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Anticipation and expectations run high this weekend as the University of Akron Zips gear up to host the MAC Championship tournament this weekend. It also means the end is nearing for head coach Caleb Porter for his time there before taking over the reins at Portland.
The NCAA tournament still looms large on the horizon for the Zips but for four seniors--goalkeeper David Meves, midfielder Scott Caldwell, defender Chad Barson and forward Thomas Schmitt--their time at UA is also drawing to a close. All four were part of the 2010 College Cup championship team--alongside Timbers midfielder Darlington Nagbe--and also help symbolize the type of soccer Porter has built during his time with the Zips.
"It’s fitting that they’re graduating in my last year as well, because I feel like they embody a lot of the qualities that I really want Akron soccer to be known for.”
College soccer expert Travis Clark and has a great piece inTopDrawerSoccer.com on what this season has meant to Porter and his senior class. Go read it.
Dunseth (broadcasting) & Charles (NASL era)
You may recognize the voice of Brian Dunseth as it has become fairly ubiquitous across the American soccer spectrum. A soccer analyst on NBC Sports, Fox Soccer—often paired with our very own John Strong—as well as on Real Salt Lake and FC Dallas games, Dunseth has become a keen observer of Major League Soccer which should come as little surprise given his long playing career in MLS.
The first ever signing to the Project 40 initiative in 1997—now more commonly known as Generation adidas—Dunseth went on to play for the New England Revolution, Miami Fusion, Columbus Crew, Dallas Burn, and Real Salt Lake. After his playing career ended, Dunseth got into broadcasting but also teamed up with his old college teammate from Cal State Fullerton, Ben Hooper, to start a clothing company called Bumpy Pitch that bridges soccer, culture, history, and style. That same theme led their foray into an online “magazine” of sorts called The Original Winger that collects stories about soccer, shoes, watches, fashion, movies, music, and more.
But Dunseth also has a unique affinity to Portland. In 2000, he was the captain of a loaded US Olympic U-23s team that featured the likes of Frankie Hejduk, Ben Olsen, Conor Casey, Danny Califf and Landon Donovan as well as Timbers Alumni Ambassador Adin Brown. The head coach of that team was none other than Timbers legend Clive Charles who had a defining impact on Dunseth as a player and as a person.
In this episode of the Backcut, we talk about soccer in Portland, the influence of Charles both on a personal level and on American soccer, and much more. It’s an illuminating and emotional conversation.
The Backcut Podcast sits at the intersection of Timbers, soccer & culture to explore the unique elements of the beautiful game. You can subscribe to The Backcut on iTunes in the same feed as the Talk Timbers podcast.
National Efforts
Join MLS W.O.R.K.S. as we support Red Cross relief efforts for Hurricane Sandy.
Donations help the Red Cross provide shelter, food, emotional support and other assistance to those affected by disasters like Hurricane Sandy. To donate, people can visit www.redcross.org, call 1-800-RED-CROSS, or text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation. Contributions may also be sent to someone’s local Red Cross chapter or to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013. Learn more.
To schedule a blood donation or get more information about giving blood, people can visit redcrossblood.org or call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767). To give blood, someone must be at least 17 years of age, meet weight and height requirements and be in general good health.
Goalkeeper David Meves - GoZips.com
Caleb Porter and his University of Akron Zips wrapped up their regular season last week with back-to-back shutout wins. On Wednesday, they beat Michigan State 1-0 and then followed that up with a 2-0 win over Western Michigan back at home on Senior Night.
The earlier win over the Spartans was also historic as it gave senior goalkeeper David Meves his 51st career shutout thus breaking the NCAA all-time shutouts mark previously held by Josh Ford.
Meves, who has already set school records for wins (73) and minutes played (8,138), has started 89 games – posting a career mark 73-7-9 – during his historic career and has allowed just 45 goals in more than 8,138 minutes of play for a goals-against-average of 0.50. Not surprisingly, Meves was named National Player of the Week by College Soccer News Monday.
Porter’s team has out-scored their last 11 opponents by a count of 30-1 and UA has yet to trail in a game at home this season. Perhaps most excitingly for the Zips is they now are the No. 1 ranked NCAA Division 1 team in the country by TopDrawerSoccer.com.
The Zips next host Bowling Green on Friday at FirstEnergy Stadium – Cub Cadet Field in the MAC Conference Championships semifinal. The game also marked the final home regular season match for Caleb Porter as head coach at UA before taking over the helm in Portland this winter. The AK ROWDIES supporters group made this special banner, signed by numerous fans, to hold aloft at the match:
Thank You Coach Porter twitter.com/AK_BigChief/st…
— Ian Tayek (@AK_BigChief) November 4, 2012
Elsewhere in college soccer, Timbers U-23s forward Mark Sherrod scored three goals last week, leading to a pair of Memphis victories, and today was named the C-USA Offensive Player of the Week. He has 12 goals and 28 points on the season, both tied for second in the conference. MLSsoccer.com also spoke of Sherrod's exploits in their lates MLS on Campus feature.
The University of Portland Pilots men’s and women’s team had a busy weekend celebrating. The women rolled to a 5-0 win over University of San Francisco (Watch Match Highlights) and then gathered together Monday to find their NCAA tournament fate.
With an 11-4-4 overall record, the Pilots received an at large bid to play Washington State this Friday at Merlo Field at 7pm. It is UP’s 13th straight appearance in the NCAA Postseason and their 20th appearance overall during the last 21 years.
The men’s side celebrated Senior Day with a come-from-behind 2-1 win over first-place San Diego Toros. Timbers U-23s midfielder Steven Evans had the game-tying assist and game winning goal in the win. It was Evans’ 14th goal of 2012 putting him atop the WCC league lead with fellow Timbers U-23s player and Santa Clara forward Erik Hurtado.
Portland State women’s soccer wrapped up their season Saturday with a 3-2 loss to Montana in the Big Sky tournament semifinals. Despite an end to the season, the campaign was one of the most successful seasons in program history. The Vikings won their second straight Big Sky regular season championship (shared with Idaho State & Montana) while finishing with the third-best record in school history at 9-8-2 overall and 6-2-1 in conference. Nine players made the Big Sky All-Conference team—a program high.
Presented without comment, The Super Great Toilet Keeper.
Join Timbers forward Danny Mwanga, Timber Joey and Timbers Alumni Ambassador Scot Thompson for Free Family Day at the Portland Art Museum on Sunday, November 5.
The trio will be running a special presentation as one of numerous events connected to The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece, an exhibition of artifacts celebrating the human form dating back to the second millennium BC which are all part of the collection of the British Museum in London. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in various activities, such as creating mythic monsters, designing vases and Greek-style puppets.
Mwanga, Timber Joey and Thompson will talk about the importance of keeping their own bodies healthy through exercise and a healthy diet. The presentation will run from 2 until 2:30pm with an autograph session to follow until 3pm.
Free Family Day runs from noon until 5 p.m. at the Portland Art Museum located at 1219 SW Park Avenue. For more information, visit www.pam.org or call 503.226.2811.
The ambitious community outreach event known as Stand Together Week affected many non-profits and organizations across the city of Portland at the beginning of October. Close to 1,000 community volunteers, including 80 members of the Portland Timbers staff, coaches and players donated over 1,400 hours of service to the Portland community.
KPDX were at many of those events and tonight, Shauna Parsons and Wayne Garcia host a special about how the unique week all came together. There will be stories from across the various locations as well as an interview with Timbers COO Mike Golub about how and why the Timbers became involved and just what it meant to the Portland community.
Tune in at 9pm PT tonight on KPDX to watch and if you miss it, KPTV will air a repeat at 4pm PT on Nov. 4.
Earlier this week, US Soccer announced the new head coach for the USWNT in Tom Sermanni. Taking over from the Olympic winning and team favorite Pia Sundhage, Sermanni has a tall order to keep the USWNT at the peak of women's global soccer. He spoke to USsoccer.com about taking over the team.
And while Sermanni is the coach, for a short while, KICKTV's Jimmy Conrad claimed to be in charge of the team:
While Alex Morgan is no stranger to joking around, it appears at the beginning of the video that she may have bought into the ruse for just a moment.
The actual USWNT will be coming to Portland on Nov. 28 to host the Republic of Ireland in a friendly at JELD-WEN Field. US Soccer announced their ticket pricing information earlier this week and the presale starts today. Neither Conrad nor Sermanni will be at the helm when the team is here, however, as US Soccer women's development director Jill Ellis will fill in in the interim.
Rubio Rubin (Photo via USsoccer.com)
With eight goals since June 25 for the US U-17 squad--including scoring in four straight matches--not to mention being mentioned as TopDrawerSoccer.com's #1 U.S. player in the Class of 2014, it's save to say that Timbers U-16 Academy player Rubio Rubin has been on a bit of a tear.
After training at the US Under-17 Residency Program since the 2011 Fall Semester, Rubin has traveled with the team to Spain and most recently to the Four-Nations Cup in Argentina where he tallied three goals in four matches.
USsoccer.com sat down with the Beaverton native to talk about playing so far from home and how his development has been coming along.
ussoccer.com: You’re a long way from home in Oregon being across the country in Florida at the Under-17 Residency Program. Do you ever get homesick?
It's a great interview about a promising Timbers Academy product. Read the whole piece over at USsoccer.com.
David Meves - Photo by GoZips.com
Caleb Porter's University of Akron Zips continued their stellar 2012 run with two big wins last week, both of which marked special milestones.
Last Tuesday night, goalkeeper David Meves became the school's all-time shutouts leader in a 1-0 decision at Ohio State. Junior Reinaldo Brenes scored his ninth goal in seventh matches and Meves made a season high six saves in the match. Meves' 49th career clean sheet surpassed current Montreal Impact 'keeper Evan Bush who set the record during the 2005-08 seasons.
"I thought it was very fitting for [Meves] to do it today because he bailed us out on several occasions,” said Coach Porter after the game. “We probably don’t win that game, if it’s not for him.”
On Saturday, the Zips wrapped up their eighth-straight MAC regular season title with a 4-0 win over Hartwick. Defender Chad Barson—who could sign a Homegrown contract with Columbus in the offseason—scored for UA and helped lead the team to their second shutout in a row.
As a result, the Zips (13-1-2, 6-0-0 MAC) earned the right to host the MAC Tournament as the No. 1 seed from Nov. 9-11 at FirstEnergy Stadium – Cub Cadet Field. Coach Porter has won the conference title in each of his seven seasons at Akron. The team is now ranked No. 2 in the country behind unbeaten Maryland and over the last 10 games, the Zips have scored 28 goals and conceded only one.
Closer to home, in a battle of Timbers U-23s teammates, Steven Evans and Ricardo Carrillo’s University of Portland prevailed over Erik Hurtado’s Santa Clara University 2-1 on a nationally televised game on FOX Soccer. Evans put the Pilots up in the 37th minute with his WCC-leading 12th goal but it was Carrillo who sealed the win with a spectacular 110th minute goal in overtime.
Evans added to his goal scoring exploits with his 13th goal on Sunday though the Pilots lost to St. Mary’s 3-2. They next play at Merlo Field on Friday at 7pm against Loyola Marymount and then on Sunday versus San Diego at 1pm.
Their female Pilots counterparts had a productive weekend. On Friday night, down 1-0 at the half to No. 18 Pepperdine, UP roared back with three goals in twelve minutes to win 3-1 behind two goals from Michelle Cruz and a a gamewinner from Amanda Frisbie. Watch Frisbie’s nutmeg game winner here. Then on Sunday, with former Pilots and current USWNT star Megan Rapinoe in attendance, UP downed LMU 2-0. Watch highlights here.
Incidentally, Rapinoe has been making the rounds in Portland, here she is enjoying Bright Dike's game-tying goal against San Jose in the Timbers 2012 season finale Saturday night. (Photo via beIN Sport's Temryss Lane):
Megan Rapinoe @mpinoe getting in on the @timbersfc celebration w/ Timber Joey & Timbers fans instagr.am/p/RTk57QMOtw/
— Temryss Lane (@TemryssLane) October 28, 2012
Down I-5, Oregon State University’s and Timbers U-23s forward Emery Welshman became the first Beavers player to hit double digits in goals since current Timbers forward Danny Mwanga did it in 2009. Welshman scored in a 2-1 loss to PAC-12 rival UCLA.
In other Timbers U-23s news, midfielder Eric Miller of Creighton played with the US U-20’s recently in Spain at the Marabella Cup. Read this TopDrawerSoccer.com story about how Miller and the other collegiate players on the team are balancing the international dates with their university commitments.
