Author Archives: Paul Kennedy

There are three weekends left in the men’s season before the NCAA Tournament bids are announced. Here’s a look at the winners and losers and comebacks and setbacks so far …

As evidenced by Thursday’s thriller at Fetzer Field, North Carolina and Florida State have developed one of the nation’s top rivalries. The 2-2 tie, which ended UNC’s 11-match winning streak, marked the fourth time in the last six meetings that the Tar Heels and the Seminoles have gone to overtime.

The NCAA released its second RPI index this week, ranking the NCAA Division I men’s programs from 1-203 through games played Oct. 26. In a surprise, Indiana, not top-ranked and undefeated Wake Forest, is No. 1. St. John’s is No. 2 ahead of the defending champion Demon Deacons. In a season during which every Division I team already has at least one win, USC Upstate is last at No. 203. The RPI rankings provide us with an opportunity to see how the tournament field might shake out if the regular season had ended last weekend.

Indiana senior Kevin Noschang set an new NCAA record when he scored just six seconds into the match with Kentucky, but the Wildcats came back to earn a 1-1 tie in Bloomington. In other action on Wednesday, No. 2 Akron’s 10-game winning streak came to an end when it was held to a 1-1 tie at Penn State.

Two weeks ago, defending champion Penn and Princeton appeared to be the favorites to compete for the Ivy League women’s championship, but Harvard’s young team has shaken up the race. With two games left to play, the Crimson have a two-point lead over Princeton and Columbia, while Penn and Yale are longshots. For a look at the Ivy contenders …

Surging Campbell won its ninth straight game when it beat No. 7 North Carolina, 2-0. No. 12 South Florida also lost on the road, falling at Cincinnati, 1-0. No. 5 Northwestern recovered from its first defeat of the loss with a 1-0 victory at Loyola (Ill.). For all of the Tuesday action …

Stanford is No. 2 in the Soccer America Women’s Top 25 heading into its showdown against No. 3 UCLA on Friday. In a year for high-quality freshmen, the Cardinal (16-0-1) has been blessed with three sensational first-year players — Californians Teresa Noyola, Lindsay Taylor and Camille Levin — who have combined for 26 goals and 15 assists in 17 games. Even more important, their skills complement each other — which should make Stanford a national contender for the next four seasons.

There’s two ways to look at Monday’s announcement of the 20 players on the U.S. roster for next month’s Under-20 Women’s World Cup — which will rule them out of the NCAA Tournament. There’s the teams adversely affected by those players who will be going to Chile and those teams whose under-20 stars were not picked.

Loyola is located in Baltimore, one of the nation’s oldest soccer hotbeds, but the Greyhounds have been led in their unbeaten campaign by a trio of imports — Serbian keeper Milos Kocic and English strikers Phil Bannister and Jamie Darvill.

Women’s weekend play featured four big conference matchups involving Top 25 teams, and the visiting teams won all four games: UCLA over USC (Pac-10), North Carolina over Virginia (ACC), Florida over LSU (SEC) and Texas A&M over Colorado (Big 12). For a look at all the action …

On Senior Night, No. 1 Wake Forest’s seniors came through as Sam Cronin, Jamie Franks and Marcus Tracy all scored in the 5-2 win over Boston College. Akron clinched its fourth consecutive Mid-American regular-season championship with a 2-0 win over Western Michigan. Winners of Top 25 clashes were Michigan (over previously unbeaten Northwestern) and Connecticut (playing without stars O’Brian White and Akeem Priestley) over Notre Dame. North Carolina and Virginia both were upset in ACC matches.

Florida claimed the SEC regular-season title with a 3-0 win over Arkansas Thursday evening in front of a James G. Pressly Stadium crowd of 1,893. Florida State won its seventh straight game with a 4-0 win over Clemson in ACC action. In the America East, red-hot Boston University wrapped up the regular-season crown.

Virginia had three players and Indiana and UCLA had players named to the NCAA Men’s Soccer 50th Anniversary Team.

Campbell extended its winning streak to seven games — all in Atlantic Sun play — with a 3-0 win over Thursday at USC Upstate.

No. 3 Akron won its ninth straight game when the Zips edged No. 14 Michigan, 1-0. No. 18 Indiana continued its rebound with a win by the same score over No. 13 Louisville. For all the Wednesday action …

After a slow start, Penn State is on course for its 11th straight Big Ten regular-season title. With tough games at Illinois and Purdue this weekend, the Nittany Lions will be challenged, however.

The hottest striker in NCAA Division I men’s soccer is Zambian Samson Malijani, who has scored in eight straight games for Fairleigh Dickinson.

Texas A&M’s back-to-back losses to Kansas (1-0 away) and Missouri (3-0 at home) last weekend threw the Big 12 regular-season race wide open. With two weeks left in the regular season, Colorado leads the Big 12 and could wrap up a share of the title with a win over second-place Texas A&M in its final regular-season game on Sunday in Boulder. If the Buffs falter, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Nebraska or Texas could pass them.