INDIANAPOLIS – With 75 points apiece, 2019 national qualifiers Tiffin and Cedarville shared top honors as the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Men's Soccer Preseason Coaches Poll presented by Under Armour was rolled out on Wednesday.
 
Ten teams going into the upcoming fall have high hopes following the start of preseason and conditioning. As usual, the coaches balloting determined the order of the ranking.
 
Rewinding back to a memorable 2019 when the conference had four qualifiers in the NCAA Championship bracket (Cedarville, Lake Erie, Ohio Valley, Tiffin), the league moves forward with more of the same depth in Super Region 3.
 
The fall championships were suspended due to COVID-19, but the Great Midwest still had a chance to crown a champion in the spring. Ohio Valley finished an abbreviated spring and undefeated and was that conference tournament winner; the Fighting Scots have since moved to NAIA affiliation.
 
Four different programs received at least one first-place vote in this year's preseason coaches poll. Tiffin received five first-place votes to Cedarville's three while Lake Erie and conference newcomer Ashland each garnered one.
 
The Storm, top seed of the Super Region 3 bracket in 2019 with the regional coaching staff of the year led by Louie Rolko, came in third in the voting while the Eagles, formerly in the GLIAC, are fourth. Ashland is coached by Nick Roberts, who returns to the Great Midwest after being at the helm of Urbana in 2012, the league's first season of competition as he led the Blue Knights to a conference tournament victory.
 
Findlay made the top five with 48 points and spring conference tournament host Ohio Dominican is only two points behind in sixth. Walsh and Kentucky Wesleyan, both spring postseason qualifiers, were next in line followed by Trevecca Nazarene and Malone, respectively.
 
The Dragons were back-to-back conference champions in 2018 and 2019 and have won nearly 70 percent of their contests since joining the Great Midwest (.692). Junior CM Juan Rosique packs a punch in his 5-5 frame after finishing second in the league with 22 points this spring (9 G, 4 A).
 
The Yellow Jackets advanced to the conference tourney semifinals this spring and are expected to contend at the top once again with projected all-conference returners Sammy Kilimann and Jonny Stephens leading the charge; Mauricio Ochoa Vasquez and Mark Rowan also combined for 21 points for top-10 rankings in points per game. For LEC, German sophomore Ben Wiemann was voted as the conference defensive player of the year and junior forward Ayden Von Essen (5 G, 4 A) has carved his way into the top performers of the conference record books.
 
Ashland defeated Purdue Northwest, Saginaw Valley State and Davenport, in order to secure the GLIAC Spring Tournament title. Senior forward Kieran Paterson had 16 points (7 G, 2 A) and another senior forward, Justin Libertowski, ranks among the top 20 active goal scorers in Division II.
 
Kentucky Wesleyan's Julian Gonzalez scored a goal in each of his team's nine games to tie Tiffin's Rosique and rank sixth nationally in total goals this spring. Other spring standouts with top-10 goal production includes Great Midwest Freshman of the Year Patrick O'Halloran from Walsh, David Hug of Findlay, Caleb Gibbons of Tiffin and River Allbaugh of Ohio Dominican.
 
Both Lake Erie's Tom John and KWC's Lucas Daunhauer are active career leaders in Division II from the goalkeeper position going into the new season. Daunhauer has 266 saves and ranks among the top in saves per game as well while John ranks first in minutes logged with over 5,860 and also near the top of the list in saves.
 
The Great Midwest Championship tournament will feature six teams in the bracket this year. The first-round contests will be played Saturday, November 6, with the top two seeds receiving a bye. The semifinals would be conducted on Thursday the 11th and the championship game on Saturday the 13th at the top seed's campus site. 
 
Super Region 3 includes the Great Midwest, Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC), GLIAC and the combination of competing programs from the Great American Conference (GAC)/Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA). The winner of the Great Midwest Championship tournament will receive an AQ into the NCAA Championship bracket.
 
Northwood will join the party in the fall of 2022 as a full member of the Great Midwest and provisional member Thomas More will be slotted into the scheduling for the 2023 fall season.

2021 Great Midwest Men's Soccer Preseason Coaches Poll presented by Under Armour
 

T1. Tiffin (5 first-place votes)	75 points
T1. Cedarville (3 first-place votes)	75 points
3. Lake Erie (1 first-place vote)	65 points
4. Ashland (1 first-place vote)	53 points
5. Findlay	48 points
6. Ohio Dominican	46 points
7. Walsh	36 points
8. Kentucky Wesleyan	24 points
9. Trevecca Nazarene	19 points
10. Malone	10 points