ZipsVoice

Weather really reeked havoc at FES Thursday, as heavy rain at kickoff and then the weather service's wind warning came true. The women battled to a 1 - 1 draw vs. Buffalo, but finished the regular season MAC at 5-4-2 and finished tied for 4th. They'll enter the MAC tourney as the 5th seed and take on Buffalo again, but this time at the Great White North, in that huge football stadium on crappy turf. Match is Sunday at 1 and the women should be proud of this progress-laden season. Competitive as heck in the MAC now, back to back tourney appearances, and guess what? Portage Community College's Flashes are 9th and out of the tourney.

I too went with my hopes and dreams....my fearless forecast is a PR for 6.

As in "

Amen and Hallelujah! So right on ME.... Can I get another Amen from the congregation please? lots of "stars" on this team, but few want to prove it as a "team" star, to earn another star for the kit....

What the hell? Nice night to watch great soccer by a Great Lake....how bad this was. I am totally at a loss, I cannot put my finger on what is wrong, it's just.....I don't know. When I envisioned "off" seasons over the last 10 years, knowing that sometimes they happen, I guess I thought maybe a 10-8-0 season, not even a .500 season. Or I thought there'd be "markers" along the way, to kinda warn that it might happen. I thought if it did, it was due to a few catastrophic injuries to key players. A gradual decline...not a #2 in the nation one year and a 4-win season the next... What a long ride home this was....

This isn't really about national rankings per se, but I was perusing the OHSAA Regional semi-finals n the area to see who's out there, and I know Simon's Medina team is in the D1s, but I was looking at the CVCA Royals match Wednesday vs. Warren Howland ar Ravenna, and noticed the Royals have another Zemanski...does anyone know if this is a relative of Ben's?

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But you also can't blame him for what a new staff and 100 players are doing with the dregs handed to them at the beginning of the process - no time to recruit, left over players from the Bowden era, etc. etc.. If this was year 3 or 4 and we're sucky like we are in FB then yes, but if we can't give him credit for allowing the Peresies and the Herlihys and the Hannas the latitude to continue their progress, then we can't blame him directly for the failure of the first year of the FB season. If he was so bad, then why aren't we losing the Persies and Hannas etc, and keeping the Embicks? I'm not saying he hasn't made some mistakes, and may still, but to blame him for every loss and not to give him some credit for the successful programs, no matger when the coach arrived, is disingenuous.

Here's the other news....the women are tied for third place right now....a win over Buffalo Thursday and - I think - we would get to host a first round match, which would be the first since 2009....Wow! Way to go WSOC!

Well, the Zips WSOC are in! A 1-0 win at Central Michigan Sunday made for a weekend sweep over EMU and CMU and moves the Zips to 5-4-1 with Thursday's match against Buffalo at 3 pm at FES. But the win cinches a berth in the MAC tourney....well done WSOC! Bailee Bowers netted the match winner in the first half and the D played stingy like they have all season. It's a different team than last season's.

Okay Lee, I'll ask you, because you are a knowledgeable poster here and have been a Zipper for a long time. You have suggested several times that we might consider dropping down a level for football. Do you know what or how much Akron would save or stop bleeding if we did as you suggest? What's an average FCS team like YSU, James Madison, Lehigh football expenditures, vs. Akron's? And that's operational costs, as we know we can't do anything about the debt on Infocision. And if we did drop football to an FCS team, what conference do you think Akron would best fit in, trying to preserve our Championship and National level talent in other sports like soccer, track and field, swimming, and would fit the new baseball and WLAX teams? Your thoughts....

THAT DAMN LARRY WILLIAMS! Look what he's done! That damn volleyball team screwed up again, and WON AGAIN! They're not following the script, winning after a big loss Friday night, they were supposed to fold and continue Williams' diabolical plan to kill Akron Athletics! And those damn Swimmers!!! and those awful women's soccer players!!! Don't they understand what Larry wants! Total demise of all things Zippy!!! We need to fire Herlihy and Peresie and Hanna for mutiny! ????

NW - not quite yet. A 3-0 win over SIU is great, but let's get to the NCAAs again and then see if we're playing like Champions. Close....but not quite yet!

Hey MP! Yeah, the team started play in 2001 under Coach Catherine Byrne, and improved each of the first three seasons with a 8-9-1 2003 year. Things went South the next two seasons, but the 2006 team posted the first winning season at 11-7-0, but still 4-7-0 in the MAC. The beat New Mexico and Kent State that year and won their first 6 matches. .Chris Pfau took over the Head Coach position in 2009 and promptly posted a 9-7-2 record and went 7-3-1 in the MAC to win their only East Championship. They played some great teams that year in non-conference matches - Kentucky, Creighton, Nebraska, Cincinnati. After an 0-2-1 start to MAC play they won 7 of their next 8 and 6 in a row to clinch the title. Britni Back was a huge part of that, as was Rachel Phillip and Jordan Baranowski. Katie Wise had 3 or 4 match winners that year as a freshman, I believe. The team went to 5-5-1 in MAC play the following season and 4-5-2 the next before Pfau left, and Vernon Croft took over for 3 disastrous seasons, with poor recruiting and style of play. Noreen Herlihy took over in 2015. It's always been a puzzle to me and several fans I know as to how a school with a storied program like Akron on the men's side, can't produce the same on the women's side. We always thought that they should have promoted Caleb to "Director of Soccer Operations in 2010 after the first star on our kits and promote Jared and have Caleb oversee both Men's and Women's programs....pipe dreams!

They were my highlights, especially the win over Northern Michigan. It was my first real tailgate experience and my first "sneak a flask into a game" game. We said we'd do a shot after every score. I was hammered! But the excitement of that game and those games were the beginning for me. C'mon Lee, I'm with ZippyRulz, you've got to stop this wishing we were small again. It ain't gonna happen, nor should it. The MAC is a good home for us, and if we dropped down to FCS or D2, it would destroy all the other top-caliber programs we have, besides football. I know you only look at the football side, but Men's soccer and soon to be women's soccer, swimming and diving, track and field, now volleyball...they would be decimated.

Bloodbath. Nothing to even look forward to. +25 point loss, millions of yards given up by defense, under 100 yards passing for UofA. FF - the Zips will give the turnover or takeaway pencil to the Huskies following the game, to commemorate the 4 turnovers Akron will commit Saturday.

A 3-2 road win at EMU yesterday evens the women's record to 4-4-1 and in 7th place with 13 points, a point ahead of #8 Can't State. Toledo sits in the 9th slot 4 points behind the Zips. WSOC take on Central Michigan Sunday, then come home for the regular season finale against Buffalo at 3:00 pm (all schools in the MAC play at 3 the final match, as some schools do not have lights for soccer, and all matches must be simultaneously played). A win in Mt. Pleasant or at FES and the Zips are through to MAC tournament play. A Toledo loss on Sunday or Thursday puts Akron in. The Zips beat Toledo 2-0 earlier in the season and hold the tie-breaker if the two teams are tied at the end of the season. Way to go Zips!

2019-20 Women's Swimming and Diving team just got it's third-ever national ranking, Making their highest ever ranking at #19 in the Nation after the first month of competition! Way to go Zips!!!Oh, forgot, just an Olympic Sport....doesn't mean anything.....really? #19 Nationally.

Of course the Forum guests who have been screaming about how bad the football team/program is making the U look won't give a hoot, because, you know, they're not MAJOR sports, Olympic sports, no one cares, blah blah blah....but if you didn't already know the outcome of the football game before you even watched or attended, then you had your head someplace else. But you should have paid attention, or at least given a nod here and there, to the Women of The Zips (I mean, Zippy is a she afterall). The biggest surprise of the Fall has to be the Volleyball team. They've won their last 3 matches, are 14-5 overall and in first place in the MAC at 7-1. This weekend they clobbered NIU 3-0 Friday and won a thriller 3-2 (7-6 final set) over WMU Saturday. Then the slowly but steadily women's soccer team, had WMU on the ropes Friday night leading 1-0 but gave up 2 late goals, almost saving a draw with great attacks in the final 5 minutes. They then bounced back yesterday to trounce NIU 3-0 at First Energy Stadium, with Carly Pcholinsky getting a brace, her second so good you'd of thought you were watching the MSOC team of 2018. It may not seem like a lot if you haven't watched them the past few seasons, but at 3-4-1 in the MAC and 7-8-1 overall it's a continuing improvement and making the Zips dangerous in WSOC. The least surprising of the weekend wins by Women was the Swim team dominating the pool in the 2nd annual Akron Zips Classic with Cleveland State, Xavier, Miami, and NCAA D2 Champs Dennison. After 7 of last year's Zips left and Maddi Myers still injured, Coach Peresie just keeps reloading, adding some quality freshmen to the mix, and it sure looks like a train wreck is all that will prevent a 7th straight MAC title. Did I mention that WSOC and WS&D are now attracting International players and interest? Oh, that's right, U of A is the "laughing stock" of College Athletics..... Stop grieving over an already lost football season and a wounded MSOC team that still has life in them, and maybe show some pride of the "lesser" sports.

Excellent!

No we are not....why can’t you get it through your head that just because we wanted to see a coaching regime that had given up on the season, the team, the school, and the few hundred left that attend games...that we are defenders or fans of the current staff. Mutually exclusive....look it up.

as Cykron likes to use small fonts - it's his nephew, the back-up QB at Buffalo, from Stow.....

Echo bigzipguy.....our thoughts are going your way.... PS - is the news good for the Zips?

Fearless forecast - Buffalo's punter will only get one shot at a punt, and he'll pull a trick play pass for a TD....

So, back on October 6th I asked the question "I don't know the answer to this, and I'm too lazy to check it out, but how many of the 130 NCAA D1 schools have kids on their current roster hailing from say, I-70 as the southern border and Sandusky as the western border, as an indication of how the rest of the nation views NEOhio high school football talent?" It's a rainy day and I was bored so I did a little research. Instead of looking at the whole 130 D1 schools (I'm not that bored!) I looked at the current rosters of all the MAC Schools, all the Big 10 schools, and threw in Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Marshall and West Virginia too. I went from the PA border to Elyria, and from Lake Erie to Canfield. Now this is just based on being on the roster, not if they are starting, getting any PT, riding the bench, practice squad fodder, whatever. I do have to say, we sure have a helluva lot of long snappers and punters/kickers on this list from NEO! Here's what we have - The MAC has 110 players from the area selected. Akron leads by far with 37, and that's after taking Burkhart off the list. Here's the list: Akron - 37 Kent State - 21 Toledo - 17 Ohio - 14 Bowling Green -7 Miami - 6 Buffalo - 5 EMU - 3 Ball State - 2 NIU, CMU, WMU have none on their roster The Big 10 (or 14) have a total of 50 players from the area selected. Here's how they stack up: Ohio State - 17 Michigan State - 11 Michigan - 7 Northwestern - 5 Penn State, Purdue and Minnesota each have 2 Rutgers, Indiana, Nebraska, and Wisconsin each have 1. Maryland, Illinois and Iowa do not have any. The "other" schools have 24 players from the area. I was very surprised to see that Cincinnati leads with 16! Notre Dame has 4, Pitt has 3 and WVU has 1. Marshall has none. So the idea of Akron "not recruiting locally" seems to be debunked. Both Terry and Tom have done it. Where did the recruits come from? You'll not be shocked to see that St. Ignasius leads with 13 players, followed by Hoban and St. Ed's with 10 each. Massillon Washington and Mentor each have 9, and I remember Arth addressing the Mentor market as one to go after when he got here. Cleveland Heights, Hudson and St. Vincent-St. Mary each had 6 players on these rosters, followed by Avon, Glenville, Canton McKinley, Padua, Solon and Stow with 4 each. Benedictine, Brush, Copley, Lorain and Strongsville each added 3 to the list. Aurora, Bedford, Brecksville, Coventry, Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy, Euclid, Firestone, Warren Harding, Jackson, LaBrae, Medina, Midpark, Nordoonia, North Royalton, Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin, Perry, Springfield, Ursuline, and Westlake each had a pair, and 40 other schools had 1 player each. So, this is what currently populates the rosters of 14 schools from the Big 10 and 12 from the MAC, plus 5 "Bigs" in our area. I guess the three surprises for me were 1) how much we have tried to mine this area and how little we have to show for it during both coaching staffs; 2) the numbers at Michigan State; and 3) the numbers at Cincinnati! I know I might have missed a few players playing farther away, and I'm sure there's enough ammo here to post a lot of "Yeah, but's", so have at it.