The 2014 men's college season continued with another round of action-packed games last week. Here's what happened:
BIG MEN ON CAMPUS
Colin McAtee, redshirt junior midfielder, Michigan – You’ll notice, once you continue reading, that Notre Dame is no longer in the Top 10. That might be a little hard on the national champions, but here’s why: A 3-2 loss to unranked Michigan in Ann Arbor on Tuesday. One team’s loss is another team’s gain, though, which brings us to Colin McAtee, who scored a hat trick against the Fighting Irish to give Michigan the win.
Why stop there, though? The Wolverines followed up on Saturday with a 3-0 win at Rutgers. McAtee didn’t score a hat trick, true, but he did get a goal in the victory.
Alex Adelabu, senior forward, Dartmouth – The Ivy League doesn’t get very much love in this column, but that’s because they’re usually not good at men’s soccer. But credit when credit is due, and Alex Adelabu deserves credit for his performances for the Big Green this week. Adelabu put up a brace in Dartmouth’s 3-1 win over Central Connecticut State on Wednesday, then helped run their conference record to 2-0 with a goal and an assist in a 4-1 win over Yale. Dartmouth are now 7-2-1 on the year.
TOP 10 RANKINGS
1) Washington (9-1-1)
Drawing 1-1 against Oregon State is not the best result, but doing it in Corvallis is not terrible, particularly if Huskies goalkeeper Spencer Richey is to be believed about the legitimacy of sophomore sensation Christian Roldan’s 58th-minute red card.
The Beavers are not the pushovers they were last season, and the Pac-12 is a tough conference, so Washington keeps their spot.
2) Creighton (10-1-1)
The Bluejays kicked off their week on Tuesday with a 1-0 win on the road against Drake, then returned home to beat Big East rival Butler 2-1. That’s just a good, solid week from Creighton, if not particularly flashy. You can only play who’s on your schedule, though, and so far Creighton’s beating everyone that’s come up to bat.
3) Charlotte (10-1-0)
Charlotte started their week with a win over an ACC team, then finished it with an in-conference win. OK, so the ACC team was unranked Clemson, and the conference win was a four-goal comeback victory after falling in a 3-0 hole against lowly FIU, but hey, a win’s a win. 49ers are still rolling.
4) Syracuse (11-1-0)
Every week it looks more and more like our decision to overlook the Orange was a dumb one. Syracuse actually tripled their number of goals conceded this week by beating Albany 2-1 and Wake Forest 3-1, but I don’t think they’ll be crying over the 11-1-0 record to which those results have helped them. It’s official, ladies and germs: The Orange are a legit ACC threat this year.
5) Indiana (8-1-3)
The Hoosiers had a really rough season last year, so it makes sense that they were mostly overlooked this preseason. But Indiana’s one hell of a trap team to come up against, as was discovered this week by Louisville and Ohio State. Indiana were able to dispatch the Cardinals 3-0 at home, and, though it was slightly more tense on their trip to Columbus, were able to pull out a 2-1 win over the Buckeyes.
6) Marquette (7-2-1)
One game, one win for the Golden Eagles this week. Chicago Fire Academy product Louis Bennett II put Marquette up 1-0 over St. John’s at the start of the second half on Saturday before striker C. Nortey iced the cake in the 90th to give the home team a 2-0 win on the night of the program’s 50th anniversary. Happy birthday, Marquette men’s soccer.
7) New Mexico (9-2-1)
A pretty comfortable week for the Lobos, who scored back-to-back 2-0 wins against Conference USA rival Florida Atlantic on Wednesday and Missouri State on Sunday. Not really earth-shattering stuff, but Montreal Impact Academy goalkeeper Jason Beaulieu now has five shutouts this season, so there’s that.
8) UC Irvine (10-1-2)
Much like New Mexico, the Anteaters had a relatively comfortable week. UC Irvine put up a hard-fought 1-0 win at home on Thursday against UC Davis, then hosted Sacramento State on Saturday and took a 2-0 win. It’s a decent way to bounce back after a rough two-game set last week.
9) Cal (8-3-0)
You can’t win ‘em all, but when you lose it’s not required that you do it by a 6-2 scoreline like the Golden Bears did last week against Oregon State. That setback was clearly temporary. Cal responded on Friday with a 3-2 overtime win over No. 2 UCLA, then beat San Diego State 4-3 in a back-and-forth contest on Sunday. Losing their first two Pac-12 games is going to be tough to overcome, but damned if they didn’t get off on the right foot on their road to redemption.
10) Penn State (10-1-1)
Penn State came into their Sunday afternoon matchup at Maryland having conceded just three goals all year. Maryland came in having scored 11 goals in 12 games. Strength on weakness, open-and-shut case, nothing more to see here, right? Wrong. Maryland blew Penn State out of the water in their first Big Ten matchup, winning 4-0 and limiting the Nittany Lions to 10 shots, three of which were on target. It’s a fantastic reprieve to a somewhat disappointing campaign for Maryland – particularly in front of 2,500 home fans – and a huge head scratcher for Penn State. We’ll keep them in the top 10 for now, but the question has now been asked, and it can’t be unasked: How good is Penn State actually?
HIGHLIGHTS
After a disappointing three-game losing streak that included a loss to archrival Duke, UNC has now won three games in a row. Their latest two triumphs came this week. It was a good week. The Tar Heels took wins against Campbell and Virginia Tech, who are by no means powerhouses, but winning two games by a combined score of 8-0 is nothing to sniff at, either. Get a taste of their 5-0 win over the Hokies here.
Virginia continued their climb out of the hole they dug themselves early in the year with two wins this week, including a 1-0 win over the Duke team that beat UNC. You can see the highlights here.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR:
Louisville vs. Syracuse, Friday, 7:30 pm ET, watch on GoCards.com
Louisville has had an up-and-down season, but how sweet would it be for them to get a win off of everyone’s new favorite ACC team? For Syracuse, it’s a chance to earn some major validation on the road.
Penn State vs. Michigan State, Saturday, 7:00 pm ET, watch on MSUSpartans.com
It became clear pretty quickly this season that Michigan State and Penn State were going to be two of the dominant forces in the Big Ten, and until this week it looked like the Nittany Lions were destined to be the dominant force in the Big Ten. Gone is that illusion, but it makes this matchup with the Spartans look so much more intriguing.
