Author Archives: Paul Kennedy

Unbeaten UIC drew a record crowd of 2,438 for its 0-0 tie with last year’s Men’s College Cup runner-up Ohio State. The only Top 25 team to fall was Connecticut, which lost for third time in four games when it dropped a 1-0 decision at Providence. For all the Top 25 news ….

Top-ranked Wake Forest remained one of five unbeaten teams when it knocked off Massachusetts, 2-0, in a battle of 2007 Men’s College Cup teams on Tuesday night. Nine Top 25 teams were in action. No. 12 Maryland beat No. 20 Charlotte, 2-1, in overtime. The only other Top 25 team to fall was South Florida, a 1-0 loser at DePaul. For all the Top 25 news ….

At 8-3-1 and 2-0-1 in the Atlantic-10, Dayton is off to a great start. What makes the Flyers’ start so special is that four starters have come back from knee injuries.

Voting for the NCAA Men’s Soccer 50th Anniversary Team has begun. Fans will have the chance to select the 11 best players and one coach throughout the last 50 years of the championship.

Many of the top young players in women’s soccer will be unavailable the weekend of Oct. 23-25 as the U.S. under-20 national team faces its Canadian counterpart in a pair of games following a short camp at the Home Depot Center.

Top-ranked Wake Forest extended its winning streak to 15 games with an 8-2 victory over visiting Virginia Tech before 3,246 fans on Friday. ALSO: Michael Brooks put on one of the season’s great individual performances in Clemson’s 5-3 win over Maryland. Virginia’s streak continued with another ACC win.

Santa Clara, one of the great names in women’s soccer, suffered two more losses — 5-0 to Stanford and 2-0 to Arizona  — in its final two non-conference games of the season and fell to 3-7-2. ALSO: The weekend hat trick stars.

No. 6 UIC improved to 8-0-2 with a 1-0 victory over over Marquette at Valley Fields on Thursday night. ALSO: Connecticut will be collecting soccer balls for those attending Friday’s sold-out game against West Virginia as part of its support for an organization started in memory of Nick Madaras that collects soccer balls to send to children in Iraq.

U.S. Olympic gold-medalist Amy Rodriguez scored the first hat trick of her collegiate career when she scored three goals in No. 5 USC’s 7-0 win over Cal State Bakersfield on Thursday. ALSO: North Carolina, Virginia, Florida State and Boston College were Top 25 teams to win ACC games.

Michigan again showed why it is one of the most dangerous teams in the country as the unranked Wolverines defeated No. 14 Notre Dame, 3-1, Wednesday afternoon in a game played at Eastern Michigan University’s Scicluna Field. ALSO: Wins for Wake Forest, Creighton, Ohio State and Loyola (Md.) and ties in a pair of major West Coast showdowns.

With 12 goals in 11 games, freshman Laura Heyboer has been a big reason why Michigan State is 10-1-0 and ranked No. 20 in the country.

No. 3 Saint Louis and No. 10 Northwestern battled to a 0-0 tie in the marque match of a busy Tuesday night of men’s college action. ALSO: Freshmen gave Maryland and North Carolina narrow wins. Indiana downed Evansville in thriller. Drake gave up as many goals it had done in its first eight games.

After three consecutive losing seasons. Coach Lesle Gallimore has Washington back on the right track. The Huskies are 9-1-0 and hit the charts this week at No. 23 — their first ranking in the Soccer America Women’s Top 25 since 2004 when they reached the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament. UW begins a brutal stretch when it faces teams ranked No. 4, No. 5, No. 3 and No. 2 in its next four games.

It will be a big week in the Big West, which had three teams — No. 16 UC Santa Barbara (5-3-0), No. 20 UC Davis (8-1-0) and No. 25 UC Irvine (7-0-2) — move into the Soccer America Men’s Top 25. UC Irvine hosts UCD on Wednesday and UCSB on Saturday.

Nebraska, a national power for more than a decade, is making a spectacular comeback after enduring a 5-10-4 season in 2007 and opening the 2008 campaign with four losses. The Cornhuskers are undefeated in their last seven games after opening the Big 12 play last weekend with a 2-1 win over Kansas and 3-2 win over Missouri — both overtime victories achieved after they rallied to equalize late in regulation.

Last year, Wake Forest opened the season with s school record seven straight wins en route to its first national title. This year, the Demon Deacons are 8-0-0 after beating Maryland, 4-2, Friday night. ALSO: Louisville ends Notre Dame streak, Tulsa crushes SMU, UCSB recovers, and Sacred Heart pulls upset.

Top-ranked Notre Dame is the only remaining unbeaten and untied team in the NCAA Division I women’s ranks after its 6-0 win over Cincinnati. LSU fell at Mississippi, 1-0, while Oklahoma State tied Colorado, 1-1, in Boulder in other Sunday action.

Freshman phenom Chris Agorsor’s first season at Virginia has ended after six games. Agorsor, the 2008 U.S. Soccer Development Academy U/17-18 Player of the Year, has likely torn both his anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments in his left knee.

No. 2 UCLA was held to a 0-0 tie by unranked Santa Clara on Thursday evening at Buck Shaw Stadium. ALSO: ACC upset, Tobin Heath hat trick and the rest of the Top 25 action.

Freshman Luke Norman‘s goal in the 23rd minute was the only goal No. 1 Wake Forest scored on Wednesday night, but it was good enough for a 1-0 victory over Appalachian State at Spry Stadium.