Go WEST young man (and NORTH)

[Kuiper]

Game of the Day in the SCIAC:

Occidental @ UMass Boston @9 am Pacific/12 pm Eastern

Oxy is coming off a big win against MIT (3-0) and a close loss to Babson (2-1).  Hard to know what to make of UMass Boston.  They tied Salve Regina 0-0, which seems like a team below Babson, but then they also tied Babson 1-1.  I guess if you go by last season's UMass Boston record of 10-1-6 with only 9 goals conceded all season, two ties and only 1 goal conceded in the first two games is playing to form.  Sounds like a good test of where Oxy stands.  They capitalized on mistakes against MIT, but it doesn't sound like UMass Boston makes as many of those.  From an NPI perspective, Oxy really needs a win because, while a 2-1 loss @ Babson is nothing to hang your head about, this is the last chance for a non-SCIAC win that might constitute a "quality" win. They don't even play UC Santa Cruz this season.  With CMS losing both games in Texas and Redlands losing to Swarthmore yesterday, the chance that the SCIAC games are going to provide an NPI boost is diminishing.

UPDATE:  UMB 1 - Oxy 0

UMB came off the kickoff flying and throwing a midfield press that Oxy wasn't prepared to handle.  After a couple of chances in the first two minutes that bothered Oxy's GK, UMB scores on a cross in the 3rd minute.

UPDATE:  UMB 2 - Oxy 0

Oxy looks like a team that flew across the country and is playing its third straight game and is still on pacific time at 9 am in the morning.  Mentally, they may already be on the plane ride home.  They are getting blitzed.  UMB's Arruda scored despite being surrounded by 4 Oxy defenders in the box.

UPDATE:  UMB 3 - Oxy 0

PK in the 25th minute.  Emergency defending.  Oxy may need to bring in the bench and see if fresh legs make a difference

UPDATE: UMB 4 - Oxy 0

This is a warning against scheduling 3 games on your east coast trip. UMB
Scores another in the 60th minute.  If the benches haven't been fully emptied before, they will be now

FINALLY:  UMB 4 - Oxy 0

[Kuiper]

Pretty bleak performance by NWC on opening weekend.  Only two wins out of 14 games.

Whitworth 1-0-1 (beat Hawaii Pacific (D2); Tied Chaminade (D2))
Puget Sound 1-0-0 (beat Evergreen State)
Willamette 0-1-1 (lost to UC Santa Cruz; tied La Verne)
Pacific 0-1-1 (tied La Verne; lost to UC Santa Cruz)
George Fox 0-0-1 (tied Oregon Tech (NAIA))
Wihtman 0-0-1 (tied Eastern Oregon (NAIA))
Lewis & Clark 0-1-0 (lost to Bushnell (NAIA)
Linfield 0-2-0 (lost to Macalester and Augsburg)
Pacific Lutheran 0-2-0 (lost to St. Olaf and Gustavus Adolphus)

[Kuiper]

Missed opportunities for the SCIAC to grab some NPI points on opening weekend:

Pomona-Pitzer 2-0-0 (beat Cal State San Marcos (D2) and Park University Gilbert (NAIA))
Cal Lutheran 1-0-0 (beat Soka (NAIA))
Whittier 1-0-0 (beat Nobel (NCCAA))
Caltech 1-0-0 (beat Park University Gilbert (NAIA))
Redlands 1-1-0 (beat Rutgers-Newark and lost to Swarthmore)
La Verne 0-0-2 (tied Pacific and Willamette)
Occidental 1-2-0 (lost to Babson, beat MIT, lost to UMass Boston)
Chapman 0-1-1 (lost to Wheaton, tied DePauw)
Claremont MS 0-2-0 (lost to Trinity and Southwestern)

[Kuiper]

ASC did pretty well this weekend, although primarily against the lower half of the SCAC (not sure where TLU will fall this season)

East Texas Baptist 2-0-0 (beat University of Dallas and Ozarks)
Mary Hardin-Baylor 2-0-0 (beat Schreiner and Texas Lutheran)
Hardin-Simmons 1-1-0 (lost to Texas Lutheran and beat Schreiner)
Howard Payne 0-2-0 (lost to Ozarks and Austin College)

[Kuiper]

The SCAC without Trinity and Southwestern just looks meh.  Only 6 wins in 17 games and the wins were against middling to weak opponents and that's about it.  Best results were Colorado College's win against DePauw and Texas Lutheran's win against Hardin-Simmons

Austin College 1-0-0 (beat Howard Payne)
Centenary (LA) 1-0-1 (beat Texas College (NAIA) and tied Dallas Christian (NCCAA))
Colorado College 1-0-1 (beat DePauw and tied Wheaton (IL))
McMurry 1-1-0 (beat Arlington Baptist (NCCAA) and lost to Lyon)
Ozarks 1-1-0 (beat Howard Payne and lost to East Texas Baptist)
Texas Lutheran 1-1-0 (Beat Hardin-Simmons and lost to Mary Hardin-Baylor)
Hendrix 0-0-1 (tied Lyon)
Concordia 0-0-0
LeTourneau 0-0-0
St. Thomas 0-1-0 (lost to Southwestern; game against Trinity suspended/cancelled with UST down 2-0)
Dallas 0-2-0 (lost to East Texas Baptist and Arlington Baptist (NCCAA))
Schreiner 0-2-0 (lost to Mary Hardin-Baylor and Hardin-Simmons)

[BTXCru18]

McMurry

McMurry finished 4-13-1 in the SCAC in 2024, their first since moving from the ASC, where they will return in 2026.  A poor record, but double the win total of the year prior and tied for the second most wins since the pandemic.  In other words, expectations for men's soccer are all relative for McMurry.  The 2025 roster suggests things are particularly bleak though.  They had 32 on the roster in 2024 and currently only have 18 on the roster for 2025.  I thought maybe it was just a spring returners roster, but they have incoming freshman on it. If it is the complete roster for 2025, they'll have trouble just making it through the season with subs on the bench, so I'm guessing this is incomplete and they will at least have some more freshman joining the team.  Even then, they only have 9 sophomores listed, and 14 freshman were listed in the 2024 roster, so they clearly have had some roster melt.  Not very healthy for the team considering the university claimed to have record enrollment for the second year in a row last fall, with a 25% increase and topping 3,000 students.  Perhaps the fact that they lost their head coach and replaced him with the women's head coach taking over both teams led players to leave and hurt recruiting. 

Key Departures:

They didn't have a lot of "key" contributors last season, but they did lose some frequent senior starters such as midfielders Trey Castillo and Danny Chavez and defender Preston Stal.  More disturbing is they lost frequent starters who were freshman, such as GK Brandon Walker, D D'Mari Washington, and midfielder Landyn Snider.  They also apparently lost leading scorer, sophomore defender Anthony Licea

Key Returners:

They have a few regular starters returning.  Julian Trevino was a regular starter at defense and comes back for his sophomore year.  Dylan Christian also comes back as a senior midfielder and Jovanni Burnett as a sophomore midfielder.

Freshman:

They only have 3 listed on the roster right now.

Hearing that McMurry got their turf redone at Wilford Moore Stadium over the summer and shrunk their already tiny soccer field even further; quite a bit under NCAA minimums. So much so, there was a directive(unclear from where) that teams will not be forced to play there. Which must be true given that the only SCAC home games are Centenary and Austin College and they only have 5 total at home this season.