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- Whittier won a scintillating overtime final against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Sunday to take the first SCIAC Championship since the conference earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Championship tournament prior to this season. Thus the Poets travel to Stanford for a longshot play-in match on December 5th where they’ll likely take on the fourth seed. At the helm of the Poets is Head Coach Justin Pudwill. And while NCAA Championship coaches have come from throughout the US and as far as the Balkans, Pudwill may be the first with some serious Texas heritage. Though born and raised in Huntington Beach, CA, he played his senior year and graduated from Ross Sterling High School in Baytown, TX.
- St. Francis, Brooklyn defended its CWPA title with a win over Princeton on Sunday and and has also earned the privilege of a play-in match on the fifth (likely versus WWPA champs UC San Diego). The Terriers, under first year coach Srdjan Mihaljevic from Serbia, ended the regular season atop CWPA rankings but only after stumbling through some surprising results, including two losses to Harvard, a five-goal drubbing by Navy, and one-goal wins over Iona and Fordham. But the typically European-heavy roster turned it on at the proper time to defeat Bucknell by four and the Tigers by two in its final two CWPA tourney matches.
- The NCAA recently granted a CWPA-proposed one year waiver that shifts the play-in venues to the men’s championship site this season. The CWPA published details of the decision, and the entire tournament format on November 14.
- We wrote after Harvard-Westlake’s surprise dismantling of Mater Dei in the CIF-Southern Section D1 championship on Saturday that the victory changes a lot. Meaning, the Monarchs had established an authentic mystique and a reputation, accurate in our minds, as the finest boys high school team of all time. For a run of over 100 matches they went undefeated against a myriad of the most elite programs. While most fans knew the run couldn’t last forever, no signs of faltering emerged, until Cathedral Catholic’s overtime win in Del Mar on November 9. That defeat finally chipped at Mater Dei’s facade of invincibility. The Wolverines demolished it on Saturday. Mater Dei is certain to have a pipeline of talent ready for next season, and its coaching staff may very well vault the Monarchs back to the top in 2014. But no opponent will fear them they way they have the past two-plus years.
- With Mater Dei’s win streak ended at 105, the 100-game streak owned by Michigan’s Rockford High School is now apparently the nation’s standard. The two-time defending state champs haven’t lost a game in over two years.
- As the fall prep season has ended, our not-very-controversial top four boys’ prep teams in the nation: Harvard-Westlake, Mater Dei, Cathedral Catholic, and Sacred Heart Prep.
