The College Cup kicks off at 4:30 pm today, with both semifinals available on ESPNU today (the first is also available on ESPN2), and the final on Sunday available on ESPN2.
Friday 4:00 pm – WAKE FOREST-VIRGINIA, Semifinal (live) ESPN2
Friday 6:30 pm – NORTH CAROLINA-AKRON, Semifinal (live) ESNPU
Sunday 12:00 pm – Men’s College Cup Final (live) (ESPN2/ESPNU/ESPN360.com)
Here are a couple of stories related to the games today. Enjoy!
Nineteen-ninety seven was, for a number of reasons, a strange year for Caleb Porter.
A senior captain at Indiana – the second-ever three-year captain for the vaunted Hoosiers program – he finished the year as the runner-up in the Hermann Award voting and as a member of a team that set the NCAA single-season win streak record, only to lose to UCLA in the national semifinals.
Two weeks ago, Porter was on the Akron sidelines, 12 years after that record was first set, to watch this year’s Zips squad burn through its 23 straight game to tie the record and earn a spot in this weekend’s College Cup.
“I told my team that that `97 team was one of the best teams in the history of college soccer, but no one will ever remember that team because we never won a national championship,” Porter, the fourth-year coach at Akron, said. “It’s not important that they broke the record. What’s important is we win a national championship.”
When top-seeded Akron meets North Carolina in Cary, N.C. on Friday at 7:30 p.m. (ET), the Zips stand just two wins away from finishing the most successful – numerically, at least – season in the 51-year of the D-I Men’s Soccer championship and earning the first-ever national title for any Akron sport. Behind them are 23 straight wins. Not just regular wins, either. Demolitions. Scorched-Earth type of wins that have seen the Zips outscore their opponents 58-7 on the year, post a 0.30 goals against average – fourth-best in NCAA history – along with a school-record 17 shutouts, while out-shooting opponents nearly 4:1.
Thus far in the Tournament, the Zips have posted a 5-0 edge in scoring through its three games. But ahead of them, if they do end up reaching the final, are two teams from the best conference in college soccer. With three teams in the College Cup – Akron, from the MAC, is the lone exception – no matter who wins in the other semifinal between Wake Forest and Virginia, at least one ACC team will play in Sunday’s final.
And for Akron to prove that it has arrived as a national power, as something more than a one-year wonder, it’ll have to show it belongs among three teams that come from a conference that’s produced three of the last four national champs, Porter said.
Porter’s now in his eighth overall College Cup, after three as a player and four more as an assistant at Indiana, winning three of them. But that experience in 1997 represents the harsh simplicity athletic memory: the Machiavellian notion that no amount of success will ever matter unless it ends with a championship.
Wake Forest Hits Fourth Straight College Cup
By Harold Gutmann, special to NCAA.com
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Three years ago, Wake Forest made its first appearance in the College Cup. The Demon Deacons have been back every year since.
“It’s just a tremendous experience,” coach Jay Vidovich said. “It’s something you work for all the time, and to get there once, you just want to always go back.”
By defeating UCLA 2-0 in the quarterfinals Saturday, Wake Forest became the ninth team to advance to the College Cup in four straight years and the first since Maryland in 2005. Goalkeeper Akira Fitzgerald, who made four saves to post the shutout, and Zack Schilawski, who scored the winner with 37:47 remaining, are now a part of the winningest senior class in school history. They have posted a 78-10-10 record with three ACC regular-season titles and the 2007 NCAA championship.
But a return trip wasn’t inevitable. The Demon Deacons returned just three starters off last year’s semifinalists — Fitzgerald, midfielder Corben Bone and defender Ike Opara.
Add to Google
Great. I wanted to see U of Akron and Teal Bunbury play and today’s game is only on ESPNU. I was hoping for at least 360 access. Hopefully they will get to the championship game on Sunday.