Men's soccer 2011

agibson · November 08, 2011, 06:29:00 PM

Despite the loss to Green Bay, Valpo remains in the latest regional ranking.

http://www.nscaa.com/rankings/772/NCAADivisionI/men/GreatLakes/Poll11

A couple of weeks ago it was UWGB 9, Wisconsin 10 (UIC receiving votes).

Last week Valpo 9, Wisconsin 10 (UWGB, UIC receiving votes).

Now we've got Wisconsin 8, Valpo 9, UWGB 10, Marquette drops all the way from 8 to "receiving votes" (UIC, Wright State also receiving votes).

Previous Valpo opponents are:

#4 Northwestern (and #25 in nation) who we beat on neutral ground
#5 NIU to whom we lost at their place (receiving one vote in the national poll)
#6 Ohio State who we drew with at our place
and, of course, the Horizon League teams.

Looking forward to Friday!

VUfan · November 08, 2011, 08:02:29 PM

Loyola 1 CSU 0, Valpo gets Loyola Friday, a good draw!

drewsaders11 · November 09, 2011, 10:37:38 PM

A belated congrats to the soccer team. From what I have read over the past couple of months, they really played some good defense over the course of the season. Almost as important, the character of this team is very high. Good luck this weekend!

agibson · November 11, 2011, 11:10:26 AM

Disappointing not to see anything in the local papers today, ahead of the tournament.

Who needs 'em?

Go Valpo! 7 PM! Beat Loyola!

agibson · November 11, 2011, 07:54:14 PM

0-0 at the half. Loyola's looked surprisingly tough. Valpo not at top form tonight? But deserves to win, narrowly, so far.

Cold night at Brown field. Decent crowd, some Loyola, nothing like the Butler game.

agibson · November 11, 2011, 09:13:13 PM

2nd OT. Valpo looking more dangerous than Loyola, but may go to PKs.

agibson · November 11, 2011, 09:28:14 PM

PKs. Zobeck's good, but this is _not_ comfortable.

agibson · November 11, 2011, 09:42:21 PM

Loyola 5-4. In 7 rounds? Not zobecks fault.

Tough end to a fantastic season.

valpotx · November 11, 2011, 10:57:22 PM

A game we should have won, especially with 21 shots to 4! Good season regardless, but one where we should have been in the championship.

agibson · November 12, 2011, 12:19:04 PM

It says something that we exited with a shutout. Reflects the season, in some ways.

I'm far from an authority on soccer. But, it's never been readily apparent how we score goals. We possess the ball a lot, we do put numbers forward. And, sometimes, the ball goes in the back of the net. But, we certainly had no go-to guy. Very few one-on-one goals, very few goals in the run of play. What was it, more than a dozen players with a goal? Looking it up: 14 players sharing 25 goals. Noone with more than 4. Allowing only 14 goals (a Valpo record).

When you make your living winning 1-0 games, sometimes it's going to wind up 0-0 instead. And PK's are noone's idea of comfortable.

21 shots against Loyola, but only 7 on goal. And some of those not very dangerous. We probably did enough that we deserved to win. But, Loyola seemed to be playing above themselves and we... maybe a bit below.

It'll be a different team next year for sure, with the whole back line graduating (both center backs, both fullbacks: the HL defensive player of the year and an all-HL second team player among them). Will be interesting to see if the style of play changes.

It was a heck of a season!

bbtds · November 12, 2011, 01:10:37 PM

They did win Valpo's first Horizon League regular season title and nobody can take that away from them. These seniors can always cherish that huge accomplishment for Valpo. Congratulations guys!

valpotx · November 13, 2011, 04:15:33 PM

Sad day for our conference in that a #6 seed (Loyola) will be representing our conference in the NCAA tournament. It would be nice if only the top 4 seeds made the conference tournament in each sport, as instances like this do not help one bit...

bbtds · November 13, 2011, 08:11:31 PM

Or as in mens basketball should the tournament be seeded with single or double byes given to the 1st and 2nd place teams. That ensures a higher seed (higher than #6 at least) makes the NCAA tourney.

agibson · November 14, 2011, 12:33:43 AM

The thing is, the first and second place teams _did_ get byes. And the #1 seed hosted. And only 6 of 9 teams made the tournament at all. Loyola won their play-in game. Then knocked off the #1 seed at home (even if it took PK's), and then knocked off the #2 seed in OT (and they actually scored a goal this time, in only their second shot-on-goal of the game).

So, the deck was stacked against them. And they still won it all.

Since they lost to us in the regular season, they've won five straight.

Good luck to them, in the NCAA tournament!

valporun · November 14, 2011, 09:56:28 AM

I think someone on the previous board mentioned that he expected the first time this format worked against us, that someone was going to make a stink about it. Sure, Valpo was the #1 seed, and got the bye that went with it, plus the right to host the semis and finals, but we didn't do what was needed to win the game, and that's score goals. If we had scored goals during regulation, then we wouldn't have needed two overtimes and penalty kicks. We just didn't take that momentum of winning the HL regular season, and use it to our advantage in the semis. No need to cry over spilled milk because we didn't do what we needed to do.

valpotx · November 14, 2011, 11:43:46 AM

No one is crying over spilled milk, as I have thought this same thing going back to the Mid-Con days. It's just plain embarrassing to have a team with that seed/record representing your conference in the NCAA tournament. I would be saying the same thing if we were the #6 seed with a 7-11-1 record. Yes, I would be happy to be in the tourney, but would not feel that our conference put forth the best representative to take on better teams.

This even applied to my own sport, in that though it would have been great to be in the NCAA baseball tournament, we were always a #3-#5 seed in the Mid-Con tourney, and if anyone but ORU advanced, it was doing our conference an injustice ($ included).

agibson · November 14, 2011, 06:46:54 PM

It's true that Loyola's in with the worst record in the tournament, and with only one other team (Elon 9-10-2) having a losing record.

Bradley's in as an at-large bid, but not seeded (there are 16 seeded teams, who get first round byes; I assume the rest of the pairings are random). They finished third in the Missouri Valley, and were nationally ranked for much of the season.

Oddly, they already beat Loyola once this year: 2-1. Aren't first round re-matches prohibited in the NCAA basketball tournament?

valporun · November 14, 2011, 08:48:22 PM

Quote from: agibson on November 14, 2011, 06:46:54 PM
It's true that Loyola's in with the worst record in the tournament, and with only one other team (Elon 9-10-2) having a losing record.

Bradley's in as an at-large bid, but not seeded (there are 16 seeded teams, who get first round byes; I assume the rest of the pairings are random). They finished third in the Missouri Valley, and were nationally ranked for much of the season.

Oddly, they already beat Loyola once this year: 2-1. Aren't first round re-matches prohibited in the NCAA basketball tournament?

First round re-matches can happen for two teams that played each other in the non-conference season, just not between two teams in the same conference.

agibson · November 18, 2011, 12:10:53 AM

Loyola falls 2-1, again. I don't see it yet, but I'll be curious to read a game report. Loyola was out shot 20-11. Corner kicks went _10_ to 0. Loyola actually led early, scoring in the 30th minute. They led going into the half. Fouls were 10 to 14, doesn't seem like _too_ many.

But, right _after_ Bradley's first goal a Loyola player gets a yellow card. And another player gets one twenty seconds later. Two more yellows as the game progresses (this is already more than any game Valpo played in this season). And then, with twenty seconds to play, a straight red. And as time expires (or after time?) two more red cards.

Definitely some emotions running hot, I guess. I'll be curious to see if it comes out, what happened.

agibson · November 18, 2011, 12:23:11 AM

Bradley's official report doesn't explain the yellows, but does say this about the finish.

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=25970&SPID=1513&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205335074&DB_OEM_ID=3400

Quote
With Bradley clinging to the 2-1 advantage, the game ended in frenetic fashion. In the game's final minute, Loyola's Justin Koehler took a shot in a crowd that was ultimately saved by Billings for his sixth save of the night. The Ramblers argued for a hand ball by the Braves and senior Erik Warren was red-carded for arguing with the official at 89:39. As the game ended, Koehler and Eric Marofske, also were hit with red cards.

crusaderjoe · November 22, 2019, 06:30:27 PM

Quote from: crusaderjoe on November 03, 2011, 08:46:53 AM
As someone who played soccer for VU many moons ago, I want to extend my congratulations to the lads and coaching staff on a job well done. It is only fitting that MSO should win VU's first HL title since it was MSO that played in VU's first HL conference game ever. Avery has done a tremendous job with this program. Keep it going boys.

This will be my last post on the forum.

To my MSO brothers, including the coaches, the staff, and also the athletic trainers who so diligently met our medical needs with professionalism and care, wherever you may be, past or present, varsity or club, thank you for the memories. We had some wins, some losses, and some draws. Home games, road trips and neutrals. We had games at Eastgate Field, at Brown Field, on intramural fields, and in the really olden and early days, in the outfield of the baseball diamond, if my younger memory is correct. We proudly wore the brown and gold for our beloved school, win or lose. We were, and still are, and forever will be, the Crusaders.

We had a hell of a varsity run—37 years' worth. And somehow, the program has been reduced from being the active University representative of the world's most beautiful game to just a memory, like an asterisk in a record book, in an instant. Again, this is such a shame, from a number of different avenues and for a number of different reasons.

May God bless all of my brothers. And, may God bless all of you diehard Valpo sports fans on this site too. This site is the heart and soul of VU athletics. I was happy to be a part of it.

I guess I'll shut off the lights on this thread.

Later,

Joe