Go WEST young man (and NORTH)

[Kuiper]

Some SCAC action on a Sunday afternoon.

Colorado College 1 - LeTourneau 0

After two straight 1-1 ties against teams that CC would normally beat easily, they eek out a 1-0 win over LeTourneau to remain undefeated overall and in the SCAC.  Not a convincing win, but LeTourneau has played better this year and has only been blown out against Southwestern.  Colorado College remains in second in the SCAC.

Texas Lutheran 2 - Schreiner 0

TLU scored an early goal in the 20th minute, which allowed its defense to go to work.  It added an insurance goal in the 73rd minute, but Schreiner only got off 4 shots all game, only one of which was on frame.  TLU retains the top spot in the SCAC, a point ahead of Colorado College.  CC is undefeated in SCAC play, but TLU has one more win, a tie, and a loss to one-up CC's one fewer win, no losses, and three ties.

St. Thomas 3 - Ozarks 2

UST finally gets a win after three straight losses and four straight winless.  UST started the game blazing, scoring in the 5th, 19th, and 27th minutes to take a 3-0 lead, but UST committed a penalty in the box and Ozarks converted the PK in the 31st minute and then Ozarks got a second goal in the 37th minute to go into halftime 3-2.  At that point, defenses tightened on both sides and it became a slog.  UST outshot Ozarks 10-3 in the second half, but there were a lot of wild and hurried shots.  As it became squeaky bum time, a UST player threw an elbow into an Ozarks' player's face while they were both walking back to get ready for an Ozarks free kick on a different foul and the UST player was red carded and Ozarks played with a man advantage for the last 5:50.  Although Ozarks wasn't able to break through, St. Thomas looks very vulnerable.  They've lost some players to injury and, unlike in past years, they don't have the talent, grit, or experience to overcome a lot of adversity.  Still, the three points vaults them to 6th in the SCAC pending the Concordia-McMurry game later tonight.

Austin 2 - Dallas 0

Last week, Austin followed up a big win against St. Thomas with a big loss to Centenary.  This week, they follow up a big (although disappointing because of conceding the late goal) tie with Colorado College with a comfortable, but too close for comfort, win against winless Dallas.  They outshot Dallas 27-5, but couldn't find the net much.  A win's a win, though, and Austin currently sits in 5th place in the SCAC.

Hendrix 3 - Centenary 0

Hendrix has been hot the last two weeks and this is their fourth win in a row, allowing them to jump over Centenary into 3rd place in the SCAC.

[Kuiper]

NWC afternoon action on Sunday

Willamette 5 - Whitworth 4

Almost an epic collapse.  Whitworth scored first in the 4th minute, but Willamette scored the next 5 goals (17th, 24th, 28th, 33rd and 40th minutes) to take a 5-1 lead.  Maybe a 5-1 lead is the most dangerous lead in DIII men's soccer because Whitworth mounted a late comeback, scoring in the 77th, 81st, and 88th minutes, but just fell short.  The two teams are now tied in the NWC for third.

Puget Sound 0 - Lewis & Clark 0

Lewis & Clark gets its second conference point of the season in a hard fought game between two teams who are just playing for pride at this point.

Whitman 3 - Pacific 2

Once again, Whitman can't quite put a team away.  It secured a 2-1 lead in the 73rd minute, but then conceded a game-tying goal in the 77th minute before finally scoring the game-winner in the 83rd minute.  Whitman remains undefeated at 9-0-5 and 8-0-2 in the NWC.

Pacific Lutheran 5 - George Fox 1

PLU dominated in this game, although the stats are pretty odd.  It's kind of hard to score 5 goals with only 1 assist and in a game where it only had 17 shots to 14 for George Fox.  The Lutes remain undefeated in conference at 6-0-3, but 5 points behind Whitman in 2nd place.   

[Kuiper]

USC Regional Rankings for Region X as of 10/21 (sorry Ron - Trinity and Southwestern are still in this group)

Region X - Poll 7 - October 21, 2025
Rank    School    Prev    W-L-T
1    Trinity University (Texas)    NR    11-1-0
2    Southwestern University    NR    12-0-3
3    University of Mary Hardin-Baylor    NR    11-1-3
4    Colorado College    NR    8-0-6
5    Whitman College    NR    9-0-5
6    Whittier College    NR    8-2-3
7    Pomona-Pitzer Colleges    NR    6-3-3
8    Pacific Lutheran University    NR    8-3-3

UMHB moved up to 3rd from 5th.

[Kuiper]

NWC action tonight

Pacific Lutheran 5 - Puget Sound 2

Second game in a row in which PLU scored 5 goals and just dismantled its opponent. What made this different is that Puget Sound is a better team than the previous game against George Fox.  No matter to the Lutes who scored in the 4th minute and added 3 more in the first half to go into halftime with a 4-0 lead and then cruise in the second half.  PLU goes to 8-0-3 in the NWC.  With Whitman's victory tonight, the season is setting up to come down to the last game when Whitman plays at Pacific Lutheran.

Whitman 3 - Whitworth 1

This game was 2-1 early in the second half, but Whitman, for a change, controlled throughout.  It got an insurance goal in the 79th minute to remove any doubt.  Whitman goes to 9-0-2 in the NWC and maintains its two point lead over the Lutes.

[Kuiper]

SCIAC results tonight

Don't look now, but Oxy and Redlands, both of which came back from early season road trips to the east coast with their tails between their legs, are now tied for first with Whittier in the SCIAC (although Whittier has a game in hand).

Just a point behind them, Pomona-Pitzer, La Verne, and Chapman are tied for second (although Pomona-Pitzer has a game in hand).

With only two games left in the regular season for most teams, it's really coming down to the wire.

Occidental 4 - Chapman 1

Oxy dominated this contest and was up 4-0 by the 51st minute.  Chapman suffers its third loss in a row.  After leading the conference for several weeks, it risks falling out of the tournament altogether.

Redlands 2 - Caltech 1

Redlands is getting hot at the right time, winning its third game in a row.  After taking a 1-0 lead into halftime, Redlands finally got some breathing room from a screamer into the top right corner by Conor Claborn in the 83rd minute.  Caltech did a great job moving the ball in the middle third, but had trouble navigating the final third.  It scored a consolation goal in the 90th minute, but it was too little too late.

Cal Lutheran 0 - La Verne 0

Neither team finds the back of the net in this match, in part because of strong goalkeeping at key moments from both goalkeepers.  La Verne misses an opportunity to climb to the top of the table against a Cal Lu side that hasn't won a game for over a month.

One non-conference match:

UC Santa Cruz 3 - Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 2

Crazy first half where UCSC goes up 2-0 on goals in the 17th and 18th minutes and CMS equalizes on goals in the 33rd and 43rd minutes.  Looked like it was heading for a 2-2 tie, but CMS's GK took down a Santa Cruz attacker in the box in the 85th minute and the Banana Slugs scored the winning goal.

[Kuiper]

HALF:  Southwestern 5 - Millsaps 0

This is a really tough roadtrip for Millsaps, playing @Southwestern this afternoon and @Trinity on Sunday afternoon.  Southwestern has just dominated, passing around, through, and over Millsaps.  Southwestern's Raghav Sharma has a first half hat trick.  Time to empty the benches.

UPDATE:  Southwestern 7 - Millsaps 0 (57th minute)

If conceding two goals in the first ten minutes of the second half, including a PK, wasn't bad enough, Millsaps just went down a man to a second yellow card.  Millsaps has to be reconsidering why they went along with inviting Southwestern and Trinity to the SAA.

FINAL:  Southwestern 7 - Millsaps 0

If I have a complaint, it's that Southwestern left the starting GK in the entire game.  Maybe they legitimately didn't have another healthy GK on the bench, but if you can't give a backup GK some minutes in a 7-0 game against a team playing a man down, then you are admitting you failed to recruit and develop more than one goalkeeper.  And, admittedly, most coaches really know nothing about goalkeeping; they just have their security blankets and like to stick with them.  Either that or the coach really didn't trust the backup defenders, but it's not like you couldn't have brought back in the starting GK and defenders if the game magically became close.  I get why a GK might not want to come in for the last few minutes of a close game after sitting cold on a bench the whole game, but this would just be about getting a kid some minutes on the stat sheet so he can say he played in 2025.  It's not like there is redshirting in DIII.  And Senior Night is on Sunday and you took the other seniors out of this game, so that isn't the reason you kept on the keeper (sorry - rant over)   

[Kuiper]

This must be "pick on the weaker team" day in Region X

Colorado College 8 - McMurry 0 (59th minute)

After a string of somewhat underwhelming results, Colorado College is taking out its frustrations on McMurry, which is winless in the SCAC and 2-12-1 overall.  To be fair, this game is more statistically even than the Southwestern-Millsap game, but CC has just been clinical in front of goal.  They have 9 shots on goal and 8 goals (although one was a McMurry own goal).

FINAL:  Colorado College 10 - McMurry 0

My rant about Southwestern applies here.  They did play a bunch of subs, but not as many as Southwestern.  That just might be who is healthy though.  They didn't, however, play a backup GK, which makes no sense to me.  Were you worried the second keeper would give up 10 goals?  I think coaches forget about substituting keepers because that isn't on their normal sub rotation, but it's silly and counter-productive.  They have a junior with experience, but he might be hurt.  If true, though, even more reason to give the last remaining keeper - a freshman - a little experience just in case.  Perhaps he was hurt too though. 

In any event, McMurry at least gets University of Dallas on Sunday.  Millsaps has to play Trinity.  These blowouts are really crazy.

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity up 1-0 on Rhodes at half but playing a man down after a couple of cheap yellows on Jeremy Siau, the second in the 28th minute initiated by the ref well after the player in question had walked away (after being pulled down by the Rhodes player, unseen).

Edit:  and they hang on to win 1-0 in a game in which 28 fouls were called (17 by Rhodes) along with eight yellow cards, including the two for Siau and eventually two on the Lynx' Pierce Miller, who picked up his second in the 83rd.  Despite the man advantage for most of the match, Rhodes could only manage a single shot on goal, ironically after Miller's second card.  A very physical and ugly match.

[Kuiper]

Other cases out WEST from Friday night

Pacific 4 - Lewis & Clark 0

L&C hung tough in this game for awhile, only down 1-0 until the 66th minute.  Pacific, however, scored at the 65:09 mark and then got the benefit of a questionable PK call 48 seconds later to make it 3-0.  Adding insult to injury, the L&C defender got a second yellow on the PK call and they had to play a man down, conceding a 4th goal in the 87th minute.  Pacific picked up its third win of the season and L&C is still in search of its first elusive win since the program returned to varsity status in 2022.

Concordia TX 3 - St. Thomas 0

Concordia broke open a tight 0-0 game in the second half, scoring in the 61st, 64th, and 71st minutes to win comfortably.  St. Thomas is missing a lot of players, but it also doesn't have the bite that it used to have.  UST only committed 7 fouls in the game.  Concordia is now 5-1-3 in the SCAC and in 3rd place in the standings, while St. Thomas continues to sink like an anchor, dropping to 4-4-1 and 8th place.

Texas Lutheran 3 - Centenary 0

TLU collects its 4th win in a row in comfortable fashion, scoring goals in the 11th and 18th minutes and then adding a capper in the 80th minute to put the game to bed.  TLU dominated on the stats, out-shooting Centenary 22-7 and leading in corner kicks 6-1.  Texas Lutheran remains atop the SCAC standings with a 7-1-1 record and Centenary is hanging on to 6th place at 5-4.  After winning 4 in a row, Centenary has now lost the last three.

Austin 3 - Hendrix 1

Austin scored in the 8th minute and never trailed in this game.  The result allows Austin to jump Hendrix to move to 4th in the SCAC standings, while Hendrix sits at 5th.

LeTourneau 1 - Ozarks 0

After a narrow 1-0 loss to Colorado College last game, LeTourneau turns the table and eeks out its own narrow win on a 67th minute goal off a corner kick that went through the Ozarks' GK's hands.  Otherwise, this was one of the least offensive games I've ever seen based on the stat sheet.  LeTourneau had 2 shots and 1 corner kick and Ozarks had 0 shots and 2 corners.  LeTourneau committed 0 fouls and Ozarks had 2.  I didn't get to watch it, but from those stats, it sounds like the two teams just congregated in the center circle and played patty cakes for 90 minutes.

Schreiner 5 - Dallas 0

No matter how bad your season is in the SCAC, you can always look forward to playing University of Dallas.  Schreiner dominated from the opening whistle and goes to 4-4-1 in the SCAC, tied with St. Thomas.  Dallas is still in search of its first win of the season against any opponent.  The team has scored 6 goals in its 15 games and given up 51.  To make things worse, after playing McMurry on Sunday, it finishes the season hosting Colorado College next weekend.

[Kuiper]

SCIAC Saturday afternoon games

Occidental 2 - Pomona-Pitzer 1

Oxy wins for the second game in a row and is at least temporarily in first place in the SCIAC.  Devin Bening opened the scoring in the 20th minute, but Pomona-Pitzer equalized just before half to go into the break 1-1.  Bening completed his brace with the game-winning goal in the 82nd minute.  Bening now has 11 goals and is the leading scorer in the SCIAC.

Caltech 3 - Cal Lutheran 3

Cal Lutheran is out of the race for the SCIAC tournament, but don't tell them that.  Caltech could have jumped to a three-way tie for second place with a win (and still isn't out of contention with a tie), but it was Cal Lutheran which scored first in the 19th minute, then came back from a 2-1 deficit with a PK goal in the 82nd, and responded to what seemed like a Caltech game-winning goal in the 84th minute with a game-tying goal in the 86th minute.  This was no fluke either.  Despite under-performing, Cal Lu was on the front foot the whole game, out-shooting Caltech 33 to 11 and had 8 corners to 1 for Caltech.  Caltech likely needs to beat Pomona-Pitzer next Saturday to make the conference tourney for the first time in probably forever.

[Kuiper]

NWC Saturday games

Whitworth 1 - Linfield 0

Whitworth largely dominated Linfield in Spokane - outshooting them 20-5 - but could only muster a 38th minute goal.  Fortunately, that's all they needed against Linfield, which is in second-to-last place in the NWC with only one win.  Whitworth is in a tie for third with Willamette 8 points behind the leader Whitman, although with 4 games left in the NWC, which uses round-robin scheduling to determine the AQ instead of a conference tournament, there's time to make a late challenge.

Willamette 1 - Puget Sound 0

Willamette has quietly climbed into the NWC race, jumping to third in the conference with a 5-2-6 record on a 45th minute goal.  Willamette is now on a 7 game unbeaten streak.   

[Kuiper]

SCIAC Saturday night games

La Verne 1 - CMS 1

Familiar story for CMS.  The team seemed to be the better side, but after a 40th minute goal by La Verne, CMS spent most of the time chasing of the game and it finally got the tying goal in the 83rd minute, but could not find a game-winner.  CMS will be tied with Caltech for 7th, while La Verne is tied for 3rd in the SCIAC.

Chapman 1 - Whittier 1

Whittier took the lead in the 60th minute, but Chapman got the equalizer in the 73rd and neither team could find much offense after that as they traded possession in the middle third in what was a fairly sloppy game.  Whittier takes sole possession of 2nd in the SCIAC with a tie, but it has a game on hand compared to Oxy, so it could still get 1st place with wins against Pomona-Pitzer and La Verne. Chapman is in a three-way tie for 3rd with its final match against CMS.

[Kuiper]

ASC action on Saturday night

Hardin-Simmons 3 - Howard Payne 0

HP has proven to be a much tougher out in the ASC this season, but H-S showed signs of life after losing to Howard Payne 2-0 earlier in the season.  In this game, HP opened the scoring in the 21st, but H-S immediately answered in the 25th and then scored two goals in the second half to seal the win.  In a 4 team conference, that's enough for Hardin-Simmons to climb into 2nd place in the ASC with the regular season finale next Saturday hosting 1st place Mary Hardin-Baylor.

[Kuiper]

Sunday early action out West

Trinity 3 - Millsaps 1

Not a dominant performance, but Trinity took care of business against Millsaps with goals in the 20th and 29th minutes and then a nice chipped insurance goal over the GK's head in the 80th minute.  Millsaps showed one Trinity weakness in its goal, scoring on a counter-attack with a speedy center forward beating his man and the GK in the 70th minute.  Trinity did play a lot of players in this game, including 3 goalkeepers and 11 field players off the bench, which might have explained why Millsaps looked a little stronger in the second half.  Trinity is now 13-1 overall and 6-0 in the SAA, with the regular season championship likely to be decided in the final game of the regular season v. Southwestern.

Hendrix 2 - LeTourneau 1

Hendrix scored early (15th minute) and late (84th minute) to overcome a 57th minute LeTourneau goal and earn a split on the weekend after losing to Austin on Friday.  Hendrix is now in 3rd place in the SCAC with a 6-3-1 record.  LeTourneau falls to 7th and loses a chance to climb into the conference tournament race.

Colorado College 4 - Schreiner 1

Colorado College remains undefeated overall and in the conference and at least temporarily claims the top spot in the SCAC, pending the result of the Texas Lutheran-St. Thomas game.  Only blemish was a late challenge in the box that led to a yellow card and a Schreiner penalty kick goal.

[Kuiper]

Late Sunday SCAC/SAA action in the Lone Star State

Southwestern 3 - Rhodes 1

This game started out with fireworks.  Southwestern struck first in the second minute (79 seconds into the game) and Rhodes almost immediately answered less than 60 seconds later in the 3rd minute.  Southwestern then broke the tie in the 39th and held on to that narrow 2-1 lead for almost the rest of the game until finally adding an insurance goal in the 90th minute with 12 seconds left on the clock.  Rhodes leaves Texas with an 0-2 record, but showed with a 1-0 loss to Trinity and an almost 2-1 loss to Southwestern that it can play tough.  Considering that Rhodes only has 2 victories all season and is 0-4-2 in the SAA, I would call that a big achievement.  Southwestern goes 14-0-3 and 6-0 in the SAA as it heads into the Tejas El Super Clasico against Trinity next Saturday.

Texas Lutheran 2 - St. Thomas 1

TLU wins its fifth game in a row remains atop the SCAC standings with a 71st minute goal that broke the team between the two rivals.  This game was a far cry from games of a few years ago, St. Thomas only had 7 fouls all game and TLU only had 10, while the teams had two yellows apiece.  I'm not saying I want the old style back, but I have to admit that the game has lost some of its drama.  St. Thomas dips to 8th in the SCAC, but could jump as high as 6th with a victory over Centenary in the last game of the regular season.

McMurry 5 - Dallas 1

As I said after Schreiner's 5-0 victory over University of Dallas on Friday, no matter how bad your season is going, there's always the Dallas game to brighten your day.  And McMurry's season has been much worse than Schreiner's season.  Coming into the game, McMurry was 0-9 in the SCAC, on a ten game losing streak, and had lost to Colorado College 10-0 on Friday.  No matter.  After spotting Dallas the opening goal in the 6th minute, McMurry equalized in the 42nd minute to go into the half 1-1.  The second half, however, belonged to McMurry, which dominated on shots, corners and goals, scoring in the 69th, 70th, 82nd, and 89th minutes.  I particularly like the fact that every McMurry player who scored, except for one, came off the bench.  The fifth goal was by someone not even listed in the box score (although he is on the roster).  Maybe McMurry has been starting the wrong players.  And maybe Dallas' scorekeeper has gotten tired of keeping track of other teams' goals.

Austin 1 - Ozarks 0

Don't look now, but Austin has won three in a row and is in 4th place in the SCAC.  It doesn't score (or even shoot) a lot now that Louis Catchpole has graduated.  In fact, its goal total is half of what they scored last season when Catchpole led the team with 13 goals), but Austin has proven that it can play determined defense after tying Colorado College 1-1.  It could make someone's life difficult in the SCAC conference tourney.