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College Round-Up: Akron tops Wake Forest, Indiana routs UCLA and more

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The Akron Zips removed any doubt about deserving their pre-season No. 1 ranking by completing a two-game sweep of top ACC opposition with a 2-0 win at No. 3 Wake Forest on Sunday.

Junior striker Darlington Nagbe scored a goal and set up another to give the Zips defense all it needed to work with. Akron's back-line shut down the normally potent Wake Forest attack, holding the Demon Deacons without a shot on goal in the entire match.

While Wake struggled on Sunday, One ACC team that did impress was defending national champion Virginia, which throttled No. 17 St. John's, 5-0. Freshman Brian Span recorded two goals and an assist to improve the No. 2 Cavaliers to 2-0.

Perhaps the most impressive individual performance came from Indiana striker Will Bruin, who notched his first career hat-trick in leading the No. 20 Hoosiers to a 5-0 thrashing of No. 5 UCLA. Indiana shook off a loss to California on Friday with a dominant effort against a highly-regarded but young UCLA squad.

Here is a rundown of some of the top teams in the nation fared this weekend:

SUNDAY COLLEGE SCOREBOARD

No. 4 North Carolina 4, Seton Hall 1. Sophomore Enzo Martinez scored a pair as Tar Heels rebound from Akron loss.

No. 6 Maryland 5, Northeastern 0.  Junior forward Casey Townsend scored a pair as Terps regroup following upset loss to Michigan State.

St. Mary's 3, No. 9 Northwestern 2. St. Mary's jumped out to a 3-0 lead and Northwestern fell short in its attempt to avoid an 0-2 start.

No. 15 Monmouth 2, SUNY-Binghamton 0. Senior forward Ryan Kinne scored both goals to lift Monmouth to a second straight victory.

No. 18 Ohio State 2, Buffalo 0. Senior Konrad Warzycha converted a pair of second-half penalty kicks to lift the Buckeyes to their second straight win.

No. 19 Portland 2, Evansville 1. Senior Ryan Luke scored both goals for the Pilots, who won the Nike Invitational Tournament with the victory.

No. 20 Louisville 2, North Carolina St. 1 (OT). Sophomore Buck Tufty scored the game-winner in overtime to lift Louisville to a

West Virginia 3, No. 23 UNC Wilmington 2 (OT). Junior striker Franck Tayou scored the overtime game-winner for the Mountaineers.

Georgetown 4, No. 24  Michigan State 0.  Whether it was a letdown after an emotional win against Maryland, or Georgetown simply having a great game, Michigan State was humbled on Sunday.

California 0, Notre Dame 0. Junior goalkeeper David Bingham recorded nine saves to help California stay unbeaten and win the adidas/IU Credit Union Classic Tournament.

SATURDAY SCOREBOARD

No. 7 Tulsa 3, Seattle 1. Junior Austin Neil scored a hat-trick in Tulsa's season-opening victory.

No. 8 Cal-Santa Barbara 1, New Mexico 1. Sophomore striker Sam Garza scored the equalizer to help keep UCSB from starting the season 0-2.

No. 12 Boston College 1, Quinnipiac 0. Junior Conor Fitzpatrick's 89th-minute penalty kick helped BC improve to 2-0. 

No. 22 Connecticut 3, Yale 1. Freshman Mamadou Doudou Diouf scored a pair of goals to help the Huskies improve to 2-0.

No. 10 Harvard vs. No. 13 Stanford. Sophomore Brian Rogers scored an 80th-minute winner to help Harvard win its opener, while forcing Stanford to fall to 0-2.

Saint Louis 0, No. 16  South Florida 0. Saint Louis' Nick Shackelford and South Florida's Jeff Attinella recorded two saves apiece in this scoreless encounter.

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What do you think of these results? See anybody beating Akron? Surprised by Indiana's blowout of UCLA? Is Virginia still the team to beat?

Share your thoughts below.
 

Comments

  1. Sorry for being a smart***. You’re obviously a well informed and enthusiastic fan. I got to attend the IU Credit Union Classic this weekend and saw some of the best early season college soccer that I’ve ever witnessed. It really should be a great year for college soccer.

    Reply
  2. I’m a huge fan of SBI, but PLEASE do not call UCSB “Cal-Santa Barbara”. Acceptable names are UCSB or UC Santa Barbara. You don’t call UCLA “Cal-Los Angeles” right? People in the soccer community should know who UCSB is by now. Thank you for taking note.

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  3. Yes to both. There are 48 spots in the national championship tournament, obviously there aren’t 48 conferences but I’m not sure how many automatic bids there are.

    Reply
  4. ah, the smarmy reply to the quick poster, a staple of the internet.

    Well, i’ll go ahead and apologize, didn’t read carefully, that’s my mistake (you don’t really see that on a message board). I will make sure to read slowly next time.

    And the only thing I have figured out is that a) Akron is really good b) Virginia is really good and c) This should be a fun college soccer season.

    Reply
  5. If you read, rather than just whiffing the headline and immediately jumping to post and impress everyone with your purlitzer prose, then you would have come to this in third paragraph…

    “While Wake struggled on Sunday, One ACC team that did impress was defending national champion Virginia, which throttled No. 17 St. John’s, 5-0. Freshman Brian Span recorded two goals and an assist to improve the No. 2 Cavaliers to 2-0.”

    Sounds like you’ve pretty much got the season figured out anyway.

    Reply
  6. No mention of UVa’s trouncing of #17 St. John’s 5-0? Hoos go to 2-0, beating a good UAB team and taking the Johnnies to the woodshed. Bates already with 2 goals, freshman “Cobi” Span with 2 goals, and Restrepo w/ the UVa D look as stout as ever.

    Many thought this would be a “rebuilding” year for the Hoos’, but they seem to be playing even better offensively than last season, while the D looks as dominant as ever. And until Akron can score a goal on Restrepo in the tournament, the are not getting anywhere near a national championship – Zakuani’s crew was shutout by DR in ’07 (with USF) and last year’s crew could not break down UVa either.

    (SBI-Did you even read the post? Not sure how you managed to miss that.)

    Reply
  7. So I’m guessing the conference tournament would be the Big East tournament for us and the D1 championship tournament is the NCAA tournament? If you’re not one of the tournament winners can you still get into the D1 championship? It’s starting to make more sense now, thanks!

    Reply
  8. The overall standings include the conference standings. The conference standings determine the seeds in the conference tournaments, and the tournament winners get automatic bids to the D1 Championship Tournament.

    Reply
  9. I was at that Notre Dame game, it was pretty good. My ND boys can sure move that ball around. I just started paying attention to college soccer this year so I’m a little lost when it comes to the season format. I know there are overall standings and conference standings and I think the overall standings include those mini-tournaments they have and the conference standings include those teams they play in their conference, but they play so little of those games according to the schedule (9 to be exact). So how do they choose who goes to the playoffs from only 9 conference games? Do they also include those other games to decide that? If someone could explain I’d be grateful.

    Reply
  10. I still think Akron are the team to beat, but I’m glad that UVA has started the season playing quality ball. Its a fairly young team and bound to get better. They work hard and have a lot of offensive weapons, with a solid defense and Restrepo in goal.

    We play Wake Forest next Saturday, and it will be interesting to see a direct comparison of how we perform against how Akron perform.

    Thanks for the report!

    Reply

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