Dartmouth Paces Men's Field

Seven Teams from New England Make Dance

November 18, 2008

By Nick Williams

Led by Dartmouth, one of the 16 teams with a first-round bye, seven New England schools qualified for the 2008 NCAA men’s soccer tournament, as announced on Monday.

Boston College, Boston University, Connecticut, Fairfield, Harvard and UMass join the Big Green in the 48-team bracket.

Andrew Olsen

Andrew Olsen and Dartmouth headline the seven teams from New England in the men's tournament. (Dartmouth Athletics)

Boston University (America East) and Fairfield (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) earned an automatic berth by winning their respective conferences. The other five teams earned at-large bids. Overall 22 conferences were awarded automatic bids for the 2008 tournament. The remaining 26 teams were selected at large.

Dartmouth, which earned the 16th seed and thus the last first-round bye in the tournament, will play the winner of the Boston College and Colgate match. BC (10-7-2) will host the Raiders at its Newtown Soccer Complex Friday at 5 p.m. Dartmouth (11-5-1) will host the winner in a second-round game on Tuesday, Nov. 25 at 6:00 p.m. at Burnham Field.

Meanwhile, the other local Ivy League team, Harvard, will travel to UMass for an all-New England first-round game. The Minutemen (10-7-3), who lost the A-10 Championship to Dayton on Sunday, qualified for their second straight tournament and will host the Crimson (11-5-0) on Saturday at noon on Rudd Field.

"We are very excited about hosting another NCAA Tournament game and that the NCAA Committee felt we were deserving of hosting this game,” said UMass coach Sam Koch, whose team made a miraculous run to the Final Four last season. “This is a great moment for our senior class and for our program."

In the other all-New England matchup, Connecticut (9-4-6) hosts Fairfield (11-7-0) in an in-state battle this Friday at 7 p.m. at Morrone Stadium. It’s the 29th overall and 11th consecutive NCAA appearance for the Huskies, who went the entire season ranked in the top-25 and appeared as high as No. 2 nationally before falling to DePaul, 1-0, in the quarterfinals of the BIG EAST Tournament.

The Stags, who beat Loyola for the MAAC title, beat UConn for their first tournament win in school history, posting a 2-1 win over the Huskies back in 2006. That game was also in Storrs.

BU, the other conference winner of the seven teams, hosts Fairleigh Dickinson Friday at 5 p.m. at Nickerson Field. The America East Champion Terriers (11-5-3) are winners in four straight and unbeaten in the past nine. They will be making their 14th appearance in the tournament and are hosting a game for the first time since 2004.

The teams will be vying for the right to compete at the Men’s College Cup, hosted by Southern Methodist University and FC Dallas on Dec. 12 and 14 in Frisco, Texas, at Pizza Hut Park.

For the complete 2008 NCAA Division I men’s soccer bracket, click here.

Material from school and conference press releases was used in this report.

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