Senior midfielder Jack Rohner runs around the Colombian players during the senior night match at Penn Park on November 5. credit: Samantha Turner
Last weekend, the Penn men’s soccer beat Colombia for the first time since 2011. Now the Quakers are on the verge of making a bid for the NCAA Tournament as Ivy finds himself on the brink of a league title.
Penn (11-2-2, Ivy 5-1) is now alone at the top of the Ancient Eight standings after Cornell drew with Yale last Saturday. However, Big Red (12-3-1, 4-1-1) has yet to finish. With one game left in the regular season, the Ivy League champion designation will come down to Penn’s matchup against Princeton on Saturday, November 12, and Cornell’s matchup against Columbia.
The Tigers (6-5-4, 1-2-3) are Ivy’s reigning champions, but currently hold 5th place in the Ancient Eight standings after suffering poor scoring performances in recent conference games .
Of the nine scenarios that could be deployed, Penn won the title in eight. Red and Blue can win or tie to win the championship and earn automatic qualification to the NCAA Tournament. If Penn drew and Cornell won, the two teams would share Ivy’s title, but Penn would win an automatic tournament his berth. kill big red in a head-to-head matchup early in the season.
If Penn loses and Cornell wins this weekend, the Quakers will drop to No. 2 in the Ivy standings, losing the championship title and their automatic berth.
Even in such cases, however, Quakers do not completely lose hope. Penn remains open to open bids from the NCAA DI Men’s Soccer Commission.
A total of 48 teams qualified NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Tournament, 23 of which are automatic qualifiers (AQs) from each participating conference. Twenty of the AQs qualify by winning their respective conference tournaments, while the remaining three are determined by conference standings, including the Ivy League. The rest of the field will be filled by 25 public bids determined by the Commission. The top 16 seeds in the tournament also earn first round byes and automatically advance to the second round.
The Commission will look at head-to-head competition, Adjusted Rating Percentage Indexes (RPI), results against already selected teams, and the performance of the last eight games when it comes time for the big selection. blue.
Penn went on a 10-game unbeaten streak after losing to Harvard on October 29. Net or shutout opponents throughout the season.
The top 16 seeds and open bids will be announced on November 14th at 1pm, with Round 1 play beginning three days later.
Penn men’s soccer are one match away from their most successful season 2013 onwardsPenn has been called the Ivy League champions and will need to beat not one but two teams on Saturday to secure a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
