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2014 Season


theeagleman5

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Hard to believe but we are just a tad over two weeks from the ORU soccer opener vs. Oklahoma Wesleyan at Case on August 15th.....Anybody in the know have info on how we can expect the team to perform this year?....TheEagleman loves soccer!..... :eagles:

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I'll jump in Eagleman, although it would be a stretch to say I'm in the know.  I'm mostly a boring facts guy- must be the reason why I gravitated to the stat-keeping side of athletics while I was at ORU.  Well that and not having much athletic ability to speak of and certainly not of the caliber of a D-1 athlete.  But I digress.

Men's soccer started moving in the right direction last season when Ryan Bush took over as head coach after coming over from ORU women's soccer, where he'd been in the same position.  He was able to bring in some decent recruits and instituted a better scheme, especially defensively, which led to an improvement in won-loss record from 4-13-0 to 6-8-4 last season.  And in that improvement was a ridiculous (in a good way) reduction in goals allowed from 44 in 17 matches to 22 in 18 matches.

We return seven of our top ten scorers from last season and both goalkeepers.  Our leading returning scorer is a sophomore and had nine points on four goals and an assist.  You'd think it would be hard to win at all, let alone win six matches, when your leading scorer has only nine points all season, and most of the time you'd be right.  We won because of defense.

What really hurt us last season was a terrible road record.  We went 1-6-2 away from home and our road schedule this season will be a challenge with tough matches at Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word, Tulsa, SMU, Denver and Missouri State.  Traditionally, the Texas schools are pretty good, and so is TU, and Denver went undefeated in winning both the regular season and tournament titles in the Summit last season, while Mo State is a regional rival that always comes to play against us.

We finished 2nd in the Summit last season with a 3-2-1 record for 10 points in conference matches, behind Denver, which should be picked as the favorite to win the league again when the polls come out soon.  I see the predictions having us either second or third in the Summit, with either Omaha or Western Illinois being the ones to possibly push us down to third. We play at Denver and Western Illinois, the team that beat us in the Summit tourney last season.  Omaha is likely the toughest league home match we will have, but winning at home wasn't our issue last season.  What degree of success we'll likely have this season will depend on whether we can win on the road.  The team has only six matches in the Summit so we'll need to pick up points however and wherever we can get them in the league.

Oh, and the Summit tournament will be played at Denver.  Go Eagles!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Less than one week until the opener vs. Oklahoma Wesleyan....TheEagleman sets the early line at ORU (-1.5).....I am gonna grab the Golden Eagles with that one....looking for an opening win at Case next Friday night in front of the home crowd.... :nerd:

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