UB Bulls Soccer Roundup: End of the Season

This is likely the last soccer roundup of the year: if both teams are still in action next week I'll do more of a postseason preview of things, and if not, I'll start doing season postmortems.

Men's Soccer

Men's Soccer's loss last Saturday to West Virginia was not entirely unexpected, but it, combined with Bowling Green's victory against Western Michigan, put a serious dent in Buffalo's MAC Tournament chances with one MAC game remaining for all teams.

In the loss against West Virginia, the Bulls lost leading scorer Russell Cicerone eight minutes in to injury and ceded a hat trick to Andy Bevin - now the MAC's #2-leading scorer - in the first half on the way to a 3-0 loss.

UB Bulls Saturday: Wrestling, Women's Swimming and Diving lead the way - Bull Run
UB would hold things scoreless until the 19th minute. After that things didn't go so well. The Mountaineers' Andy Bevin opened the scoring to give WVU the 1-0 lead, and then twice extended his team's lead before the half. With the hat trick Bevin jumped UB's Cicerone in the MAC scoring tables. Bevin is now second with 12 goals on the season and Cicerone third with ten.

Men’s Soccer Handed 3-0 Defeat At West Virginia - Buffalo

All that really matters in terms of stats or whatnot now is the postseason outlook: UB has a one-point lead on Bowling Green for the final spot in the MAC semifinals.

Saturday Buffalo will travel to Akron while Bowling Green travels to Northern Illinois. UB will advance with:

• A UB Win OR
• A NIU Win OR
• A UB tie and NIU tie

Women's Soccer

I have written so much about women's soccer that I can't spend a ton of time now summarizing. Since the last roundup, UB wrapped up the regular season with a tougher-than-expected win over Akron, finishing an undefeated regular season and only the third undefeated conference season in MAC women's soccer history:

UB Women's Soccer overcomes sloppy start to cap undefeated MAC season - Bull Run

Bulls Close Out Regular Season With Double Overtime Victory Over Akron, 2-1 - Buffalo

The postseason started on Sunday. UB, as one of the top four seeds, earned the right to host their quarterfinal match, and took advantage of the home field and two second half goals to continue on in the MAC tournament.

UB Bulls Women's Soccer advances to MAC Semifinal with 2-0 win over Toledo - Bull Run

Women’s Soccer Advances To MAC Semifinals; Downs Eighth-Seeded Toledo, 2-0 - Buffalo

After the weekend was over, UB made some noise in the usual places - Jackie Hall was named MAC Defensive Player of the Week - and in new territory, as well: After cracking the top ten of the regional coaches' poll last week, UB jumped to fifth and even got a Top 25 vote in the national poll:

"Also Receiving Votes"! - Bull Run

Jackie Hall named MAC Women's Soccer Defensive Player of the Week - Bull Run

Finally, I doubt you've missed it if you've gotten to this post, but November 5th and 6th is the anniversary of a memorable day in UB women's soccer and UB history, and I wrote a lengthy piece on it:

UB Women's Soccer's National Sportsmanship Award: The Biggest UB Story You Don't Know - Bull Run

UB will hopefully have to games to play this weekend: They will first host Ball State in the MAC semifinal round tomorrow at 4 PM. The winner of that game will await the NIU-Western Michigan winner for the conference championship game, which will be played Sunday at noon.

Tickets for Friday's game are $10 for adults, $7 for students, and free for students of any MAC school. I assume that the $10 will get you into the second semifinal, as well.

Go Bulls!