16 Texas A&M 1 (Shipley pen. 68).
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Big Ten: Northwestern 1 (Herczeg pen. 21) No. 18 Michigan State 0.
SEC: No. 20 LSU 4 (Yepes 11, Boudreau 12, Banks 22, Alexander 44) Mississippi State 0.
SEC: Arkansas 0 No. 21 Mississippi 1 (Weatherly 91) (OT).
Big East: Louisville 0 No. 22 Marquette 2 (Bares 30, 31).
Big Ten: Minnesota 0 No. 23 Ohio State 1 (Martin 46).
WCC: San Francisco 2 (Mazur 43, Drake 51) No. 25 San Diego 3 (Vinti 36, Mock 61, Cartan 86).
SEC: No. 24 Georgia 0 Florida 1 (Annis 85).
(The game draws a season-high 2,023 fans in Athens.)
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Saturday, Oct. 17
ACC: No. 3 North Carolina 2 (Rich  51, Hawkins pen. 89) Virginia 1 (Farrelly 62).
Mountain West: No. 12 BYU 2 (Anderson 11, Payne 58) TCU 0.
(Cougars extend unbeaten streak to 11 games.)
Big East: No. 19 Rutgers 1 (Lang 6) No. 18 St. John’s 0.