<p>From the** fact is stranger than fiction **department:</p>
<p>The Swarthmore men's soccer team is ranked #1 in the United States today:</p>
<p>NSCAA</a> National and Regional Rankings</p>
<p>Go figure.</p>
<p>Looking forward to seeing them play in person this Saturday during Parents Weekend. As is typical of Swat, one of the goalies sings in one of the major a cappella groups. Gotta love those well-rounded kids. 
However, their rise to the top was fairly short-lived. See below :(</p>
<p>[Athletics</a> News Blog Archive Richard Stockton Hands No. 1 Garnet Men First Defeat, 2-1 (2OT)](<a href=“http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/athletics/2010/10/20/richard-stockton-hands-no-1-garnet-men-first-defeat-2-1-2ot/]Athletics”>Athletics News » Blog Archive » Richard Stockton Hands No. 1 Garnet Men First Defeat, 2-1 (2OT))</p>
<p>It is still very amazing to see Swarthmore at the top of Soccer rankings! Wow!</p>
<p>I watched most of Saturday’s semifinal and all of Sunday’s Centennial Conference men’s soccer championship on the web. Both games were nail biters, with Swarthmore beating Hopkins in PKs in the semi and beating Muhlenberg in 2nd OT. Wow! So Swarthmore will advance to the NCAA tournament.</p>
<p>dadx3 -Agreed, this was so much fun to be able to watch yesterday’s final on the Garnet Sports Network. I found myself yelling “gooooooaaaaallllllll!” Incredibly exciting game! The Swat goalie is also an integral member of one of the excellent a cappella groups on campus. He had to run from that 2 OT followed by PK’s thriller on Saturday to an a cappella performance on campus. :)</p>
<p>The women’s volleyball team also performed extraordinarily well this weekend in the Centennial tournament, upsetting the #1 seed, Haverford, in the semifinals. Unfortunately, Swat lost in the finals of that tournament.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, I wonder if sports success in these “minor” sports has any impact at all on athletic recruitment or applications in general.</p>
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<p>There’s no question that it helps with athletic recruiting. Actually, I think being competitve in soccer helps a college like Swarthmore far more than a sport like football because, realistically, the pool of high school students who are both “Swatties” and “football players” is infinitely small.</p>
<p>It’s good to see the theory behind dropping football prove out over the first decade. The idea was to stop using all of the available resources (i.e. a finite number of low-band athletic admissions slots) in a futile effort to stock a football team and, instead, to “invest” those admissions slots across the remaining teams to boost their competitiveness. That competitiveness will be self-sustaining. Top soccer recruits, where high academic achievement is not unusual, are certainly more likely to view Swarthmore’s program in a positive light. </p>
<p>Everyone thinks that Williams dominates DIII sports because of their low-band “tips”, but that’s not it. The 65 low-band tips they admit each year is not unusual; Swarthmore allocates about the same number. What sustains thier sports programs is the interest of top athletes with higher academic qualifications. This allows Williams to enroll a very high percentage of each class of likely 4-year varsity athletes as identfied through athletic recruiting. The key is to recruit athletes who don’t need one of the limited “tips”. Swarthmore mens soccer is now in a position to do that, having established itself as a nationally competitive team in what is considered to be the top D3 soccer conference in the country.</p>
<p>They also have good soccer facilities. The NCAA loves Swarthmore’s lighted field-turf soccer stadium and it’s likely the NCAA regionals will be held there again.</p>
<p>I-dad is on the mark (as usual). The NCAA has announced the brackets for Men’s DIII soccer, and Swarthmore will be a first and second round host. They are matched against DeSales. The winner will play the winner of the Rochester/Medaville match-up. Muhlenberg and Johns Hopkins, both from the Centennial Conference, have also advanced to the NCAA championship round.</p>