D3soccer.com Daily Dose

Boiling down Division III into a few bullet points isn’t easy, and it hasn’t gotten easier as the division has grown. But Division III has been attempting to define itself in a way that can be easily communicated to those on the outside. After a Division II identity statement process ended up with the fairly meaningless “I chose Division II” mantra and D-II wrapped itself in a lot of the things Division III holds dear, it became important to take control of the message.

To us here at D3sports.com, Division III is the highest form of purely amateur athletics in the U.S. It’s where students — note, not “student-athletes” — play for love of the game. Division III competitors get no special treatment, no scholarships, no special privileges, no separate dining halls, no dorms to themselves. They don’t get preferred treatment from their professors; in fact, it’s far more likely they get treated more harshly from teachers who believe they don’t belong in the school.

But distilling that opinion, plus the opinions of hundreds of other Division III true believers, down into a form that can be easily shared and understood, isn’t easy. Here’s how Division III is positioning itself:

“Follow your passions and discover your potential.

“The college experience is a time of learning and growth – a chance to follow passions and develop potential. For student-athletes in Division III, all of this happens most importantly in the classroom and through earning an academic degree. The Division III experience provides for passionate participation in a competitive athletic environment, where student-athletes push themselves to excellence and build upon their academic success with new challenges and life skills. And student-athletes are encouraged to pursue the full spectrum of opportunities available during their time in college. In this way, Division III provides an integrated environment for student-athletes to take responsibility for their own paths, follow their passions and find their potential through a comprehensive learning experience.”

What’s your take?

For more, here’s the NCAA News article on the unveiling.

INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA Division III Men’s Soccer Committee has released its third regional poll with records through Nov. 1. The top teams in each of the eight regions are listed below. The committee ranks 15 percent of the eligible teams in each region.

The first record is in-region record, followed by overall record.

Central
1. Wheaton (Ill.) 12-2-2 13-3-2
2. Dominican 13-1-3 13-1-3
3. Chicago 10-3-2 11-3-3
4. Elmhurst 10-2-3 12-3-3
5. Hope 11-3-2 12-3-2
6. Calvin 12-4-1 13-4-1

East
1. RPI 13-1-2 13-1-2
2. Rochester 11-1-2 12-1-2
3. Hobart 12-3-2 12-3-2
4. Stevens 13-3-1 13-3-1
5. Plattsburgh State 12-2-3 12-2-4
6. Oneonta State 11-4-2 12-4-2
7. Nazareth 10-4-2 10-4-2
8. Hamilton 9-4-1 9-4-1

Great Lakes
1. Ohio Wesleyan 17-0-2 17-0-2
2. Carnegie Mellon 12-2-0 14-2-0
3. Ohio Northern 14-2-2 14-3-2
4. Capital 13-2-1 15-4-1
5. Baldwin-Wallace 12-4-1 12-6-1
6. Denison 9-3-2 10-4-3
7. Kenyon 13-4-1 13-4-1

Mid-Atlantic
1. Messiah 13-1-0 17-1-0
2. Swarthmore 13-1-2 14-1-2
3. Merchant Marine 15-2-0 15-2-0
4. Johns Hopkins 11-2-2 13-3-2
5. Muhlenberg 11-3-2 11-3-2
6. Dickinson 11-3-2 12-3-2
7. Catholic 14-3-1 14-3-1

New England
1. Wesleyan (Conn.) 11-0-4 11-0-4
2. Williams 12-2-1 12-2-1
3. Bowdoin 11-3-1 11-3-1
4. Amherst 11-3-1 11-3-1
5. Middlebury 9-3-2 9-4-2
6. Wheaton (Mass.) 16-3-1 16-3-1
7. Trinity (Conn.) 10-4-1 10-4-1
8. Babson 12-5-1 13-5-1
9. Keene State 13-4-0 13-6-0
10. Eastern Connecticut 14-4-1 14-4-1
11. Western New England 14-5-2 14-5-2

North
1. Loras 15-1-1 15-1-1
2. St. Olaf 13-3-2 13-3-2
3. UW-Whitewater 8-4-2 10-5-3
4. Carleton 14-4-0 14-4-0
5. Carroll 14-1-3 14-1-3
6. UW-Oshkosh 12-3-2 13-3-2
7. Dubuque 14-3-1 14-3-2

South Atlantic
1. Montclair State 14-1-1 15-1-2
2. Christopher Newport 16-1-0 16-2-0
3. Salisbury 13-2-1 14-2-1
4. York (Pa.) 13-1-4 13-1-4
5. Virginia Wesleyan 14-2-2 14-3-2
6. Hampden-Sydney 16-3-0 16-3-0
7. Lynchburg 13-2-2 14-2-2

West
1. Trinity (Texas) 12-1-1 13-1-2
2. Whitworth 11-1-3 12-2-3
3. Mary Hardin-Baylor 13-3-0 13-3-0
4. UC Santa Cruz 10-2-2 13-3-2
5. Pacific Lutheran 12-4-0 13-5-0
6. Pomona-Pitzer 12-2-2 13-3-2

INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA Division III Men’s Soccer Committee has released its first regional poll with records through October 26. The top teams in each of the eight regions are listed below. The committee ranks 15 percent of the eligible teams in each region.

The first record is in-region record, followed by overall record.

Central Region

1.   Wheaton (Illinois)   11-2-1  (12-3-1)  
2.   Dominican   12-1-3  (12-1-3)  
3.   Chicago   9-3-1  (10-3-2)  
4.   Calvin   12-2-1  (13-2-1)  
5.   Elmhurst   9-2-3   (11-3-3)  
6.   Principia   11-1-0  (13-1-0)

East

1.   RPI 11-1-2  (11-1-2)  
2.   Rochester   9-1-2  (10-1-2)  
3.   Plattsburg State   12-2-2  (12-2-3)  
4.   Hobart   11-3-2  (11-3-2)  
5.   Stevens   12-3-1  (12-3-1)  
6.   Oneonta State   10-4-1  (11-4-1)  
7.   Nazareth   9-4-2  (9-4-2)  
8.   Hamilton   9-3-1  (9-3-1)  

Great Lakes

1.   Ohio Wesleyan   15-0-2  (15-0-2)  
2.   Carnegie Mellon   11-1-0  (13-1-0)  
3.   Ohio Northern   12-2-2  (12-3-2)  
4.   Capital   11-2-1  (13-4-1)  
5.   Denison   8-3-1  (9-4-2)  
6.   Baldwin-Wallace   10-4-1  (10-6-1)  
7.   Kenyon   11-4-1  (11-4-1)
  
Mid-Atlantic

1.   Messiah   11-1-0  (15-1-0)  
2.   Swarthmore   12-1-1  (13-1-1)  
3.   Johns Hopkins   10-1-3  (12-2-3)  
4.   Muhlenberg   10-3-1  (10-3-1)  
5.   Merchant Marine   15-2-0  (15-2-0)  
6.   Dickinson   10-3-1  (11-3-1)  
7.   Catholic   12-3-1  (12-3-1)
  
New England
 
1.   Williams   11-1-1  (11-1-1)  
2.   Wesleyan 9-0-4  (9-0-4)  
3.   Trinity (Conn.) 10-2-1  (10-2-1)  
4.   Amherst   10-2-1  (10-2-1)  
5.   Bowdoin   9-3-1  (9-3-1)  
6.   Connecticut College   8-3-1  (8-3-1)  
7.   Wheaton (Mass.)   15-3-1  (15-3-1)  
8.   Babson   11-5-1  (12-5-1)  
9.   Keene State   11-4-0  (11-6-0)  
10.  Middlebury   8-3-2  (8-4-2)  
11.  Eastern Conn. State   11-4-1  (11-4-1)
  
North

1.   Loras   14-1-1  (14-1-1)  
2.   UW-Whitewater   8-4-2  (9-5-3)  
3.   Carleton   14-3-0   (14-3-0)  
4.   St. Olaf   11-3-2  (11-3-2)  
5.   Carroll   14-1-2  (14-1-2)  
6.   UW-Oshkosh   11-3-1  (12-3-1)  
7.   Wartburg   9-4-1  (11-4-1)
  
South Atlantic
 
1.   Montclair State   14-0-0  (15-0-1)  
2.   Christopher Newport   13-1-0  (13-2-0)  
3.   Salisbury   13-2-1  (14-2-1)  
4.   York (Pa.)   12-1-4   (12-1-4)  
5.   Emory   9-2-1  (10-3-1)  
6.   Roanoke   10-3-3  (11-4-3)  
7.   Lynchburg   12-1-2  (13-1-2)  
7.   Virginia Wesleyan   12-2-2  (12-3-2)
  
West

1.   Trinity (Tex.)   10-1-1  (11-1-2)  
2.   Mary Hardin-Baylor   13-2-0  (13-2-0)  
3.   Whitworth   9-1-3  (10-2-3)  
4.   UC-Santa Cruz   9-1-2  (12-2-2)  
5.   Pacific (Oregon)   9-2-2  (12-2-2)  
6.   Pacific Lutheran   10-4-0  (11-5-0)

INDIANAPOLIS &emdash; The NCAA Division III Men’s Soccer Committee has released its first regional poll with records through October 19. The top teams in each of the eight regions are listed below. The next poll will be released October 28. The committee ranks 15 percent of the eligible teams in each region.

The first record is in-region record, followed by overall record.

Central
School Region record (Overall)

1. Wheaton (Ill.) 10-2-0 (11-3-0)
2. Dominican 9-1-3 (9-1-3)
3. Chicago 9-2-1 (9-2-2)
4. Elmhurst 8-2-2 (10-3-2)
5. Calvin 10-2-1 (11-2-1)
6. Hope 8-3-2 (9-3-2)

East

1. RPI 10-1-1 (10-1-1)
2. Hobart 10-2-2 (10-2-2)
3. Rochester 9-1-2 (9-1-2)
4. Plattsburgh State 11-2-1 (11-2-2)
5. Oneonta State 9-3-1 (10-3-1)
6. Stevens 10-3-1 (10-3-1)
7. Union 8-3-1 (9-3-1)
8. Hamilton 7-3-1 (7-3-1)

Great Lakes

1. Ohio Wesleyan 14-0-2 (14-0-2)
2. Carnegie Mellon 11-1-0 (13-1-0)
3. Kenyon 11-3-0 (11-3-0)
4. Ohio Northern 10-2-2 (10-3-2)
5. Capital 10-2-0 (12-4-0)
6. Denison 7-3-0 (8-4-1)
7. Baldwin-Wallace 9-4-0 (9-6-0)

Mid-Atlantic

1. Merchant Marine 14-1-0 (14-1-0)
2. Messiah 8-1-0 (12-1-0)
3. Swarthmore 12-1-0 (13-1-0)
4. Johns Hopkins 10-1-0 (12-2-0)
5. Muhlenberg 8-3-1 (8-3-1)
6. Dickinson 8-3-1 (9-3-1)
7. Drew 7-2-5 (7-3-5)

New England

1. Wesleyan 9-0-3 (9-0-3)
2. Williams 10-1-1 (10-1-1)
3. Trinity (Conn.) 10-1-1 (10-1-1)
4. Amherst 8-2-0 (8-2-0)
5. Bowdoin 8-3-1 (8-3-1)
6. Wheaton (Mass.) 13-3-1 (13-3-1)
7. Connecticut College 6-3-1 (6-3-1)
8. Keene State 9-4-0 (9-6-0)
9. Eastern Connecticut 9-4-1 (9-4-1)
10. Babson 9-5-1 (10-5-1)
11. Western New England 10-5-2 (10-5-2)

North

1. Loras 12-1-1 (13-1-1)
2. UW-Oshkosh 10-2-1 (11-2-1)
3. Carleton 11-3-0 (11-3-0)
4. St. Olaf 11-3-1 (11-3-1)
5. UW-Whitewater 7-3-2 (8-4-2)
6. St. Scholastica 12-1-2 (12-1-2)
7. Carroll 12-1-2 (12-1-2)

South Atlantic

1. Montclair State 12-0-0 (13-0-1)
2. Christopher Newport 12-0-0 (12-1-0)
3. York (Pa.) 11-1-3 (11-1-3)
4. Emory 8-2-1 (9-3-1)
5. Roanoke 9-2-3 (10-3-3)
6. Virginia Wesleyan 10-2-2 (10-3-2)
7. Mary Washington 10-4-1 (10-4-1)

West

1. Trinity (Texas) 9-1-1 (10-1-2)
2. UC-Santa Cruz 6-0-2 (11-1-2)
3. Mary Hardin-Baylor 11-2-0 (11-2-0)
4. Whitworth 8-1-2 (9-2-2)
5. Hardin-Simmons 7-1-2 (7-1-4)
6. Pacific 8-2-1 (11-2-1)

This email is heading off to all Division III Sports Information Directors. If you’re an SID, you should get it through Moravian SID Mark Fleming’s D-III email list. You will want to be on his list to get important notices, research questions and other emails of interest to all D-III schools, so if you’re new, make sure he has your address.

It should be distributed shortly. I’ve included it here without the particulars about logging in.

Dear SID:

Hoping this email finds you well. This will contain notes for all sports we cover: football, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball. It is primarily a football note, however. There’s a lot here, so I broke it down as follows:

Covered in this email:
Team of the Week changes
Football game day info
Audio/video/live stats links, football and basketball
Basketball schedules
Twitter and Facebook
D3soccer.com Top 25
Links to our site and yours
What We’re Reading
All-Region deadlines, mark your calendar
Contact info

-> Team of the Week changes — We have a trade-out sponsor lined up for the D3football.com and D3hoops.com Team of the Week, something we’re not getting any money for but at least getting some exposure and use of some software that will make distributing info easier. We’re also moving the Team of the Week nomination form behind a login screen — we were getting too many spam or fan/parent nominations, plus, our new system will streamline the creation of the Team of the Week. Last year we lost the guy who had been doing the TOW for three or four years and I went back to choosing the team and assembling the pages myself. If you don’t have your D3sports login (what you use to nominate for our All-Americans and All-Region teams) contact me sooner rather than later. Those of you who have let coaches do the nominating will need to let me know if you want them to get usernames and passwords to access that function.

-> Football game day info — We would love to have all sorts of information on game day. Before the game, you can post a link to your game notes or preview through Presto, or post them in their entirety on our site with your D3sports login. The PrestoSports system is capable of handling in-progress scores, which will be updated automatically if you use Presto’s live stats software. Otherwise, you or someone on your game day crew can update scores as often as you like. Even if it’s just after every quarter, it’s of tremendous use to fans, who flock to our Scoreboard page all day long. After the game, we would love to have the final score and your game story, both of which can be posted through Presto’s space.

-> Audio/video/live stats links, football and basketball — if you have live video, live audio or live stats. We will publish your video links even if they are pay per view, so if you want to increase your audience, make sure you get the links on our scoreboard. That will require your PrestoSports login. You could email me your links and ask us to post them; however, we’ll do that on an as-time-permits basis. It’s going to be faster for you to post them yourself.

-> Basketball schedules — we have about two-thirds of the schedule on the site already. If you’re a Presto school or conference, remember we will get your schedule automatically when you post it for your conference. Please use “Site Notes” instead of “Notes” for notes about your games, whether they are homecoming, alumni day, senior day, whatever. That way those notes appear solely on your site and not on your opponents’ site (or ours).

-> Are you on Twitter? Are you following @d3hoops, @d3football, @d3baseball and are we following you? We follow every D-III athletics feed we can find and some of the general school feeds if they’re interesting. Please drop me a line if we aren’t following you. We’ll continue to retweet out interesting SID tweets, which will push people to your site instead of ours. Same with Facebook — D3football.com and D3hoops.com will become fans of your pages as we learn of them and hopefully yours will do the same.

-> D3soccer.com Top 25 — Some of you were approached about voting in our first soccer Top 25 poll. Jim Matson has been following up with SIDs on that list as well as coaches to make up the voter list. The poll should be released on Tuesdays during the regular season and we thank those of you who will be voting. Soccer game releases can be posted directly on D3soccer.com with your D3sports login.

-> Links to our site and yours — We already link to your site and we would love a link in return. (Men’s soccer links will be going on the site this month, with women’s to follow.) As more schools go with outside companies, we’ve lost a lot of the links we used to have from schools. Please consider linking to D3baseball.com, D3football.com, D3hoops.com and D3soccer.com from your appropriate sports’ main pages (and please note that the b, f, h and s are all lower-case). I can provide a logo 125 px wide to fit on most templates, but have not included it with this email to keep the size down.

-> What We’re Reading — We started linking to outside news sources’ stories last season with the What We’re Reading boxes. They appear on the front page of D3football and D3hoops and on the blogs for D3football, D3hoops and D3baseball. If you have an interesting feature story in your area, drop me a line with the link.

-> All-Region nomination deadlines, mark your calendar — Just an early heads-up: Football nomination deadline is Wednesday, Nov. 25. Basketball nomination deadline is Tuesday, March 9. We will absolutely send out more info closer to the end of the season.

-> Contact info
Football and basketball (and hopefully 2010 baseball) game day info:
Log in at Presto with Presto username and password.

All D3sports.com weekly, regional and national nominations, all soccer game stories, other non-game releases for all sports:
Log in at the respective D3sports.com data entry site with D3sports username and password:

Also, thanks to everyone who helped us with Kickoff 2009 on D3football.com, whether with a photo or helping us talk to your coach, some of them at the last minute. See you in Salem, or Bloomington, or Appleton, or Greensboro.

D3football.com, D3hoops.com: Pat Coleman
info@d3sports.com for general inquiries, news@d3sports.com for releases

D3soccer.com: Jim Matson
info@d3soccer.com for general inquiries, news@d3soccer.com for releases

D3baseball.com: Jim Dixon
info@d3baseball.com for general inquiries, news@d3baseball.com for releases

Pat Coleman
D3sports.com

Here are the recently released women’s regional rankings from the NCAA:

Here is the latest release as of October 29.

The NCAA released its first set of regional rankings for women’s soccer on Wednesday, through games of Oct. 19.

Please note, the first record is regional record, followed by overall record.

Central Region
1. Washington U. 9-1-1 11-2-1
2. Wheaton (Ill.) 9-2-1 13-2-1
3. UW-Stevens Point 13-2-0 13-2-0
4. UW-Eau Claire 14-1-2 14-1-2
5. St. Thomas 10-0-3 11-0-3
6. Carthage 9-1-0 12-1-0
7. Wartburg 9-2-1 12-2-1
8. Concordia-Moorhead 9-2-3 10-2-3
9. St. Benedict 12-4-0 12-4-0
10. Loras 8-4-0 11-4-0
11. Augsburg 8-2-4 9-2-4
12. St. Scholastica 15-2-0 15-2-0

Great Lakes Region
1. Calvin 9-0-1 11-2-1
2. Otterbein 10-1-0 11-1-1
3. Wittenberg 9-2-4 9-2-4
4. Transylvania 9-2-0 10-3-0
5. Wilmington 9-2-0 12-3-0
6. Denison 8-2-1 11-2-1
7. Ohio Wesleyan 8-3-2 9-4-2
8. Penn State-Altoona 12-0-1 14-0-1

Mid-Atlantic Region
1. Rowan 9-0-1 11-0-1
2. Messiah 12-0-2 14-0-2
3. Johns Hopkins 8-0-3 11-0-3
4. St. Mary’s (Md.) 8-0-3 8-1-3
5. Richard Stockton 14-2-1 14-2-1
6. William Paterson 10-2-1 10-2-1
7. Eastern 8-3-0 8-5-0
8. Swarthmore 8-2-1 8-3-1
9. New Jersey 8-4-1 9-4-1
10. Kean 10-4-0 10-4-0

New England Region
1. Williams 11-0-0 11-0-0
2. Amherst 8-1-2 8-1-2
3. Bowdoin 6-2-3 6-2-3
4. Middlebury 6-3-2 6-4-2
5. Endicott 11-2-2 11-2-2
6. Springfield 9-3-2 9-3-2
7. Tufts 7-4-0 7-4-0
8. Wheaton (Mass.) 12-4-1 12-4-1
9. Western Connecticut State 9-3-1 9-3-1
10. Bridgewater State 7-2-2 7-2-2
11. Trinity (Conn.) 7-4-0 7-4-0

New York Region
1. William Smith 10-0-3 10-1-3
2. Rochester 9-3-2 9-3-2
3. St. Lawrence 8-1-3 10-1-3
4. Ithaca 9-1-2 9-1-2
5. Union 11-3-1 11-3-1
6. Skidmore 10-4-2 10-4-2
7. Hamilton 7-3-1 7-3-1

South Region
1. Virginia Wesleyan 9-0-2 10-1-3
2. Lynchburg 10-0-2 12-0-3
3. Rhodes 10-1-1 10-2-1
4. Emory 10-2-1 10-2-1
5. Trinity (Texas) 8-3-1 8-3-1
6. Southwestern 10-2-1 10-2-1
7. Hardin-Simmons 9-2-2 9-3-3
8. Christopher Newport 9-2-1 9-5-1

West Region
1. Puget Sound 11-0-0 12-1-0
2. Whitworth 10-3-1 10-3-1
3. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 9-4-0 9-5-0
4. UC Santa Cruz 7-3-1 9-5-1

Here are the NCAA regional rankings that were released this afternoon by the regional committees. The records are through October 19th and 15% of the eligible teams in each region are ranked. The next ranking will be released on October 29th.

In region records are the records that drive the rankings, and of course are based on strength of schedule. If the season were to end today, the rankings would be a 99% accurate predictor of Pool B and Pool C teams.

We’ll get the women’s rankings posted shortly.

The Division III soccer season is in full swing and then some and we’re glad that more and more people are finding our new site.

Jim Matson, our managing editor, has written about Division III soccer before and has been wanting to do a site like this for a while now. He’d been talking to us about doing a weekly soccer column for D3sports.com since before we had D3sports.com up and running.

Instead, Jim seized the moment last fall and bought the D3soccer.com domain name. Although we are still building out the site, most of the major functions are in place, including:

Scores. Thanks to our partnership with PrestoSports, we have Division III soccer scores for about 20 conferences, right around half of Division III. Click here for scores, or visit the Scoreboard link on the left-hand side of the front page.

Forum. Or message board, if you prefer. If you’re already a member of our Division III basketball, baseball or football boards at D3boards.com, you’re set to post right now. Otherwise, you do need to register to join the Division III men’s soccer and Division III women’s soccer discussions. But we turn around all registrations in under 24 hours and most of them in under 6 hours. The registration is partly so we can keep spammers from flooding the boards with sales pitches. (When you register, make sure you read the Terms of Service and your mailbox is set to receive mail from us.)

Top stories. You can’t miss these — these are the wrapups of days of action on the front page that Jim assembles, using his experience and expertise in Division III soccer news.

Game stories. Sports Information Directors have the ability to log in and post game stories and other news releases directly on our site, and more and more of them do on a regular basis. These are stories from around Division III and can be found directly on the home page, between the top story and the second story on the front.

Daily Dose. As in, the blog, and you’re already here. This is where other items of interest will be posted, such as rankings, notes and other items that might generate discussion. You’ll need to register to post but it’s a quick process and your e-mail doesn’t appear with your comments.