Week 4 weekend’s games featured several marquee matchups on the women’s side, while the men’s games included a couple fairly major upsets and the extension of an impressive NCAA streak.
Top Women’s Teams Face Off
Between Thursday and Sunday, 14 of the teams ranked in the Soccer America Women’s Top 25 played against each other. At
a time of year when top ranked college football teams are lining up patsies, the best college soccer teams are testing themselves against the best competition they can find.
Things got started on Thursday with two upsets in the ACC as #17 Virginia upended #7 ranked rival Maryland, 4-1 behind a two goal effort by Caroline Miller. Teammate Gloria Douglas added a goal and an assist. Then, #21 Wake Forest beat 6th-ranked Florida State on the back of two Katie Stengel goals, her 9th and 10th of the young season, in a 2-0 win.
On Friday, another matchup between ranked teams featured #24 Missouri facing off against #10 Florida. The Gators got two goals from Annie Speese, both assisted by Jo Dragotta, to hold on for the win. Mizzou would bounce back with a 3-0 win over UMKC on Saturday.
On Sunday, Virginia couldn’t follow up with another upset and fell 2-0 to an 8th-ranked Boston College team that went 2-0 on the weekend. Maryland rebounded from the Virginia loss with a 2-1 win over #20 Virginia Tech in front of about 1,500 fans, thanks to a one goal, one assist effort from Olivia Wagner that erased an early 1-0 deficit. Florida State’s weekend continued to go downhill with another loss on Sunday, this time to 4th-ranked Duke in a 2-1 decision.
Finally, #1 Stanford defeated #19 Santa Clara, 2-0 to remain unbeaten on the season. Unranked West Virginia also pulled a major upset on Sunday, defeating 9th-ranked Marquette, 3-1 in Big East competition.
Upsets Abound
This week’s early games were an omen of things to come on the weekend as #1 Maryland squeaked by UMBC with a 4-3 win on John Stertzer’s game winner in the 104th minute. Meanwhile, Liberty put a 2-0 decision on #17 Virginia on Tuesday, and #21 Bradley fell 1-0 to unranked Memphis on Thursday.
As the weekend got underway on Friday, #16 UCLA topped #9 UC Santa Barbara, 3-2, and Santa Clara beat #19 Cal, 4-2. Carlos Montes had two assists for Santa Clara in that game. The Cavaliers lost to an unranked opponent for the second time in four days with a 2-1 loss to Charlotte, who got a goal and an assist from Tyler Gibson. The goal came on a penalty kick in the 90th minute. A minute later, his feed to Isaac Caughran likely bounced Virginia from the Top 25. Two more upsets came from the Midwest where St. Louis used two goals by Kingsley Bryce to defeat #12 South Florida, and Xavier used a 96th minute score to overtake #13 Northern Illinois.
Things calmed down on Saturday as ranked teams held serve against their unranked opponents, but mayhem ensued on Sunday as USF bounced back with a 2-0 win over #10 UC Irvine. Ashton Bennett netted two goals to help Coastal Carolina blank #15 Ohio State, 2-0, and George Mason used a penalty kick in the 69th minute to defeat #24 Cal Fullerton.
The biggest news of the week came from Akron, Ohio where the 4th-ranked Zips earned a 1-0 decision over Cal Poly on a Scott Caldwell goal that extended the team’s NCAA record home unbeaten streak to 42 games.
Check back next week for more college updates…