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NCAA Tournament: Virginia falls, UMBC downs Princeton, UCSB wins and more

UMBC GK (ISIPhotos.com)

Photo by ISIPhotos.com 

By JOHN BOSCHINI

After one day of the 2010 NCAA Tournament, one thing is certain. There won't be a repeat champion.

Virginia's dreams of a repeat were extinguished on Thursday as the Cavaliers fell 1-0 to Old Dominion. Alex Vaughan scored in the 62nd minute for the Monarchs, who proved that their midseason upset of North Carolina was no fluke.

Old Dominion's victory was far from the only upset of the first round. Princeton, Ivy League champions and winners of 12 straight, were shocked 2-1 by American East champion Maryland-Baltimore County. Antoine Hoppenot put Princeton ahead in the 32nd minute but goals from Levi Houapeu and Andrew Bulls secured a victory for the Retrievers.

Ryan Kinne and the Monmouth Hawks were routed 4-0 by Dartmouth in Thursday's early kickoff. Andrew Olson scored in the ninth minute to give Dartmouth the lead and second-half goals from Nick Pappas, Lucky Mikosana and Aaron Gaide secured the victory.

Joining its ACC colleague on the outside is Boston College, who fell 2-1 to Brown. Jon Okafor put Brown up early but Kyle Bekker managed to equalize for Boston College. Austin Mandel scored the winner for the Bears just three minutes before halftime. Duke managed to remain in the tournament with a comeback 2-1 victory over Coastal Carolina. Cole Grossman provided both second-half goals for the Blue Devils.

UC-Santa Barbara barely kept its ambition of playing for the College Cup on its home field with a 1-0 victory in double overtime over Denver. Waid Ibrahim netted the golden goal for the Gaucho's in the 105th minute.

There was also plenty of offense in the first round. On top of Dartmouth's four goals, Providence scored three in each half for a 6-2 victory over St. Peter's. Creighton ran up a 4-1 score on New Mexico while Georgetown easily saw off UNC-Greensboro with a 3-0 victory.

Pennsylvania nicked a 1-0 overtime victory from Bucknell with a golden goal from Christian Barreiro just two minutes into the added period. It's the first time Penn will advance to the second round since 2002. The College of Charleston ran out to a 3-0 lead with goals from Shawn Ferguson, Andy Craven and Francis Twohig. East Tennessee State scored to in the second half but the Cougars held on for a thrilling 3-2 win.

Central Florida thoroughly dominated its in-state rivals with a convincing 3-0 victory over South Florida. Ben Hunt, Yaron Bascher and Nik Robson provided the goals. Michigan State overcame a difficult first half to post a 2-0 victory over Oakland courtesy of a Domenic Barone brace.

Sacramento State needed a late winner to advance to the second round at the expense of Santa Clara with a 2-1 victory. Christ Bettencourt scored with less than five minutes to go for the victory. West Virginia erased a 2-0 defecit to get an emphatic 4-2 victory. Frank Tayou scored a hat trick for the Mountaineers. Former No. 2 Tulsa is into the second round with a comfortable 2-0 victory over Bradley. Kyle Cummings scored in the first half while Ashley McInnes doubled the Golden Hurricane's lead in the second half.

The second round kicks off this weekend with the winners traveling to the 16 seeded teams.

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What did you think of today's results? Surprised to see Virginia go out so early? Impressed with the Big 10 so far? Any first-round teams primed for an upset this weekend? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below. 

Comments

  1. Yeah, well I’m going to recycle my response from from the being Puerto Rico Islanders supporter and USMNT fan since the early 80’s:

    It’s not about “style”. If you want style and grace there there are always beauty pagents, debutant balls, “gentleman’s” club or museums. lol.

    Seriously, I’m all for winning ugly just as log as there is no bribery or other egregious short of shadyness involved.

    It’s all about the result.

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  2. Having played in the America East rather recently, I must say that unsophisticated and unskilled is an understatement. There are skilled players in the conference, but the games are largely about tactical efficiency rather than actual soccer. AE teams execute very well, so I’m not surprised they beat Princeton.

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  3. I heard the refs allowed one UMBC player to take a bat on the field and hit four Princeton players with it. After every brutal attack the ref only gave Princeton a free kick from the spot of the foul.

    Also the ref totally should have given Princeton a penalty kick when their forward was taken down in the box by that UMBC guy driving a Ford Flex.

    College Soccer is brutal!

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  4. It’s called excitement… Get a grip dude. dont be jealous because 10,000 fans come out to support their Gauchos! and it is definitely not an awful conference (maybe u could think of another adjective instead of awful to make your point). UC Irvine got robbed and Cal Poly is no pushover!

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  5. Welcome to the completely unattractive, unsophisticated and largely unskilled word of America East Soccer…. Having watched more of it than I care to admit – it doesn’t surprise me to hear that was the approach to getting a result.

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  6. You’re asking for quite a bit.

    If being the best soccer school in the nation is rushing the field after an awful overtime goal against an awful Big West opponent in the semi-finals of your awful conference’s tournament, count me happy that I’m at the best soccer school on the East Coast.

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  7. Who would have thought that of the 4 Ivy league teams in the tournament only the undefeated and untied champion, Princeton, would fail to advance.
    It is sad to see that a team which plays such attractive soccer as Princeton does saw its season end.
    UMBC used a very physical defense (4 Y.C.s to 0 and 4 Princeton players injured, bloodied and concussed in only the first half), a lenient referee, and a very talented striker to forge the win despite giving up long spells of possession and trailing badly in shots (28-15), shots on goal (11-3) and corner kicks (6-2). Soccer can be such a cruel game!

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  8. Please let UCSB make the final and win. I am not asking for much but this is something that needs to happen. Its the best soccer school in the nation.

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  9. UMBC Retrievers Love!!! Roof!! Rooof!!! Shout out to anyone else who managed to graduate from there, studied there or just failed classes there (I would be be in the latter two categories).

    Big win!!!

    Reply

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