Official Great Midwest Championship Page
Tournament Bracket (PDF)
INDIANAPOLIS – Six teams are in the mix for the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Men’s Soccer Championship when the postseason starts this weekend with quarterfinal action on two campus sites.
Two quarterfinal matches will be completed Saturday, October 27, featuring No. 5 Lake Erie vs. No. 4 Ohio Dominican in Columbus and No. 6 Alderson Broaddus vs. No. 3 Ohio Valley in Charleston, WV, at Schoenbaum Stadium.
Start times for LEC/ODU will be 2 p.m. ET and ABU/OVU will get underway at 6 p.m. ET. Both winners advance into the semifinal round. The Great Midwest Championship will be streamed by the host institutions on the Great Midwest Digital Network.
The regular season officially shuttered its doors on Tuesday with three playoff spots and the regular-season title still up in the air.
The dominoes fell, and when the dust cleared, it was first-year member institution Tiffin (13-4-0, 11-3-0 G-MAC) celebrating by earning the top seed in the tournament bracket and accumulating the most points in the league standings.
For head coach Rudy Brownell and his squad, it was quite an entrance to make in a new conference. The Dragons did their part by beating Findlay to end the regular season, but also received some aid from Ohio Dominican, which prevented Cedarville from adding to its season point total.
Junior center mid and player of the year contender Abdoul Magid Sy was tied as the Great Midwest league leader in points scored with 24 and also tied for second in goals scored with 10. Other Dragons receiving offensive or defensive weekly conference honors included GK Dylan Morris, D Joel Daly and F Ramiesh McKnight.
But there is still plenty of work to be done in the playoffs and the Dragons will enjoy a first-round bye along with No. 2 seed Cedarville (11-5-2, 10-2-2 G-MAC) this weekend. TU was picked third in the preseason coaches poll.
The two teams advancing from Saturday’s quarterfinal round will head to Tiffin and the semifinals/championship final will be held at TU’s Paradiso Athletic Fields. A banquet will be held on Wednesday evening for the four remaining teams while the all-conference team with individual award winners will also be unveiled.
The Yellow Jackets were in first place going into the regular-season finale and poised through a tie or win, to serve as the No. 1 seed. The thing is, Cedarville has signature wins already against Tiffin (dramatic shorthanded double-overtime golden goal) and over then No. 6-Ohio Valley (14-4-0, 10-4-0 G-MAC).
OVU finds itself in a unique position after holding a top-10 ranking for most of the season and being picked to repeat as the league favorite. The Fighting Scots reeled off eight straight wins to start the year before suffering a rare conference defeat. OVU was blanked three more times in conference play and it would have been easy to assume the talented squad in Vienna would receiving an opening-round bye.
Still, OVU is a dangerous draw going up against rival Alderson Broaddus (6-9-2, 6-6-2 G-MAC). The Battlers have made the postseason every year, schedule aggressively against in-region competition since joining the league and simply find a way to get it done. Ending the regular season on a high note with a win against outgoing member Davis & Elkins is key momentum going into the playoffs.
With five matches going into double OT, Lake Erie (8-5-4, 6-5-3 G-MAC) is another team that opponents hope they don’t have to face. The Storm lost only one game by more than one goal (vs. Tiffin) and have a bevy of playmakers on the pitch including Miguel Espinoza, Javier Borreguero and Jonathon Carr, all in the top 10 in points, goals or assists.
LEC beat Ohio Dominican (8-8-1, 7-6-1 G-MAC) in the regular season, but like last year in their first Great Midwest postseason appearance, the Panthers clinched their playoff bid as arguably one of the hottest teams going in. ODU’s win against Cedarville at Cedarville was as impressive as it comes with the season on the line. The Panthers are also one of the few who have had success against Tiffin with a head-to-head win vs. the Dragons.
ODU, LEC and ABU, all reached the postseason with the results from Tuesday. Various scenarios remained up in the air, but ODU’s win vs. Cedarville clinched, LEC’s win vs. Walsh clinched and AB’s point total topped Malone and Trevecca albeit through unfortunate circumstances.
*NOTE* The adjusted season point total for Trevecca was officially 18 due to a yellow card accumulation clerical error. Per NCAA rules, an undisclosed student-athlete participated after receiving his fifth yellow card of the season, and forfeiture of a contest resulted in nullification of accumulated points in the conference standings. All records and statistics still count for the affected game.