Catching Up 11/15/10

Men's Soccer:

Won their fourth consecutive (eighth overall) MAC Championship via a dominating 3-1 win over Buffalo Friday night, and a 4-0 trouncing of Western Michigan Sunday afternoon. I don't have time to put up details, so here are some highlights, from ZipsAthletics:

Buffalo (MAC Semifinals):

Western Michigan (MAC Championship):

Men's Basketball:

Absolutely shut down Millikin in the season opener, to nobody's surprise. The 89-41 victory (48-9 at the half) makes Akron 1-0, but doesn't necessarily prepare them for a tough away matchup with Dayton on Tuesday, which will be televised on FSN. Again, sorry for the lack of a recap (I love doing basketball recaps), but here are the highlights:

Volleyball:

Lost their final game of the season to Ball State in four sets. Yuck. After starting the season 3-4, the lady Zips won 10 in a row, 5 of those coming in conference play, only to lose the next 6, then win only 2 of the last 5 to end with a lackluster record of 15-13 (7-9 MAC). The good news is, they still have a chance in the MAC tournament, playing 10th seed Buffalo on Tuesday.

Football:

This bye week prevented us from seeing another disastrous football loss, but the whole nation will be able to see that on Wednesday (if anybody outside of Ohio is insane enough to turn to ESPNU at 6pm for the game against Miami). I will be at the game, but I don't expect us to put up more than 10-17 points. The recap should be fun, though.

Roo News 11/12/10

1) The volleyball team lost a thriller to Buffalo yesterday, falling in five sets after leading 2-1 after three. The Zips seemed a bit too confident midway through the fourth set after taking an 11-6 lead, lost focus, and never recovered, despite some seriously intense timeout discussions from head coach Ron Arenz. This loss drops the lady Zips to 15-12 (7-8 MAC). They close out the regular at Ball State tomorrow.



2) The MAC men's soccer tournament begins today. The Zips have the #1 seed, and match up against the #4 seed Buffalo Bulls at 5 o'clock. When the two teams met in the regular season, it wasn't pretty. The Zips won 4-0, and outshot the Bulls 22-2. You can find the box score by clicking on the previous link, or by looking under the word "domination" in your local dictionary. GoZips.com has a nice preview here.

3) Elsewhere in soccer, former Akron standout and current Kansas City Wizard Teal Bunbury will join fellow MLS forwards Juan Agudelo (New York Red Bulls) and Robbie Findley (Real Salt Lake) on the United Stated national roster for the upcoming match against South Africa. He is the first Akron Zip to ever be selected for the national team.

4) The men's basketball team opens their season today at the JAR. After the Zips' 111-48 beatdown of John Carroll, fellow Division III program Millikin is going to need a lot to go their way (like Zeke Marshall suddenly shrinking 5 inches) for a win. It's also $1 Hot Dog and Pepsi night, so if you live in the area, are reading this blog, and haven't bought a ticket, buy one before I question your sanity.

The results should look very similar to the exhibition game against John Carroll, as the Zips once again hold a tremendous size and speed advantage. I'm curious to see how Keith Dambrot is going to handle the playing time of Alex Abreu and Quincy Diggs. I'm also wondering how much he plans on playing 6'10" center Mike Bardo this year. Bardo didn't get a lot of minutes last year thanks to some nagging injuries, but if he can hold those off, his size will help tremendously.

Catching Up 11/8/10

Men's Soccer:

The 16-1-1 #2 men's soccer team (man, that's disappointing to say) needed Michael Nanchoff's 80th minute penalty kick to defeat Hartwick (the 2-14-1 Hartwick Hawks!) 2-1 on Saturday. I'm not sure what's going on with the soccer team, but this is not the same team that scored a touchdown against Michigan. Hartwick is 2-14-1. And the Zips only outshot them 12-9.

The MAC tournament begins Friday, and Akron (obviously) has the #1 seed. We'll be playing Buffalo at 5pm. If the team becomes complacent like they seem to have been lately, we could see some serious trouble.

Volleyball:

The lady Zips won a 5-set scare over Kent State, but fell in four sets to Ohio the next day, falling to 15-11 (7-7 MAC), one game behind Ohio. MAC East play ends on Thursday, with a home matchup against 16-14 (4-10 MAC) Buffalo.

Football:

What. The. Heck. This year couldn't get worse. In fact, the team name "Zips" fits very well with that number in the win column. If you haven't seen, the Zips lost in double overtime 37-30 to Ball State on Saturday. This was our best chance to avoid a winless season, and pretty much fully explains how this entire season has gone.

But here's the best part: Do you want to know why the game went into overtime? The Ever Dependable Igor Iveljic. That's right. He missed an extra point.

On the bright side, this above-average offensive showing allows me to stop posting Zack Campbell's stats every week. But just for fun:

Zack Campbell-8 punts, 277 YDS

Alex Allen had a heck of a game, carrying the ball 25 times for 165 yards, but all of the touchdowns went to Patrick "Throws-the-ball-not-so" Nicely and the receiving corps.

Jalil Carter-6 REC, 69 YDS, TD

Alex Allen-5 REC, 29 YDS

Jeremy LaFrance-3 REC, 46 YDS, 2 TD

Anthony Meriweather-2 REC, 17 YDS

Richard Hall-2 REC, 17 YDS, TD

Patrick Nicely negated his best game of the year by throwing three interceptions. Wow, that guy has been awful this year.

Also on the bright side, the team gets to close out the season with two televised home games against Miami (OH) (5-4) and Buffalo (2-7).

UPDATE: Added a poll to the side bar. Let's see what you guys think.

Catching Up 10/31/10

This weekend was the most disappointing weekend of the year. Quick note of warning: Anger and severe sarcasm may be detected below.

Men's Soccer:

It happened. The #1 University of Akron men's soccer team was upset 2-1 by 8-9-0 Cleveland State on Saturday, despite leading in shots (12-6) and shots on goal (6-2). At 14-1-1, all this really means is that the Zips may lose the #1 seed in the tournament. The home unbeaten streak continues, and as long as we see the Zips team that outscored the #2, 3, and 4 teams in the country 9-0 show up in the NCAA tournament, the championship is definitely still attainable.

Volleyball:

The volleyball team dropped in four sets to Miami, but fought to a five-set win over Bowling Green the next day. After a magnificent start to the season, the team has sunk to 14-10 this season, just 6-6 in MAC play. They return to James A. Rhodes Arena this weekend for matchups against 10-17 (3-9 MAC) Kent State and 15-10 (7-5 MAC) Ohio.

Women's Soccer:

After extending their unbeaten streak to 5 games by defeating Ohio 1-0 to close out the regular season, the lady Zips dropped to Miami 2-0 in the first round of the MAC tournament. This ended their season with a 7-11-1 record. The women's soccer team is still a work-in-progress, and can improve on this semi-successful season by working more on controlling possession. I'd like to see Caleb Porter's "Death by 1000 passes" motto start to rub off on the women's soccer team.

Football:

This is getting annoying to blog about, but Akron's 30-0 defeat at the hands of the Temple Owls is a little better than last week's 56-10 drubbing from Western Michigan.

For once, the Zips defense looked like a defense. The score at the end of the half was 6-0. Unfortunately, Temple has a heck of a defense, and Patrick Nicely was pretty awful once again (15-26, 134 YDS, INT). Alex Allen (10 CAR, 30 YDS) and Nate Burney (7 CAR, 14 YDS) couldn't get much going, either. Zack Campbell was once again my MVP with 10 punts for 383 yards.

Quote from head coach Rob Ianello, from GoZips.com.

"We are establishing a foundation for how we are going to do things, and we are establishing a foundation for a program and we are going to get this thing pointed in the right direction, we just need to keep working towards improvement."

Ianello has literally stated nine different variations of that quote this year, one after each loss. Tune in next weekend for the tenth variation, unless the Zips can pull off their best chance for a not-winless season against Ball State.

Catching Up 10/26/10

Thanks to Family Weekend here at the University of Akron, we were all treated to a magnificent slew of athletic events resulting in a horribly delayed, why-the-heck-did-this-guy-take-this-long-to-update-this-blog, Catching Up post. Here we go.

Men's Soccer:

The men clinched the MAC title with a 2-1 victory over Western Michigan Saturday night. The game wasn't nearly as close as the score would suggest, as the Broncos crammed 10 players in their half of the field in order to attempt a draw or a lucky 1-goal win. The Zips outshot Western Michigan 13-3; but after the dominating 7-1 win over Michigan earlier in the week, the performance of the team can only be described as disappointing. Highlights are below.

Volleyball:

Two disappointing losses this weekend.

Four sets to Central Michigan:

and five sets to Eastern Michigan. The losses drop the team to 13-9 (5-5 in MAC), but they still sit at the top of the weak MAC East.

Women's Soccer:

The weekend featured a tough but exciting double OT 2-1 win over Kent State (KSUcks!) and a 3-0 beatdown of Buffalo. After the UA football-esque start to the season, the lady Zips are now 6-10-1 (4-5-1 in MAC) and have clinched a spot in the MAC tournament with these two latest victories. Overall, the team is playing better defensively, but still looks sloppy on offense.

Football:

It is my obligation as a blogger to write about the football team, so I will; but this is getting tiring. Not only do I look dumb for predicting 6 wins this season, but the embarrassment is gradually getting worse week by week. At 0-4, after a close game with Indiana, there was hope that things would change once MAC play began. Last week, at 0-7, we became the first team in the FBS to become bowl ineligible; and last but not least, this Saturday against 2-4 Western Michigan...

You see? I can hardly even bring myself to say it. Suffice it to say we lost pretty handily. As in, 56-10 handily. As in, our only touchdown came on a 57 yard fumble recovery from Brian Wagner handily. As in, Patrick Nicely decided to toss the ball to a waiting defender in the endzone for 6 points rather than take a safety for 2 points handily.

Yuck.

The effort from the secondary on Saturday was nonexistent. Western Michigan's freshman QB Alex Carter was 17-24 for 372 yards and 5 touchdowns. What about Patrick Nicely? Well, he was an impressive 12-24 for 120 yards and an interception. I should also probably mention that one of those passes went for 56 yards. Without that pass, Nicely was 11-23 for 64 yards and an interception.

In case you haven't been following along, here is the Nicely/Rodgers comparison at this point in the season:

Patrick Nicely-103/244, 1048 YDS, 3 TD, 9 INT, 86.4 RAT

Matt Rodgers-7/11, 95 YDS, 2 TD, INT, 178.0 RAT

What in the world, Rob Ianello?

As always, I am including the performance of this year's MVP of the team:

Zack Campbell-6 punts, 233 YDS

At 0-8 (0-4 in MAC), the Zips are easily in the bottom 5 of the nation and easily the worst in the MAC.

Next week is an away game at 6-2 Temple.

Yep.

Roo News 10/17/10

1) I'll just get this over with. The football team lost 38-10 yesterday to Ohio. This makes them 0-7, 0-3 in the MAC. The game was never close (24-0 at one point); and once again, Akron's statline is horrible. Let's start with rushing.

Rushing:

Nate Burney-12 CAR, 32 YDS

Alex Allen-7 CAR, 29 YDS

Patrick Nicely-3 CAR, 43 YDS

Matt Rodgers-1 CAR, 5 YDS

The big question here is, why is Alex Allen only carrying the ball 7 times? I'm not saying Burney's a bad running back. He should definitely be getting some carries; but Alex Allen has proven himself to be the better (or at least more useful) back at this point.

Receiving:

Richard Hall-4 REC, 48 YDS

Alex Allen-4 REC, 25 YDS

Antoine Russell-3 REC, 54 YDS

Gary Pride-3 REC, 14 YDS

Jalil Carter-2 REC, 25 YDS

Nate Burney-2 REC, 18 YDS

Austin Bailey-2 REC, 13 YDS

Anthony Meriwether-1 REC, 9 YDS

I like this. With Jeremy LaFrance beat up, it's good to see that we have some people stepping up.

Passing:

Patrick Nicely-16/29, 159 YDS, 2 INT

Matt Rodgers-5/5, 47 YDS, TD

I would never have guessed that Nicely would have the kind of season that he's having. I think it's time for a quarterback change. At 0-7, Ianello doesn't have to worry about position consistency now. I was one of the first to jump on the Nicely bandwagon, but this is the second time that Rodgers has come in (we had 3 points on both occasions) and led a nice drive for a touchdown. He's earned his chance.

And now for the running "punter is better than the rest of the team" joke:

Punting:

Zack Campbell-5 punts, 187 YDS

Here's an awful interview from Ianello:

We didn't play well on offense. I don't think we played well on defense, and we didn't play very well on special teams. I didn't see anything we did well out here today. It's my job to motivate the team. It's my job to get the team ready to play, and it didn't appear to me today that we were ready to play, for whatever reason. I don't know whether it was a hangover from last week (rivalry game at Kent State) or not. I would hate to think that.

Coach, your team hasn't been ready to play for six straight games and you're ticked when they don't show up for a seventh? It's time to stop trying to win this season and start thinking about not starting 0-7 next season.

2) Buffalo didn't stand a chance. Darren Mattocks' hat trick yesterday allowed the Zips men's soccer team to cruise to a 4-0 victory. The Zips outshot the Bulls 22-2. Neither of Buffalo's two shots were close. Oh yeah, also, Buffalo didn't have a single corner kick. After this specimen of domination, the Zips are 4-0 at home, outscoring opponents 15-0. The other Zips goal (and the first goal, coming in the 21st minute) came from Michael Nanchoff, who now has four on the season. Mattocks has 10. Here are the highlights:

Akron is now 11-0-1.

3) The volleyball team fell to 13-7 (5-3) after dropping in three sets to Western Michigan. Next up are two home matches against Central Michigan (7-11, 1-5 in MAC) and Eastern Michigan (17-6, 4-2 in MAC).

Catching Up 10/10/10

Another busy week for me, another attempt to catch readers up on everything that happened this last week.

Men's Soccer:

After defeating Northern Illinois 1-0 earlier this week, the #1 men's soccer team now stands at 9-0-1 (3-0-0 in MAC). Goalkeeper David Meves and Hermann candidate midfielder Anthony Ampaipatakwong are a bit beaten up at the moment, but the reserves are filling in superbly. Backup keeper Anthony Ponikvar stepped into the game against NIU to record 5 saves in 40 minutes, keeping the Huskies without a goal. Next up is a game at Penn State.

Volleyball:

The volleyball team crushed Buffalo in three sets, but fell in five to Toledo yesterday. They are still 13-5 (5-1 in MAC). A tough road trip to 17-2 (3-1) Northern Illinois and 12-5 (3-1) Western Michigan is next.

Women's Soccer:

At least with their 3-10-0 (1-5-0) record, they have one more win than Kent State and Buffalo combined. The lady Zips are continuing with their poor offensive play, much of which is caused by poor control of the ball. They looked great in the 1-0 loss to Northern Illinois on Friday, but gave up two goals early against Western Michigan earlier today before falling 3-1. Next up are away matches against Bowling Green and Miami.

Football:

Ha. Yeah...

The defense was spectacular against Kent State yesterday. Two of Kent State's touchdowns came from Akron turnovers. The worst part about the game was that Akron had a lot of chances to win it in the fourth quarter; and as has been the case this year, the offense was fired up enough to punch out the following drives in the final quarter:

3 plays, 7 yards, fumble

5 plays, 7 yards, punt

3 plays, 4 yards, fumble

2 plays, 15 yards, interception

1 play, 0 yards, interception

The bad: See above, and Patrick Nicely (16-33, 133 YDS, 3 INT)

The decent: Alex Allen (14 CAR, 51 YDS, TD) and Jeremy LaFrance (6 REC, 75 YDS)

The great: Zack Campbell (7 punts, 321 YDS)

On the bright side, they still have a chance to become bowl eligible.

Catching Up 10/4/10

The last few blog entries have been a bit chaotic, so it's time to check on the status of all the major Zips sports, from best to worst.

Men's Soccer:

What's not to love about Caleb Porter and the men's soccer team? They sit at 7-0-1, #1 in the country, and have outscored the #2, #3, and #4 teams in the nation 9-0, with only the matchup against #2 Tulsa at Lee Jackson Field. The only danger for a while is the away matchup against Northern Illinois this Saturday. The Huskies are a physical team that always put up a good fight.

Volleyball:

After winning nine games in a row, they now sit at 12-4 (4-0 in MAC play). The Zips face a tough away matchup against 13-7 (1-3) Buffalo before returning home to play 5-9 (0-4) Toledo.

Women's Soccer:

The preseason favorites of the MAC East Conference are now 3-8-0 (1-3-0 in the MAC), with two home games (Northern Illinois and Western Michigan) this weekend.

Football:

They're 0-5, and in the bottom 10 of everybody's mind. The football team is an absolute laughingstock thus far, and Rob Ianello is urging for patience from the fans. I, for one, am not sure how he sees improvement in giving up six straight touchdown drives in multiple games this year; and with Patrick Nicely throwing 127 yards a game, they aren't going anywhere soon.

Roo News 9/25/10

1) I'm not going to bother with a big football preview this week. I haven't given up on the Zips' chances, though. The last two games against Indiana have been reasonably close (38-21 in 2009 and 41-24 in 2007). Heck, Western Kentucky put up a fight against the Hoosiers last week. On top of that, the last time the Zips were 0-3, they won 6 of the next 7. On the other hand, the Zips haven't won on the road since 2008. The game's at 7 o'clock on the Big Ten Network.

2) But we have soccer! That motto is going to stick even more after the men's soccer team embarrassed #2 Tulsa 4-0 yesterday. All three of Akron's Hermann candidates scored, along with Perry Kitchen. The Zips have now downed...no, shutout...no, outscored 9-0 the #2, #3, and #4 teams in the nation. How's that for a team? The Zips now have a streak of 11 straight games with a shutout, tied for the longest in NCAA history.

The game was 2-0 within the first 13 minutes, and Tulsa never got on track. The Golden Hurricane (what exactly does their mascot look like?) were outshot 20-8, only one of their shots came near David Meves, and the Zips hit the crossbar three times. They hit the crossbar three times! This game could have been 7-0! Tulsa is the #2 team in the country! Anyway...Caleb Porter?

The Zips have a chance to set a new NCAA record for a shutout streak at Ohio State on Wednesday.

3) For every incredible win the men's soccer team pulls off, the women's soccer team gets annihilated. I did not see this coming. They were bulldozed by Central Michigan 3-0 in their MAC opener. The Zips are now 2-6-0 and have dropped to fifth in the MAC East. They travel to Ypsilanti on Sunday to face Eastern Michigan before returning to Akron on Friday for a doubleheader with the men.

4) The volleyball team improved to 9-4 after crushing Bowling Green yesterday. I was able to see the first set before I hiked over to the soccer game, which turned out to be the most exciting. The sets were 27-25, 25-23, and 25-16, all in favor of the Zips. They have another game today against Miami (Ohio) at 7.

Roo News 9/20/10

1) While I expected the football team to lose to Kentucky this weekend, I didn't expect them to lose it this badly. The final score was 47-10. It's no surprise that Kentucky put up 47, but I'm still in disbelief that we were held to 3 points until there was a minute left in the game. The Zips used to have an offense...

This will be short.

KY-Total Rushing-290 YDS

AKR-Total Yards-172 YDS

That just about sums it up. Patrick Nicely was 4/19 for 57 yards. Matt Rodgers came in at the end of the game to throw the Zips' only touchdown. He was 2/5 for 48 yards. Does this mean Rodgers is the better quarterback? I still don't think so; but he is probably the better quarterback for Ianello's new pro-style system. Nicely has played out of the shotgun since high school. He's a very good shotgun quarterback, which we all saw last year. It's very tough to take a shotgun-oriented QB and turn him into a pocket passer.

The game against Gardner-Webb showed that the Zips can get it done on offense, but only if Alex Allen and Nate Burney have early success. The receivers (other than LaFrance) on this year's team really aren't capable of making plays. Nicely (or Rodgers) needs some help.

And I'm still not sure what's going on with the defense. They looked great early on in the game, when it was 6-3 Kentucky midway through the 2nd quarter. Then the Wildcats scored six consecutive touchdowns. Here are the rest of the stats.

2) The #1 men's soccer team defeated Cincinnati 1-0 yesterday, moving to 5-0-0 on the season. Akron dominated for a large portion of the game (no surprise there), outshooting Cincinnati 12-4. The Bearcats also had 19 fouls to Akron's 6. The lone goal of the game came off of an Ampaipatakwong free kick.

For those with Fox Soccer, tune in Friday night for the game against Tulsa. It's going to be a good one.

3) The women's soccer team dropped to 2-5-0 after losing to Long Beach State 4-1.

4) The volleyball team defeated both Connecticut and Cornell on Saturday, sweeping the Colgate Invitational. The sweep puts their record at 8-4, second in the MAC East.

Roo News 9/18/10

If you're wondering why there was no football preview for this week, it's because I'm still in disbelief over last week's loss to Gardner-freaking-Webb.

In actuality, my professors have flogged me with work this week, and I was sick yesterday night, which is when I normally would have posted the preview. On to the news.

1) The football team is away at Kentucky today, with the kickoff beginning about an hour after this post. Akron is 0-4 all-time against SEC teams, this being the first meeting with the Wildcats. The good news about this season is that the last time the Zips started off 0-2 (2004), they lost a third before finishing the season 6-5. Something smells like hope...

2) The men's soccer team won their first game in the new Lee Jackson Field last night over Cal State Northridge. The game sold out (4,200) and marked the second-largest crowd in the history of Lee Jackson Field. The final score (3-0), was also the score at the end of the first half, which is when I left the game because I wasn't feeling well. The Zips outshot Northridge 10-0 in the first half. Perry Kitchen, Darlington Nagbe, and Chad Barson scored for the Zips. Caleb Porter's typically nonchalant thoughts on the game are below, and here is the box score.

3) The women's soccer team dropped to a 2-4 record after a 2-0 loss to UC Davis in the first match of the UNLV Rebel Classic.

4) The volleyball team defeated Colgate in five sets to improve to 6-4.

5) Kofi Sarkodie received MAC Male Scholar-Athlete of the Week honors for the second week in a row.

Roo News 8/29/10

1) The volleyball team defeated Howard and lost to West Virginia in the final day of the WVU Classic. You can see the box scores here.

2) Despite outshooting Morehead State today, the women's soccer team lost 3-1 to the Eagles. Early goals (in the 3rd and 11th minutes) were too much for the Zips to overcome, despite aggressive play in the second half. Morehead State's 1-3-0 record is just salt in the wound. The women play their third straight home game to open the season against Canisius on Friday. GoZips.com has the box score.

3) If you didn't like the last bit of news, you definitely won't like this: The men's soccer team (gasp!) lost their exhibition game against South Florida yesterday. The Zips absolutely dominated the game, but couldn't capitalize on their abundant opportunities (14-7 in shots, 11-5 in shots on goal). Let's hope that this was the one fluke of the year and be glad it happened in the exhibition season. The men have away games against North Carolina and Wake Forest (both top 10 teams) this upcoming week.