Fall Sports

Wow, with all that is going on it appears that we have not had a new blog in a while. So, here it is the first blog of September. At first glance it would appear that the Eagles are struggling a bit in the fall sports. But let us take a closer look.

Volleyball is 2-7. The two wins are against Seton Hall and South Carolina (A Big East opponent and a SEC opponent). There are a lot of Big South schools with better records that would love such wins. In Fact, as a conference the Big South has just two wins over teams from the Big 6 Conferences (ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big 10, Pac 10, and Big East) and Winthrop has both of them. The Eagles are playing an extremely difficult non-conference schedule and of the seven losses two are to ranked teams (Wisconsin and Northern Iowa), three are to major conference opponents (Kansas, Clemson, and Wisconsin) and two more have been in five sets (William & Mary and College of Charleston). The final tune-up for conference play comes this weekend as the Eagles fly to Georgia Southern for its final three non-conference matches against Ga. Southern, South Alabama, and East Tennessee State.

Men’s Soccer is 2-2 with wins over Brevard and Long Island and losses to Mercer and UNC Wilmington. Wilmington is ranked in the top 25 and Mercer played in its league’s championship match last season. Many people were disappointed in the showing against Mercer last Sunday but were much more encouraged by the performance against Wilmington. This is a team that just needs to learn to come to go to work every day. The Eagles are extremely talented but also extremely young and sometime young players don’t feel like they have to play hard or give max effort in very game. We saw some of that in the preseason and we have seen it early this season. But I honestly feel like things will work out for the Eagles. They are too good and Coach Posipanko will teach them that they need to take every team seriously. In college, everyone is good enough to beat you if you don’t play hard. They will learn.

Women’s soccer is 0-4-1 and what has to be remembered is that this team is learning a new system and a new coach. The tie against Marshall got everyone’s attention thinking hey this might be a turn-around season. But with just two goals over the last four matches we need to realize it doesn’t happen that quickly. I expect this team to improve with each match hopefully by the end of conference season things will begin to come together. The ladies will be at home on Friday against Georgia State. That is our next home event so come out and support the Eagles.

Don’t forget that many games can be seen on-line via the Big South Network. Go to bigsouthsports.com and sign up to follow the Eagles live. Also be on the lookout for new videos on winthropeagles.com and even a couple of new shows on Comporium Cable 18 for those in the Rock Hill area.

GO EAGLES