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I’m as far from a soccer expert as there is on this board. Please keep that in mind. I have left Lee Jackson field disappointed before, but rarely embarrassed like I did today. Last Sunday, I left happy to win the regular season title, but incredibly uneasy about the upcoming match. Though the Zips had some life late, it felt like they were doomed right from the jump. Props to WMU, that is a tough squad who is insanely focused at doing their job at each position. Our emotional coaching staff, all of them, constantly scream at the officials. Not to say a lot of staffs don’t, but you saw today how that made its way onto the pitch. We have possibly gone from fringe top 10 seed in the tournament to now hosting a hungry Santa Clara type opponent without two of our most important offensive players because they played overly emotionally and were stupid. I felt like I was watching the aforementioned Hartwick. To me, that is a huge breakdown of the program’s championship culture, especially if you do drop that first game. I do apologize to the regular Zip soccer die-hards if this is upsetting. I have a lot of respect for Jared and the staff, but I have much, much higher expectations than the crap I saw today.

Corcoran on a leave of absence. Not sure when she’ll return. Zips come back to win it in dominating fashion in the 2nd half! 85-69 the final. They held UD scoreless for about an 8 minute stretch from the third quarter into the fourth. Camp looked excellent running the show. Ball State transfer/Ali Ali girlfriend Sydney Freeman now plays for the Flyers. They were picked 10th of 14 in the preseason A10 poll. After a ton of turnovers in the first quarter, the Zips only had a handful the rest of the entire game. Zips finish with 23 assists on 28 made field goals, shooting 53% from the field. More of this please!

So now you're going to hide behind semantics. Your hatred for the MAC is duly noted and has been. The headline simply means they are dropping mens soccer, not "sponsoring it". The MAC, no matter how badly you hate it, has been trying to provide men's soccer as a Championship since Akron joined in 1993. That season, there were only 6 MAC teams, Akron, WMU, EMU, Miami and BG, and CMU. CMU dropped out in 1995, and the MAC got Kentucky to make it 6. NIU joined the MAC in 1997 and there were 7 teams. 1998 saw Marshall and Buffalo join the MAC in soccer. making it a robust 8 teams. Miami dropped mens soccer in 1999, EMU dropped mens soccer in 2000. Marshall left the MAC in 2002, leaving Akron, WMU, BG, Kentucky, NIU and Buffalo. Marshall rejoined the league in 2003. Kentucky and Marshall left the league in 2005, and the MAC went out and got IUPFW to make 6. 2007 saw IUPFW leave, and the MAC got Hartwick so they could have the required 6. In 2009 the MAC added Florida Atlantic for soccer. West Virginia joined in 2012 and we were back to 8 teams. Hartwick and Florida Atlantic left in 2014. 2017 saw SIU Edwardsville added. When WVU left, MAC added 2 schools, they left, and the MAC added Chicago State. It would have been very easy for the MAC to drop mens soccer many times throughout the years when the team roster dropped near or below the NCAA required level, but they didn't. You can't force your member schools to carry a sport.

As Clark mentioned, the guys we definitely need to step up the most right now are Hankerson and Hunter. They were brought in to score, no doubt. Hopefully the issue is that its just taking time to gel. I think that's a safe assumption for Hankerson as he's a proven MAC player. Hunter is a little more up in the air as he was well regarded out of high school, but didn't do much at Ole Miss. The reports of him tearing it up at practice are encouraging as a stretch 4 with his size would be tough for a lot of the MAC to deal with. At the end of the day, we stand with a great mid-major win, and a disappointing loss to a team we were an underdog against, one we clearly didn't play our best game. We will likely have more disappointing losses as the season goes on, it's the nature of college basketball. Lets just hope we start to gel so we can win a lot more than we lose!

Twelve minutes after Shook was sent off, Mani Diop came in at CB and Will Jackson went to L with Joel Sangwa at R, essentially 3 CBs. Malik Henry moved into Right Wing. Our customary 4-2-3 (down a man) morphed into a 3-3-3 (down a man). That is how it looked to me. I pay close attention to such things, and I watch a barely healthy volume of futbol. This does not necessarily make me correct, but it does mean that my observation is more than merely casual. If only Shook would not have lost his soup! And Dyson Clapier getting two YC in five minutes, the second a wildly reckless slide tackle from behind. C'mon, Dice! How you gonna act? Let's all hope that Monday's draw is good to us.

To clarify, lateral passing along the back line is done by the professionals on down. It is done to maintain possession and to tire out the defense. Keeping the ball is worth a "negative" pass now and then. The problem arises when your possession is exclusively in your defense. Today our Defenders had way too much of the ball. It becomes too predictable. The ball eventually needs to move into Midfield. We had far too little possession in the Midfield today. We played the ball over the top with mixed success, but the quick, short passing through the Midfield was strangled today. This match was all too reminiscent of the loss earlier this year at Indiana, where we rarely had a second pass out of the midfield.

That excessive lateral passing across the backline is infuriating. I thought we had gotten rid of it for the most part in our success this season. But no, we had to go back to it today...just as successfully as we've used it the past few seasons. UGH!!!

On the bright side I thought she looked confident. She definitely didn't look out of place, or sheepish at all. After Christmas break I'll bet she starts to contribute even more.

I wonder what the reaction would be if Irons and Arselanian or Castaneda and Freeman got kicked out of a MAC Championship game after Coach Mo or Groce spent the entire game yelling at the refs.

grant of rights https://swimswam.com/what-is-the-acc-grant-of-rights-and-why-does-it-matter/ ACC soccer currently has balanced divisions of 6 schools each. I don't think that's in the cards for us. The Sun Belt is also being speculated.

Broncos earned it.

Many of the comments regarding today's game are right on. Overall we got beat because another team was willing to come to our field and outwork us. They wanted the ball more, defended tighter, took away the passing lanes and stayed within their game plan. We stopped working to get/stay open and therefore we had no passing out of our defensive third. The lateral pass was the only thing WMU gave us. We either took it or went over the top. Neither is in our nature. Western punched us in the mouth and we folded. Our frustration led to two ejections. As pointed out before this game was huge. The team did not respond to the challenge. Congrats to WMU, they earned it.

Penn State Greater Allegheny is one of the best basketball teams in White Oak, Pennsylvania.

theoretically.....if the zips get seeded in the 17 to 24 range, they should face one of the 8 weakest teams(one of the teams that the seeding committee ranked...between 41 and 48.....) in the NCAA tournament However, we all remember last year....where the zips faced a Santa Clara team that was not highly regarded Ryan Kingsford and Stefan Dobrijevic will have to step up on Thursday and play well...while splitting time at Center forward I have been very impressed by the improvement shown by Terence Okoeguale over the course of the year. Terence and Johnny Fitz are going to need to influence the game from the outside winger spots on Thursday night.

Absolutely nauseating! Pretty much from start to finish. Zips were beaten on 75% of individual contests. Man for man, Broncos were first to the ball, first to deliver the pass, and first to receive the pass. Personal toughness and desire were all with the Broncos. Regarding in-game coaching decisions, the Zips started to exert offensive pressure only after going to 3-man back line, thereby preventing our excessive lateral passing along the back line, and also adding one to midfield. In retrospect, perhaps this tactical move should have been made at HT.

there is absolutely 0% chance that the zips get seeded in the top 16. None zip nil nada

While I don't disagree with what you're saying and we certainly need more production out of them, I don't think the fact they had 0 other D1 offers matters much. Our best player was a former walk-on. Players fall through the cracks all the time. What I find concerning is that neither has improved much year over year

I just saw this on Twitter and had to share it. This could become Akron's opening for a potential full time move to the Big East.

That is an excessively long title for a camp.

Put me in the camp of "the conference with one of the most respected and successful college soccer programs should not be a revolving door with AQ pending year in and year out, and the member school that is one of the most respected and successful college soccer programs should take their ball and find a new conference that will properly support them."