Carolina men’s college soccer power rankings: Week 1
The first weekend of college soccer is behind us. Which team in the Carolinas is off to the strongest start?
A few Carolina programs started hot and a few stumbled out of the gate during the first weekend of the men’s college soccer season. Here is a look at the first ever SNST Carolina College Soccer Rankings. TopDrawerSoccer’s rankings are listed within the descriptions and are available at the link below.
#1 — Wake Forest
Is anyone surprised? The top-ranked Demon Deacons opened the 2018 season with two wins, including a victory over 2017 national runner-up Indiana in double overtime Aug. 24.
Wake followed that up with a 4–2 win over East Tennessee State Sunday.
Wake Forest travels to Florida Gulf Coast Saturday before hosting Presbyterian Sept. 4.
#2 — Duke Blue Devils
Duke, like Wake Forest, opened its 2018 campaign with two wins over the weekend. The No. 8 Blue Devils scored three goals in both games, defeating Florida International and Vermont.
Duke will travel across the country to take on San Diego Friday. After that, the Blue Devils will have a nice week of rest before their ACC opener Sept. 9.
#3 — North Carolina State Wolfpack
Last year, the Wolfpack made just their fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in the last 17 years.
This year, the No. 17 Wolfpack wasted no time in getting a massive win to help boost their NCAA tournament chances. After getting a 3–1 win over USC Upstate Aug. 24, N.C. State traveled to take on the Akron Zips, a formidable force in college soccer.
Not only did the Wolfpack get the win, they managed to shut out the Zips. Akron had not lost at home since Oct. 22, 2016. The Zips had not been shut out at home since Sept. 27, 2016, but that was a scoreless 0–0 draw.
If you want to know when Akron last suffered a shutout loss at home, you’d have to go back to Oct. 25, 2014.
What N.C. State did is extremely rare, and picking up their third win over a top-five program since the beginning of last season says a lot about the direction that program is going.
N.C. State returns home this week to take on Presbyterian Friday before hosting William & Mary on Labor Day.
#4 — North Carolina Tar Heels
Despite being relentless in the preseason, scoring 10 goals in three matches, the No. 6 Tar Heels managed to get just a single goal in their first two games this past weekend.
UNC did manage to pick up their first win of the season, defeating East Tennessee State on Friday, but they were shut out by Indiana at WakeMed Park in Cary.
Granted, Indiana only lost once all of last season — in the national championship game.
The Heels will bounce back from Sunday’s tough loss, that‘s a guarantee. But for now, their rivals in red and darker blue have them bested in our power rankings.
UNC will travel to take on William & Mary this Friday before returning home to play Jacksonville on Labor Day.
#5 — UNC-Wilmington Seahawks
The 14th-ranked Seahawks managed to keep the ball out of the net all weekend while netting five goals and securing two wins. UNCW opened its season with a 4–0 thrashing of Stetson and completed a perfect weekend with a 1–0 win over West Virginia down in Charleston.
UNCW always puts on a good show and usually takes down a top team en route to an NCAA tournament appearance. While the Seahawks don’t play their big game against UNC until early October, they will need to continue their defensive efforts and goal scoring for the next few games to remain in the top-five of the SNST power rankings.
Outside looking in
Coastal Carolina — The No. 18 team in the country had a horrid start to their 2018 season. Not only did the Chanticleers lose 4–0 to No. 14 UCLA, but they allowed three goals in the final 20 minutes of the match, and one of those goals ended up on SportsCenter the next day. CCU lost 4–0 to a team that, on paper, was a pretty even match. This was just the fourth time that CCU had lost by four or more goals at home and the first since a 4–0 loss to VCU in September 2008. Let’s be clear: This does not happen often in Conway.
The Chanticleers were able to get a quality win over No. 13 Georgetown in overtime, which will hopefully ignite the same fire that helped their baseball counterparts during the 2016 College World Series. (Yes, as a CCU student, this is me reminding everyone that Coastal won the Natty in 2016.)
The Chanticleers travel to Alabama to take on Memphis and UAB this weekend before a nine-day break.
Clemson — The Tigers had an incredibly tough opponent for the first game of the 2018 season: Creighton on the road. Clemson fell to the Bluejays 2–0 on Friday. However, they only managed to get a 1–0 win over Omaha, a team that made its NCAA tournament debut last fall. Clemson has a tough turnaround this Friday, going to Columbia to take on rival South Carolina. They’ll need a win if they want to jump into our top five.
Some of the usual suspects made their presence known on opening weekend while others limped their way to Week 2. But there’s a lot of season left for teams to turn things around.
Can teams like Wake and Duke keep their top-10 performance going? Can N.C. State continue to shock the nation and climb to the top? And will Coastal and Clemson rebound after tough starts to the new season?
We’ll see where things stand next week. Thanks for reading.
