The NCAA News - News and Features

November 17, 1997

Division I Men's Soccer

Hoosiers hope third time is the charm in '90s quest for championship

Event: 1997 Division I Men's Soccer Championship.

Overview: The lone unbeaten team in the country is Indiana, which won three championships in the 1980s and has reached the semifinals twice in the 1990s, most recently in 1994. Coach Jerry Yeagley's Hoosiers are 18-0, coming off a 2-1 win over then-second-ranked Stanford and a 3-1 conquest of California. Dema Kovalenko ranks sixth nationally in goals with 17 and seventh in total points with 37. Goalkeeper T. J. Hanning is the nation's sixth-best stopper with a 0.66 goals-against average .... St. John's (New York) and Creighton appear to be the survivors from last year's group of first-time semifinalists. St. John's is 14-2-2 and ranked second in the latest National Soccer Coaches Association of America top 25 and seventh in the Soccer America poll. Goalkeeper Dani Braga returns from last year's championship team and is third nationally with a 0.52 goals-against average. Creighton is 12-4-1 and returns playmaker Johnny Torres, the Missouri Valley Conference's all-time leading scorer .... UCLA heads a strong contingent from the West. The Bruins are among the nation's top five in both polls with a 15-2 slate and are led by goalkeeper Matt Reis' 0.87 goals-against average. Washington and Stanford feature two of the country's top netminders in Bill May and Adam Zapala, respectively. Stanford was unbeaten until the loss to Indiana and a subsequent 1-0 defeat at San Francisco .... The Middle Atlantic region features American, which has clinched the top seed in the Colonial Athletic Association's postseason tournament. James Madison and George Mason figure to challenge .... Others to watch include South Carolina, Southern Methodist, Duke and Virginia.

Field: Thirty-two teams from eight regions will be selected November 17. Eleven conferences will receive automatic qualification and 10 additional conferences will compete in play-ins for the five remaining automatic berths. The remaining 16 teams will be selected at large.

Dates and sites: Preliminary-round games will be played at campus sites. First-round games will be completed by November 23, second-round games by November 30 and third-round games by December 7. The semifinals and final will be December 12 and 14 at Richmond.

Television: The first semifinal game will be broadcast live on Fox Sports Net at 3:30 p.m. (Eastern time) December 12 and the second semifinal game will be broadcast on a tape-delay basis at 7:30 p.m. The championship game will be televised live on Fox Sports Net at 1 p.m. December 14.

Information/results: The fax-on-demand telephone number is 770/399-3060 (passcode 1915); request numbers are 1756 for bracket/schedule, 5143 for semifinal results and 5144 for championship-game results. Game scores and pairings also will be available on the World Wide Web at www.ncaa.org. Championship results will be published in the December 22 issue of The NCAA News.