Category: Story

WOMEN’S NEWS … North Carolina, third in this week’s Soccer America Women’s Top 25 following Sunday’s 1-0 loss at Virginia Tech, and top-ranked Stanford, are 1-2 in the first NCAA Women’s Division I RPI index the NCAA released this fall.

(Click here for the complete women’s RPI.)

The RPI — Ratings Percentage Index — is the most important of the criteria it uses to determine the 64-team field for the NCAA Division I Women’s Tournament. The RPI is a mathematical formula designed to objectively compare results and strength of schedule.

The ACC leads all conferences with four teams in the RPI top 10 — Carolina, No. 3 Florida State, No. 7 Virginia Tech and No. 9 Boston College — and the Pac-10 leads with seven teams in the RPI top 25. The surprise is UCF at No. 5.

* Women’s RPI (Top 25)
1. North Carolina
2. Stanford
3. Florida State
4. Portland
5. UCF
6. South Carolina
7. Virginia Tech
8. UCLA
9. Boston College
10. Arizona State
11. Connecticut
12. Georgia
13. Santa Clara
14. LSU
15. Texas A&M
16. Wake Forest
17. USC
18. Oregon
19. Florida
20. Maryland
21. Oregon State
22. Washington State
23. Notre Dame
24. Penn State
25. UAB
(Rankings as of Oct. 4.)

* TAYLOR REGAINS FORM. One of the key factors in No. 1 Stanford’s 6-2 demolition of Santa Clara on the road Thursday was the play of sophomore Lindsay Taylor. The 2008 Soccer America Freshman of the Year has been slowed by a virus, but she showed against the Broncos she is regaining her form, providing two killer passes for the third and fourth goals scored by Teresa Noyola and Kelley O’Hara. “Every day that I’m getting in practice, I feel like I’m getting better during the games,” Taylor said afterwards. “Every day my fitness is getting back up.”

Women’s Player of the Week: Nikki Marshall (Colorado)
Women’s Team of the Week

* LOWE’S SENIOR CLASS FINALISTS:
Elizabeth Betterbed, Army
Kelsey Davis, Portland
Kristi Eveland, North Carolina
Theresa Ferraina, Loyola (Md.)
Lauren Lopez, UNC Greensboro
Blakely Mattern, South Carolina
Lizzy Nichols, Harvard
Kelley O’Hara, Stanford
Emily Peterson, Texas A&M
Myra Sack, Dartmouth
(Vote here.)

* HEATH GETS CALL-UP. For the second time this fall, North Carolina will be without senior Tobin Heath, The Olympic gold-medalist will join the U.S. women’s national team for its friendly against Germany Oct. 29 in Augsburg. The match will come on the tail end of an eight-day training camp in Germany. Heath, Carolina keeper Ashlyn Harris and UCLA’s Lauren Cheney recently attended the women’s camp at the Home Depot Center.

* MONDAY’S RESULTS:
Atlantic Sun
Stetson 1 Florida Gulf Coast 2

Big South
High Point 1 College of Charleston 2
Liberty 3 Coastal Carolina 0

Non-Conference
Lehigh 1 Columbia 1
(Ashlin Yahr earns visiting Lions tie with her team-best sixth goal of season.)
Princeton 1 American 0
Yale 3 Central Conn. State 2
(Becky Brown leads Yale with two goals.)

MEN’S NEWS … Four more teams made their 2009 debut in the Soccer America Men’s Top 25. They all parlayed big wins on the road into spots in this week’s rankings:

PENN STATE. The Nittany Lions (7-3-0) remained perfect in the Big Ten with a 1-0 win at Michigan State on Sunday. They will be tested in the next month with conference games against No. 12 Northwestern and No. 15 Indiana and a non-conference match at No. 1 Akron.

UAB. The Blazers (7-2-1) extended their unbeaten streak to six games with a 1-0 win at ranked Kentucky on Sunday. A blast from 25 yards by South African midfielder Two-Boys Gumede was the difference. Two future Conference-USA opponents — South Carolina and Tulsa — have been in the Top 25 earlier this season.

CHARLOTTE. The 49ers (6-1-2) ended Wake Forest’s 46-match unbeaten streak against non-conference opponents when they shocked the Demon Deacons, 3-1, in Winston-Salem. Charlotte opens its Atlantic-10 season this weekend when it hosts George Washington and Richmond.

WEST VIRGINIA. The Mountaineers (5-2-2) won their fourth straight game with a 1-0 win over Marquette. They are tied for first place with Connecticut in the Big East’s Blue Division heading into Friday’s “Dollar Night” doubleheader with the Huskies. The men’s game will be featured on Fox Soccer Channel (live, 8 pm ET).

They upped the number of teams to have made at least one appearance in the Top 25 to 50. Only 12 teams have been in the Top 25 every week since the release of the preseason rankings in August:

* EVER-PRESENT DOZEN:
TEAM (RECORD) LAST WEEK:
1. Akron (9-0-0) 1
2. UCLA (6-1-1) 2
3. North Carolina (7-1-1) 5
4. California (7-2-0) 6
5. South Florida (7-1-1) 7
7. Wake Forest (6-2-1) 4
9. UC Santa Barbara (7-2-1) 12
10. Maryland (5-3-1) 3
11. Louisville (6-1-2) 20
12. Northwestern (5-1-3) 21
15. Indiana (5-3-1) 10
17. Boston University (7-2-2) 19

Men’s Player of the Week: Kyle Nakazawa (UCLA)
Men’s Team of the Week

* LOWE’S SENIOR CLASS FINALISTS:
Zak Boggs, South Florida
Ronnie Bouemboue, N.C. State
Richard Edgar, George Mason
Rylan Hawkins, Washington
Tennant McVea, Loyola (Md.)
Patrick Sampson, Loyola Marymount
Zack Schilawski, Wake Forest
Eric Weigman, IUPUI
Jason Yeisley, Penn State
Ben Zemanski, Akron
(Vote here.)

MEN’S NEWS … Kyle Nakazawa is making an early case for Player of the Year honors with a torrid run for UCLA, which is again No. 2 in this week’s Soccer America Men’s Top 25. Once again this season, “Bend it like Naka” has been the refrain for Bruin fans.

The senior midfielder matched his previous season high with his seventh goal of the season — all in the last six games — on a free kick in the Bruins’ 1-1 tie at Washington on Sunday afternoon.

Once considered one of the most promising players in the U.S. national youth team system, Nakazawa is coming off a back injury that limited him to eight starts in 2008.

Nakazawa, who had trained at Dutch club Ajax in 2001, first made a name for himself at the 2005 Under-17 World Cup, where he scored two goals to lead the USA to first place in its group, but he chose to attend UCLA instead of pursuing professional opportunities.

Free kicks have been Nakazawa’s specialty. Both goals at the Under-17 World Cup — against North Korea and Italy — were on free kicks. He scored on a free kick to give UCLA a 1-0 win over New Mexico in the 2007 NCAA Tournament. And he scored on free kicks against both Oregon State and Washington on last weekend’s trip to the Pacific Northwest.

* NAKAZAWA STREAK:
Sept. 10, UC Davis (4-0), goal
Sept. 17, Cal State Fullerton (2-1), assist
Sept. 25, San Diego (2-1), goal on penalty kick and assist
Sept. 27, UNLV (3-0) two goals
Oct. 2, Oregon State (3-1) two goals, one on free kick, and assist
Oct. 4, Washington (1-1) goal on free kick

Weekend Results

* GAME OF THE WEEKEND:
(Tommy Appel-Schumacher‘s goal for Towson from 45 yards just 95 seconds into the game set the tone for a wild match on Alumni Day.)
Oct. 3 in Philadelphia
Drexel 6 Towson 5 (OT). Goals: Assumpcao pen. 19, Goldberg (Assumpcao) 21, Assumpcao (Baker), 74, Baker 77, Goldberg 87, Page 106; Appel-Schumacher 2, Maloney 33, N. Bermudez Roa 66, Cabrales 69, Mangione 83.
Drexel — Washam, Miller, Ermold, Rohlfsen, LeBourne, Assumpcao, Baker, Page, Goldberg, Johnson, Crose. Subs: Vignola, Sales, Olson, Crockett, Volpatti.
Towson — Steele, Greatwich, Spivey, Horta, Hurkamp, Zecha, Mangione, O’Rourke, LeVine, Appel-Schumacher, Maloney. Subs: Nzokou, J. Bermudez-Roa, N. Bermudez-Roa, Froedert, Cabrales.
Referee: Hossam Saad.
Att.: 465.

WOMEN’S NEWS … Virginia Tech’s 1-0 win over defending national champion North Carolina is certainly the biggest upset of the year, but it wasn’t a fluke.

Four days earlier, the Hokies had beaten No. 23 Virginia, 2-1, in Charlottesville, and their win over UNC put them into the lead in the ACC with a 4-0-0 record. It also earned them a No. 6 ranking in this week’s Soccer America Women’s Top 25.

Tech gave Carolina a scare just 46 seconds into the game when Emily Jukich scored on a bicycle kick, but the goal was called off for offside. The winning goal in the 54th minute wasn’t as pretty. Carolina keeper Ashlyn Harris was involved in a collision coming out to grab a ball, and forward Julian Johnson flicked it Hokie teammate Marika Gray, who scored into the wide-open goal.

Last year, the Hokies overcame the loss of Gray, their leading scorer, with a knee injury to make the 2008 ACC championship game — where they lost to Carolina — and earn a berth in the NCAA Tournament.

For Carolina, Sunday’s loss marked only its eighth loss in 204 ACC games. Only once in 23 years of ACC play have the Heels ever lost more than one game — they lost three times in 2000 and went on to win the national championship — and they have never lost in 57 ACC tournament games — twice they fell in the final on penalty kicks.

* UNC’S ACC LOSSES.
2009 Virginia Tech 0-1
2007 Miami (Fla.) 0-1
2005 Duke 1-2
2002 N.C. State 1-2
2000 Clemson 1-2
2000 Florida State 2-3
2000 Wake Forest 0-1
1994 Duke 2-3

* SEC THRILLER. The other team to debut in this week’s Top 25 is Mississippi (8-3-0), which overcame heavy rain and swirling winds to upset defending SEC champion Florida, 3-2, in overtime Sunday at the Ole Miss Soccer Stadium.

One of the shortest players on the field, 5-foot-1 sophomore Abbie Curran, came up with the game’s big play, heading in Danielle Johnson‘s free kick into the Florida goal to break a 2-2 tie. “When I saw Dee taking it, I had an open spot in front of me,” Curran said. “I had a good feeling.”

Ole Miss should have put the game away earlier but it hit the woodwork three times, once in the first half and twice in the second period. Despite their domination — and 13-5 shot advantage in the second half — the Rebels needed Kelsey Breathitt‘s goal in the 84th minute to send the game into overtime.

“I’m proud of the way our girls came out here and fought,” Ole Miss coach Steve Holeman said. “We could have beaten them in regulation and we were the better team in the second half. Florida had two good opportunities and they scored on those two chances in the second half. We had five or six very good scoring opportunities, but their keeper [Katie Fraine] is phenomenal. She made some big-time saves. This certainly wasn’t a game that we would have been happy with a tie.”

Weekend Results

* GAME OF THE WEEKEND:
(On Friday, UMBC got its first win in 10 games. Two days later, Vermont came back from 2-0 and 4-3 down to earn its first win in 11 games.)
Oct. 4 in Baltimore
UMBC 5 Vermont 6. Goals: Vacarino (Gazarek) 6, Vacarino 23, Sadowski (Bilardo) 36, Kell (McDonald, Edgar) 51, Purdum (Vacarino, Kell) 90; Bonfigli (Laderoute) 24, Laderoute 26, Herbst (Becker) 27, Laderoute 53, Becker (Laderoute) 67, Herbst (Becker) 68.
UMBC — Van Vlerah, Johnson, Gazarek, Sadowski, McKay, McDonald, Gitlin, Vacarino, Bilardo, McKee, Edgar. Subs: Jackson, Kopytko, Epps, Kell, Purdum.
Vermont — Bradley, Rozumalski, Hassler, Herbst, Andres, Hemphill, Milbank, Deppen, Laderoute, Becker, Bonfigli. Subs: Kelly, McGowan, Miele, Feldman, Eckenstein, Mucia, Gill, Coggins, Kwarta, Davenport.
Referee: Jason Cullum.
Att.: 203.