Category: College Soccer Reporter

[SOCCER AMERICA AWARDS] In his sixth season at Stanford, Coach Paul Ratcliffe has built the Cardinal program into one of the best in the country. Its 2008 performance earned him Soccer America Women’s Coach of the Year honors.

[SOCCER AMERICA AWARDS] Stanford forward Lindsay Taylor, who tied for the team lead with 16 goals for the NCAA Division I semifinalist, is the 2008 Soccer America Freshman of the Year. For the 2008 Soccer America All-Freshman teams …

Five teams — Lewis, Metro State, Rockhurst, Sonoma State and Tusculum — each had three players named to the 2008 NSCAA/adidas Division II Men’s All-America Team. For all the selections …

Tyrone Petrakis of Trinity (Texas) and York’s Jon Ports each earned their third selection as an NSCAA/adidas Division III Men’s All-America. Three other Trinity players and two other York players were also honored. For all the selections …

Azusa Pacific (Jared Karkas, Eric Winblad and James Crawford) and Lindsey Wilson (Moses Aduny, Mikael Lunneryd and Frederick Were) led all teams with three selections each on the NSCAA/adidas NAIA Men’s All-America Team. For all the NAIA men’s selections …

With three out of the four finalists, the odds were that an ACC team would win the 2008 Men’s College Cup. Most figured it would be Wake Forest, the defending national champion and No. 1 seed. But the more logical choice should have been the ACC champion, Maryland. Two days after the Demon Deacons were upset by North Carolina, 1-0, Maryland beat the Tar Heels by the same score to finish the year with both the NCAA and ACC titles and 18 wins in a row.

Seniors Sam Cronin and Marcus Tracy of NCAA Division I semifinalist Wake Forest and Akron’s Steve Zakuani, the nation’s leading scorer, are the three finalists for the 2008 Missouri Athletic Club’s Hermann Trophy.

Casey Nogueira, who led North Carolina to the 2008 NCAA Division I women’s title, Kerri Hanks, a four-time All-America, and Christina DiMartino, the Pac-10 Player of the Year, are the finalists for the 2008 Missouri Athletic Club Hermann Trophy.

Wake Forest placed five players on the 2008 NSCAA/adidas Men’s Division I All-America Team, including three first-team selections — sophomore Corben Bone and seniors Sam Cronin and forward Marcus Tracy. Six other schools placed two players on the team: Akron, Creighton, Harvard, UIC, Loyola (Md.) and UC Davis. For all the selections …

Wake Forest and North Carolina are located only 85 miles apart, but the schools will be meeting Friday 1,100 miles away in Frisco, Texas, in the semifinals of the Men’s College Cup (TV: ESPN2, live, 5:30 pm ET). The Tar Heels lead the all-time series 19-10-7, but the Demon Deacons have enjoyed recent success, winning the last three meetings, most recently, 4-2, at Chapel Hill this fall in one of their most impressive performances of the season.

Maryland coach Sasho Cirovski says the 2008 Men’s College Cup has the potential to be one of the best ever.  The four participants — Maryland, St. John’s, North Carolina and Wake Forest — have all won national titles in the last 12 years. Maryland takes a 14-game winning streak into its game against St. John’s (TV: ESPNU, live, 8 pm ET; ESPN2, Saturday, 11 am ET).

Akron’s Caleb Porter, one of the most-sought after coaches in college soccer, has been awarded his second new contract in less than a year. The new contract for the 2007 and 2008 Mid-American Coach of the Year is a five-year deal.

All the 2008 men’s all-conference teams and individual conference awards have been released. The Men’s College Cup will feature ACC Defensive Player of the Year Ike Opara (Wake Forest), Big East Defensive Player of the Year Joel Gustafsson (St. John’s) and Big East Midfielder of the Year Nelson Becerra (St. John’s). For all the conference awards (ACC to MAAC) …

The rest of the the 2008 men’s all-conference teams and individual conference awards from the Mid-American to WCC …

Five seniors on defending national champion Wake Forest — Lyle Adams, Evan Brown, Sam Cronin, Michael Lahoud and Marcus Tracy — head the initial list of 65 college seniors from 45 Division I schools who have been invited to participate in the 2009 adidas MLS Player Combine. The annual player combine will be held at Lockhart Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Jan. 9-13, 2009. The 2009 MLS SuperDraft will take place Jan. 15 at the NSCAA Convention in St. Louis.

Top-ranked Wake Forest led all teams with five players named first-team all-regional selections. California, Loyola (Md.), Monmouth, Oakland, Tulsa and Winthrop all had three first-team picks. For all the NSCAA/adidas NCAA Division I men’s regional teams …

Transfers play an increasingly important role at major college programs, in particular as they seek to fill gaps left by the early departure of stars to the pro ranks. St. John’s, Maryland and North Carolina, which aim to dethrone Wake Forest at this weekend’s Men’s College Cup at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas, all have transfers in prominent roles.

For the first time, three teams from the same conference are playing in the Men’s College Cup. Defending national champion Wake Forest is joined by ACC champion Maryland and North Carolina — tied for seventh place in the regular season — at this year’s final four in Frisco, Texas. At least two ACC teams have been in the final four since 2004, and you have to go back to 2000 when there was no ACC team in the final four.

Cerritos College, best known as Marcelo Balboa‘s alma mater, became the first team in more than a decade to sweep the California Community College Athletic Association men’s and women’s soccer championships with wins at the final fours held in Santa Clarita.

Of all the accomplishments defending champion Wake Forest has achieved this season — No. 1 ranking, top seed and the nation’s top offense — perhaps none is as remarkable as the fact that Jay Vidovich has six seniors projected to start in their third straight final four. Sophomores Ike Opara and Corben Bone may be Wake’s top pro prospects and junior Cody Arnoux is its leading scorer, but the heart of the team is the six seniors — defenders Lyle Adams and Evan Brown, midfielders Sam Cronin, Jamie Franks and Michael Lahoud and striker Marcus Tracy — who all started at College Cup ’06 and College Cup ’07 and are projected to start in Friday’s semifinal against North Carolina (TV, ESPN2, live, 5:30 pm ET).

With three assists in the 5-0 win over South Florida, Wake Forest’s Cody Arnoux moved into second place behind Akron’s Steve Zakuani in the race for the national scoring title. Arnoux, who trails Zakuani by five points, and Marcus Tracy are the only players among the top 10 leaders in points competing in the Men’s College Cup.  For all the NCAA Division I leaders …

With her two goals in the Women’s College Cup final, North Carolina’s Casey Nogueira won the NCAA Division I women’s title for points (58) and goals (25). For all the NCAA Division I leaders …

No player helped his stock more in his senior year than UC Davis forward Quincy Amarikwa. The Aggie star out of Bakersfield, Calif., finished with 15 goals, including a stunning bicycle kick against UC Santa Barbara that is surely the College Goal of the Year.

Jeff Gettler, the winningest coach in Richmond men’s soccer history, has resigned, ending his 14-year tenure with the Spiders.

It’s fitting that the Men’s College Cup will be played at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas. Dallas soccer has had a big impact on the college game. All four Men’s College Cup teams have key players who hail from the Dallas soccer community. Two played for the Texans — St. John’s Ale Ivo and Maryland’s Omar Gonzalez — and two played for Solar — Wake Forest’s Corben Bone and North Carolina’s Cameron Brown. They’ll each square off in Friday’s semifinals.