“We want to be on the national stage”: HSU men’s soccer set to make first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2014 on Friday night
SAN ANTONIO — The last time the Hardin-Simmons men’s soccer program set foot on the field for an NCAA Tournament match was 2014. It’s been a full decade since the Cowboys found their name amongst the teams in the national bracket, as one of 64 programs still standing in mid-November.
But that is soon to change. HSU meets Bowdoin for a first-round matchup at 7:30 p.m. CT this evening, as the Cowboys seek to extend their season by one more day.
“There are two teams in Texas D3 men’s soccer still playing, and we’re excited to be one of those,” HSU head coach Brad Bankhead said on Wednesday. “Hardin-Simmons is the winningest program in the ASC since its inception. To think that it’s been 10 years since we’ve won one here, it feels like an eternity. Some of our guys are young, and they don’t know any different, but the fifth-years we have, they understand the significance of winning one. You never know. You can’t take it for granted.”
The Cowboys went into last week’s ASC Tournament well aware that it would take winning the whole thing to still be playing now, a week later. There were no at-large bids going to be handed to ASC teams. In the semifinal match on Friday, HSU found the back of the net four times in the second half, eliminating ETBU in a 4-1 victory. It marked the Cowboys’ highest offensive output since a 6-0 shutout of Howard Payne six matches prior, but didn’t necessarily come as a shock.
Throughout the season, HSU proved to be effective when attacking, averaging 2.4 goals per game—the best amongst teams in the ASC Tournament—in addition to 33 assists overall and a league-best 21 goals in conference play. That success isn't achieved on the backs of one or two, either. HSU’s offensive attack is extremely cohesive, capable of moving the ball upfield quickly with effective passing and typically sound timing. That’s partially why, of the ASC’s Top 10 goal-scorers this season, four Cowboys are listed, led by Jakob Fiol’s eight. All four—Fiol, Jack Sissen, Maxwell Winneker, and Thomas Saylae—have found the back of the net at least five times, with three others entering HSU’s NCAA Tournament appearance having scored three times.
“We don’t have just this one guy who’s banging in 15 goals this year,” Bankhead said. “It’s been spread out, and they’re coming in different ways. A lot of set pieces, corner kicks, and also in the run of play, just working hard and manufacturing goals.
“It was the same way in the [ASC Tournament] final. LeTourneau has a very strong goalkeeper, who’s always tough to beat. He made some big saves against Mary Hardin-Baylor, and the first two times we played them, he made some big saves. So we knew it was going to take something special to beat him. Sometimes there’s luck involved, and things happen. We like to say we create our own luck, and I think that’s what happened on Sunday.”
Indeed, Nick Ocasio came off the bench to put HSU up 1-0 early, scoring on a high shot to the left side of the frame in the 28th minute. Less than 10 minutes later, HSU added to its lead, with Fiol racing down field, corralling a long pass. It set up his first goal of the tournament, as the Cowboys’ leading scorer got the ball past LETU’s Edson Camara Martinez for the score. The 2-0 lead held until the final horn, giving HSU its 10th ASC Tournament title in program history.
“It was a gorgeous day,” Bankehead said, looking back on the scene just before HSU took the field for the tournament final in a matchup of East vs. West in the ASC. “The women had just won [their conference championship] and now it was our turn. You couldn’t ask for a better scenario on Sunday. We knew what LeTourneau had already done, knocking off Mary Hardin-Baylor, and knew we had a tough one ahead of us. But we found a way to get it done.”
In his second year as HSU’s head coach, it’s been Bankhead’s goal to put his program more prominently on the national stage. Reaching the NCAA Tournament and breaking the decade-long absence from the national postseason is a clear step in that direction.
“We want to be on the national stage,” Bankhead noted. “That’s our vision for our program, and to continue to push that envelope. We’re not going to be on the national stage if we don’t make the NCAAs. It’s an important step to our vision and where we want this program to be.”
With that comes facing teams from well outside of the Lone Star State and playing “out-of-region”. While the new NCAA Tournament selection system doesn’t differentiate between in-region and out-of-region opponents like it used to, the emphasis is still there for Bankhead when it comes to establishing HSU in the national landscape of Division III men’s soccer. It exposes his team to different styles of play, and top-quality programs.
“Hardin-Simmons has done a really good job over the last four or five years of, every year taking a flight to somewhere outside of the region,” Bankhead said. “It gives us a chance to sell our brand to other people around the nation that this is good soccer in the south and west. If we want to be on the national stage, our guys have to understand what that looks like and who those teams are.
“In our year-end meetings last May, I asked our guys, ‘Tell me some of those national-stage teams,’ and they really couldn’t give a lot of good answers. They just didn’t know. Sometimes, you have to go, and see, and play, and we hope those preseason matches give us some perspective of what’s really out there and how good we have to be.”
The Cowboys will get another one of those on Friday night in one of the more unique pairings in this year’s tournament. Bowdoin College, from Brunswick, Maine and the prestigious New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), faces HSU in a matchup between Region 1 and Region 10.
Don’t let Bowdoin’s 7-5-5 record fool you. The Polar Bears played Tufts, the nation’s No. 2 team, to a tie in back-to-back matches, and eliminated the Jumbos in the NESCAC quarterfinals. They also played both No. 3 Middlebury and No. 20 Williams to 1-0 losses, and enter this tournament having survived a gauntlet of a league schedule.
“Bowdoin is certainly a tried and true team,” Bankhead commented. “They’ve competed and played with some of the best in the nation. I have preached to the boys that they are battle-tested and going to be a great matchup. And just something different. A team that we don’t get to see. We’re not going to travel west to see them, and they’re not coming south.
“This is what the NCAA Tournament is about, getting the experience to play teams you don’t see often. This pod the whole weekend, if we get through Bowdoin, we have the Trinity/Belhaven winner looking at us 24 hours later. It’s survival of the fittest. We want to play the best teams as we march our way through this.”
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Who else is representing Texas in the Division III soccer tournaments?
Trinity (TX) men’s soccer: The Tigers enter this tournament with a favorable chance to make a lengthy run, as Trinity leads the nation in won-lost-tied percentage (.925). With a 17-0-3 record, head coach Paul McGinlay’s squad has won its last four, including a 4-2 victory in this past Sunday’s SCAC Tournament final against St. Thomas (TX). Trinity is the only team in this year’s national tournament that ranks in the Top 10 in Division III in both goals per game (3.45, which ranks fifth), and goals against average (with 10 goals allowed in 20 matches, .500). The Tigers head into Friday’s 5 p.m. CT match against Belhaven in San Antonio seeking to reach the Second Round for the second straight season.
Hardin-Simmons women’s soccer: Under first-year head coach Rusty Oglesby, the Cowgirls captured their second consecutive ASC Tournament title after going 8-0 in conference play this fall. HSU was sent to the four-team pod hosted by NYU, becoming the second athletic program at HSU in the last two seasons to play a national tournament contest in the Big Apple, after women’s basketball faced NYU in the Sweet 16 in March. The Cowgirls, with a 17-1-2 mark, face McDaniel, a team receiving votes in the United Soccer Coaches Top 25, on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. CT. HSU is led offensively by Lexi Templin, a sophomore from San Angelo who earned the ASC’s Offensive Player of the Year award on Thursday. The Cowgirls are in the NCAA Tournament for the second-straight year, having reached the Sweet 16 last season.
Trinity (TX) women’s soccer: You won’t find many teams better in the defensive half of the field than Trinity, as we wrote about in our Oct. 18 edition. The Tigers, who are 16-1-2, have surrendered just five goals this season, and shut out 17 of their 19 opponents this season, including Southwestern and Texas Lutheran in last week’s SCAC Tournament. Trinity is seventh nationally in goals-against-average, which presents a must-see first-round match against California Lutheran, a SCIAC program with an exceptional defense of its own. The Regals allow just 0.68 goals/game, having put together a 10-2 record in what is routinely a top-tier conference in D-III women’s soccer. Trinity takes the field for its first round match on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. CT, playing on the campus of Pomona-Pitzer.
Texas’ Division III Football playoff picture: One last look
In the next 36 hours or so, we will know the 40 teams that have qualified for the 2024 Division III Football playoffs. But as of now, with one last Saturday left in the regular season, there is a lot up in the air when it comes to which programs will receive an at-large bid. In that mix are three programs from the Lone Star State, so here’s a quick look at what to be keeping an eye on as Saturday’s games unfold.
Texas Lutheran (Record: 8-1): The Bulldogs are in prime position, even without the SCAC having an automatic bid this season. At 8-1, TLU’s lone remaining game is a non-conference tilt at home against Southwestern, and is really all that stands in the way of the Bulldogs reaching the playoffs. At 4-5, Southwestern is better than its record reveals, but Hansen Ratings lists TLU as a 12.5-point favorite in this one. TLU is very much on the at-large bubble, but they’re inside of it right now, and with a win, it should stay that way. Their chances of making the playoffs, according to Logan Hansen, are 78.1%.
Trinity (Record: 7-2): After an auspicious start that included a season-opening loss to TLU, the Tigers have found their rhythm, and carry a five-game win streak into Saturday’s road duel at Millsaps. Virtually every game, especially after the Oct. 5 loss to Centre, has been a must-win for Trinity, and the Tigers have met that challenge head-on. Millsaps has been a tough out throughout SAA play, but Trinity is in a good spot in terms of win probability. The Tigers are locked in a three-way tie for first place in the SAA with Berry and Centre, so there is still a chance for Trinity to get the AQ. If Trinity wins, and Sewanee wins at Centre, and Rhodes upsets Berry, the Tigers will take the automatic bid. Even if that doesn’t happen, Trinity needs to root for Sewanee to beat Centre, in addition to winning their own game. The Tigers control the head-to-head tiebreaker against Berry, and could also claim the AQ that way. If neither of those other two results happen, but Trinity gets a win to finish 8-2, the Tigers would be right on the line for an at-large bid, with a reasonable, yet not surefire, chance to get in.
Mary Hardin-Baylor (Record 5-3): The Cru are in a tougher position, because, unlike Trinity and TLU, UMHB needs significant help from teams around them in the Pool C mix to get an at-large bid. They won’t get in, or even have a sizable chance at getting in, by simply winning their game. At 4-2 against Division III opponents, UMHB is currently No. 13 in Pool C if the season ended today, and doesn’t have a high-leverage game in its season finale, facing Howard Payne, who is 2-7. Instead, UMHB needs to win, and also some combination of a UW-La Crosse loss to UW-Stevens Point, a TLU loss to Southwestern, a Trinity loss to Millsaps, and a Centre loss to Sewanee. They also need to hope that no upsets come into play, and cause a conference favorite to not get their league’s AQ, thus taking one of the Pool C spots. The most notable of these cases is UW-Stout’s game against UW-Platteville. Stout is far outside of Pool C, but with a win over Platteville, would claim the WIAC’s automatic bid. Platteville would certainly earn an at-large bid, thus taking a spot away from a team already in the Pool C mix, such as UMHB. In reality, TLU and Trinity also need to be rooting against a scenario like this, though such an occurrence would affect their chances slightly less than it would UMHB’s.
Hardin-Simmons (Record: 9-0): The pressure is off for HSU, who clinched its spot in the national playoffs last week with a 27-19 win over UMHB. The ASC champions, HSU received the ASC’s AQ to the postseason. Now the focus is on an undefeated season for the Cowboys, who head to ETBU on Saturday for the regular season finale. The last time the Cowboys finished a regular season undefeated was 2004.
Updates on NPI as Saturday’s games go final can be found on Logan Hansen’s X/Twitter page, @LogHanRatings. Stay tuned there for more information as these scenarios begin to play out in real time. You can also visit his website at hansenratings.github.io.
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Great coverage across soccer and football. One note: Trinity's start was *inauspicious* ;-)