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Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009

It’s crunch time for Mercer soccer teams

A year after being the top seed, Mercer has to do some climbing in the A-Sun women’s soccer tournament.

The Bears qualified with last week’s 5-0 win over Campbell, giving them the fifth seed.

Kennesaw State won the regular-season title, taking a tiebreaker with Belmont. Both had 21 points (Kennesaw State was 7-3, Belmont 6-1-3 in conference play).

Stetson is the third seed and Jacksonville fourth with Campbell sixth. Florida Gulf Coast shared third with Stetson but is ineligible while reclassifying from Division II.

Mercer visits Jacksonville on Friday in a first-round matchup, and the Bears have the confidence of a 1-0 win Oct. 2 at Jacksonville, courtesy of junior Kacie Hudson’s goal in the 63rd minute.

Mercer has won four straight to improve to 8-6-3 overall and 5-4-1 in the A-Sun. Jacksonville is 8-6-4 and 5-1-4, and has tied in four of its last six matches, getting 1-0 wins over North Florida and Lipscomb.

Mercer sophomore Olivia Tucker is fourth in the A-Sun with 2.9 shots per game and seventh with .41 goals per game. Senior Jean Worts is third with .99 goals against.

The Mercer-Jacksonville winner travels to Kennesaw State on Thursday for a semifinal. The championship is on Nov. 7 at Kennesaw State.

The Bears clinched their third straight winning season with the Campbell victory, and their sixth winning season since the program started in 1985. They’ve had four consecutive winning conference records.

On the men’s side, Campbell and Stetson have clinched tournament spots, while only five points (three for a win, one for a tie) separate the next seven tournament-eligible teams.

North Florida leads that pack with 10 points (3-3-1) followed by Jacksonville and Mercer with nine (3-4), Lipscomb with eight (2-3-2), East Tennessee with seven (2-4-1), Belmont six (2-5) and USC Upstate with five (1-4-2).

Just as last Thursday’s women’s game with Campbell was a playoff-type game, so is tonight’s men’s battle with visiting Jacksonville at Bear Field.

North Florida faces Campbell tonight, with Lipscomb-ETSU and Belmont-USC Upstate battles on Friday.

North Florida comes to Mercer at 7 p.m. on Saturday in the regular-season finale with seedings still up for grabs on the final day. Jacksonville is at Campbell on Saturday.

Mercer (4-9-2, 3-4) could get a third seed with two wins, two North Florida losses and a split by Jacksonville.

The Bears were seeded third in 2005 and beat Belmont 4-0 before losing to Stetson 3-1. They reached the championship in 2004 as a No. 3.

SOPHOMORE STANDOUT

Rachel Urbelis has had a good sophomore season for Mercer’s volleyball team.

And she is off to a killer week.

Urbelis earned conference player of the week honors for one of the top performances in the NCAA this season.

The Geneva, Ill., native racked up 30 kills against only six errors in Mercer’s 3-2 win at Campbell on Saturday.

The 30 kills add up to the top mark in the A-Sun this season and ninth-best nationally. She also had 20 digs against the Camels for her sixth double-double of the year.

The kills total was three short of the school record set by Katie Plummer in 2002.

It was a huge, and needed, performance for Mercer, which broke a three-match losing streak. The Bears outlasted the Camels in a mammoth fourth set, winning 33-31 when Chelsea Gebben set up Urbelis’ 27th kill of the day.

The win lifted Mercer to 7-17 overall and 5-10 in A-Sun play. The Bears open a three-match homestand Saturday afternoon against 10th-place USC Upstate, followed next Friday by last-place Stetson and next Saturday with third-place Florida Gulf Coast in the home finale.

Mercer is in eighth place, behind ETSU (6-8), Belmont and Kennesaw State (8-7) and Campbell (8-6). Lipscomb (15-0) has clinched a tournament spot with Jacksonville (12-2) and tourney host Florida Gulf Coast (11-4) on the verge.

The top six teams make the conference tournament.

HONOR ROLL

Ÿ GCSU’s women’s soccer team is back in the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Southeast Region poll at No. 10.

The Bobcats are 8-5-4 (entering Wednesday night’s game against visiting USC AIken), coming off a win over UNC Pembroke and tie with national No. 3 Columbus State.

GCSU is in fourth place in the Peach Belt and hosts Montevallo on Saturday in the regular-season finale.

Ÿ Fort Valley State’s An’Thon Harris is 18th nationally in Division II in punt returns with an average of 12.94. Place-kicker Justin Rosenbaum is tied for 23rd with 1.1 field goals per game and quarterback Nate Samas is 69th in passing efficiency with a 124.94 rating.

Ÿ After taking second in the conference meet, GCSU’s women’s cross country team is up to No. 5 in the track and cross country coaches Southeast poll, jumping five spots.

Ÿ Georgia Military College remains in the national junior-college football poll at No. 18, thanks to Saturday’s 55-3 win over Louisburg. The 5-3 Bulldogs are off this week, then visit Erie (Pa.) Community College on Nov. 7 before ending the regular season at home on Nov. 14 against Lackawanna (Pa.).

COMING UP

Basketball practice is in full force, and exhibitions are just around the corner.

The annual GCSU-Mercer battles are a week from today, with the women playing at 5 p.m. and the men at 7:30 p.m. at the University Center.

GCSU’s women also visit Auburn on Nov. 8 in a preseason game.

Other exhibitions: Kennesaw State at FVSU men, 7 p.m. Tuesday; Middle Georgia at FVSU men, 8 p.m., Wednesday; and Middle Georgia Tech at Wesleyan, 6 p.m., Nov. 13.

AIDING THE CONTENDERS

A pair of Middle Georgians are doing their part to help keep their teams atop the national college football polls.

Guard Maurice Hurt (Baldwin) has started three times this season for Florida.

He graded out at as a “Champion” at 83 percent on 30 snaps against Kentucky.

He also started against LSU, but suffered a back injury and played but didn’t start against Arkansas but was in the starting lineup at right guard against Mississippi State.

Cornerback Kareem Jackson (Westside) struggled in pass coverage during Alabama’s 12-10 win over Tennessee last week but had three tackles in the run-oriented game.

Jackson, a junior, picked off a pass in the 22-3 win over Mississippi, returning it 79 yards. He was voted the team’s top defender that week.

He had a three-tackle, two-breakup performance against South Carolina and is seventh on the team with 23 tackles, second with nine breakups and tied for second with 10 passes defended.