Caps In College 2014: Two-goal Ben McKendry boosts New Mexico, UBC still unbeaten and SFU still struggling

It was a mixed few days for Vancouver Whitecaps Residency alumni in NCAA this past week, but New Mexico midfielder Ben McKendry led the way with a two goal performance that helped his Lobos make a move up the rankings.

Closer to home, the UBC Thunderbirds go marching on as the only team in CIS with a 100% record, whilst the SFU Clan are still faltering and seeing their chances of landing another GNAC championship slowly slipping away.

NCAA I

Midfielder Ben McKendry grabbed his first goals of the season for New Mexico last Wednesday in the Lobos 6-1 trouncing of West Virginia. McKendry bookended the scoring with a goal in each half, his first one coming from the penalty spot after just 16 seconds.

The Lobos kept their winning ways going on Saturday with a 2-0 home win over FIU, helping New Mexico move up to 12th in the NCAA rankings.

You can see Ben’s two goals (and the others!) below:

It was a busy week for Junior midfielder Declan Rodriguez and his University of Milwaukee Panthers with three games in the space of seven days. A 2-2 draw with Green Bay last Wednesday was followed by a 3-0 loss to Wright State on Saturday and a 2-0 loss to Western Illinois last night. Rodriguez played in the latter two games, producing six shots and those results take Milwaukee’s record to 3-7-2 and a 144 ranking.

Talking of Wright State, they recorded two 3-0 wins last week to take their overall record to 7-3-1 and give them a 92nd place ranking. Junior midfielder Wesley Cain started both games, producing three shots.

The University of Tulsa Hurricanes grabbed a 4-2 home win over Cincinnati to take their record for the season to 5-4-1 and a ranking of 38. Freshman Aymar Sigue started the game, mustering two shots in his 56 minutes. Sophomore defender Quinton Duncan started on the bench and saw just ten minutes of action.

The Seattle Redhawks played to a 1-1 double overtime draw with Utah Valley on Saturday to sit 5-3-1 and ranked 31st. Freshman central defender Nick Prasad started the game and saw 45 minutes of playing time overall.

Striker Brody Huitema wasn’t part of the gameday squad that saw his Duke University Blue Devils fall 4-1 to Wake Forest.

Junior goalkeeper Callum Irving’s Kentucky Wildcats took their record to 4-3-3 and a ranking of 54 after a 1-1 double overtime draw with Old Dominion. Irving played all 110 minutes.

Sophomore keeper Sean Melvin also headed to double overtime with his UNC Wilmington Seahawks, as they went down to a 109th minute goal in a 1-0 loss to Delaware. It was only UNC’s second loss of the season and their record moves to 8-2-1, seeing them ranked 17th.

Freshman Nolan Wirth didn’t feature in goal for Oregon State Beavers in either of their games last week, which saw a 1-0 home loss to Stanford and a 6-2 home win against California. Whether Junior Matt Bersano will now keep the goalkeeping duties for the rest of the season remains to be seen.

NCAA II – SFU Clan

The SFU Clan’s horrible start to the season continued last week, although things did get off to a more promising start with a 4-0 away thumping of Saint Martin’s Saints on Thursday.

Two goals from Jovan Blagojevic and one apiece from Ryan Dhillon and Nico Espinosa saw SFU home.

Clan captain Blagojevic grabbed another goal on Saturday against the GNAC leading Seattle Pacific, his 17th minute strike cancelling out SPU’s opener two minutes earlier. Seattle added another two first half goals on their way to a comfortable 3-1 victory.

The loss leaves SFU ten points behind unbeaten Seattle in the GNAC standings on five points and in 5th place, with a 1-2-2 Conference record and a 3-3-2 overall record.

The Clan need to try and go unbeaten for the remainder of the season if they want to land a fourth straight GNAC title, but even then that may not prove to be enough.

SFU stay on the road this week as they take on a Dakota double header against the South Dakota School of Mines Hardrockers on Thursday and Mary Marauders two days later. Both teams are below SFU in the standings, so it’s a chance for SFU to close some of the gap on the teams above them.

CIS – UBC Thunderbirds

Can anyone stop the UBC Thunderbirds?

The defending back-to-back CIS Champions remain unbeaten in CIS action, with another pair of wins over the weekend, and another two clean sheets, taking them to a perfect 8-0-0 record.

It was a pair of home wins for the Thunderbirds this week, with a 6-0 demolition of the Thompson Rivers University Wolfpack on Friday, followed up by a 2-0 win over the UBC Okanagan Heat a night later.

Leading scorer, and Whitecaps Residency alumni, Navid Mashinchi grabbed another two goals and two assists in the win over Thompson Rivers, and got an assist against UBC Okanagan, to take his tally to 7 goals and 9 assists for the season so far.

Caps’ PDL player Niall Cousens grabbed a goal in both games to make it six for the season and also earned an assist against the Wolfpack, whilst his fellow PDLer Sean Einarsson took his goal tally to four with a strike against the Heat.

Rookie, and Residency graduate, Chris Serban also grabbed an assist against Thompson Rivers, his second of the year.

Next up for UBC is a home game against the UFV Cascades on Friday evening (7pm kick off) and a trip to the Trinity Western University Spartans on Saturday night (also a 7pm kick off).

A perfect ten anyone?