The NCAA News - News and Features

November 10, 1997

Division II Men's Soccer

Owls look for fourth victory in '90s

Event: 1997 Division II Men's Soccer Championship.

Overview: Southern Connecticut State has won three titles in the 1990s and four overall, and looks primed to shoot for No. 5 under a new regime. First-year coach Tom Lang took over for Ray Reid, who moved on to Connecticut, and has the Owls at 17-0-1 and top-ranked in the coaches' poll. The Owls are unbeaten in their last 49 regular-season games but were tied, 1-1, in their most recent bout with fourth-ranked New Hampshire College. Junior Renwick Hutson leads the Owls in scoring with 15 goals and five assists. Goalkeeper Billy Gatti features a 0.36 goal-against average, second in Division II, but he missed the New Hampshire College game with an ankle injury. Southern Connecticut State has made 19 tournament appearances in the last 21 years and has reached the semifinals 14 times .... Lynn, which advanced to the semifinals in its first tournament appearance, goes for its first title this year behind a trio of freshman forwards. Josh Kristowski, Pierre Edstrom and Mikael Jensen have combined for 23 goals and 11 assists. Defensively dominant in 1996, Lynn has stepped it up offensively in 1997, averaging a goal per game more in compiling a 13-1 record and No. 2 national ranking .... 15-0-1 Southern Illinois-Edwardsville is ranked third and features a balanced scoring attack. Fifteen players have scored at least one goal, led by Matt Little with 11. The Cougars lead the Great Lakes Valley Conference in scoring at 3.5 goals per game .... Other contenders include New Hampshire College, Cal State Bakersfield, Seattle Pacific, Tampa and South Carolina-Spartanburg.

Field: Sixteen teams, four from each of four regions, will be selected November 10.

Dates and sites: All games will be played at on-campus sites. First-round games will be completed by November 16 and second-round games by November 23. The semifinals and final will be December 4 and 6 or 5 and 7.

Results: The fax-on-demand telephone number is 770/399-3060 (passcode 1915); request numbers are 1762 for bracket/schedule, 5145 for semifinal results and 5146 for championship game results. Results also will be available on the World Wide Web at www.ncaa.org. Championship results will appear in the December 15 issue of The NCAA News.