Sports
The Collegian: 2
September 27, 2021
Hurricane men’s soccer nationally ranked
Tulsa defies NCAA odds, sports analyst Callie Hummel reports.
Originally ranked #24 in the nation by the NCAA before the season started, the University of Tulsa men’s soccer team is rapidly making their way up the ranks. After another blowout away game against South Florida, on Sep. 18, resulting in a 5-2 win and an updated 6-0 record, the team is now ranked in the top 10 of 4 national ranks. Tulsa is ranked 5th on Top Drawer Soccer and 8th on both United Soccer Coaches and College Soccer News, all of which are organizations dedicated to enhancing preprofessional soccer to its highest capabilities. The official AP poll that the NCAA uses for its rankings has even moved Tulsa men’s up to 8th as well. Sophomore, Alex Meinhard, is also in the top 100 individual soccer players by Top Drawer Soccer, coming in at #72. Meinhard believes however that it is most important to keep the focus ahead and always be thinking about the next game. “You can’t think of the trophies or the goals you scored in the past, let’s get onto the next one and beat the next team,” Meinhard explains. Statistics like these suggest that these players must be focusing all their time on soccer alone. However, the main goal of this program is not just to create good players, but good all-around people. Coach McIntosh wants “the players to grow up to be good people. We want them to have a great life when they leave and hope they’re building habits to do that.” This idea is put straight into action with the mission statement of the program which focuses on three major ideas: relentless pursuit of championships, tireless work for excellent grades to a degree meaningful to the player and positive impact on the campus and community. While the team’s success this season indicates great athletes, it takes all three of these things to make this 6-0 team. While the team works relentlessly towards championships every time they step on the field, most of that work is put
in when there are no spectators and no fans cheering them on. “Preparation is the key to where we are right now.” Meinhard says, “It started as soon as we left school in the spring.” Players were given a workout packet for the summer including workouts for five days of the week, and the team had regular meetings and talked tactics far before the season started. Now in season, players will show up for training before 7 a.m. to watch film, lift and then get to the field for practice from 8:30-11 a.m. Alex Lopez, freshman goalie, says that, “it’s not unlikely to see a minimum of five to eight players staying behind after official practice has ended to work on something or get advice from Coach.”
is an important aspect to the University of Tulsa men’s soccer program as well, whether that be the player to player or player to coach relationships, or just how the team can positively impact the Tulsa community.“We started building those [player] relationships the first week of summer. We started building this project two months ago, and now we are seeing the results,” Lopez says. McIntosh also believes that a large part of the chemistry between the team is the respect players have for each other. This respect continues to show in the relationship between coaches and players as well. The coaches want the players to work as hard as possible, and one way to foster that is to lead by example. Meinhard be-
photo by Callie Hummel
Malik Henry-Scott, sophomore forward, says that with all the training they’re doing, “the motto we talk about as a team is just always about getting better… It keeps us in a progressive and growth mindset.” Pursuing education is the second key factor in their program. “School is the reason we’re here- to get a quality education and make the most of it,” McIntosh says. Results are showing in schoolwork as well, as last year the team earned a team academic excellence award in the American Athletic Conference and ended the year with a 3.559 GPA, 11 players earning a 4.0. Enhancing the college and community
lieves that “the coaches don’t really get the credit they deserve most of the time” and Lopez says that the coaching staff analyzes their game film immediately after their games even though it’s 10 p.m. or later. The team plays every three days, and in that time period coaches watch the previous game’s film, film on the upcoming team and relay all the information to the team. The coaches reciprocate this same respect for the players with the confidence they show in them. For example, McIntosh’s starting lineup includes 18-year-old freshman Lopez who the coaching staff put full faith in for his first year. “He’s much
more mature than an average 18-year-old. Lopez has a game awareness and communication ability that a lot of 18-year-olds don’t have. He’s an excellent shot stopper, and he’s very good with his feet. He gives us an additional defender that can pass and play out of the back—that’s why he’s played as much as he has.” In the Tulsa community, the team works with the DreamCenter youth to put on soccer events and oftentimes bring the kids to the games. “We saw the kids out there and it was great to celebrate with them and give them high fives before and after the game,” Henry-Scott says. The team also does community service work such as handing out food and working with youth at Kendall Whittier Elementary. It’s important to the coaching staff to do this because they believe, “our players get as much out of it as the people we’re assisting… it’s another way to positively influence their culture.” Going into the game against Memphis, Henry-Scott is on a four-game scoring streak, keeping the mindset of going into each game “knowing [he has] to find a way to score anyway possible” to contribute what he can to the team. Coach is confident in his abilities saying, “He’s a tremendous individual … he’s gonna have a great career ahead of him.” On Sep. 29, Tulsa is back home going up against SMU, a top 10 team, with their first conference home game. With last year’s fans only being at 25 percent occupancy, the team is ready and excited to have more fans to show up to the games, especially this important conference game. Henry-Scott says that having the fans there “really helps out a lot—you can hear them and feel like they’re with you.” With the way the team has been performing, it’s inevitable that fans will be able to see a great game, and Lopez instills this idea saying, “We are trying to be the best team in the country...we’re trying to do it, and we’re on the way to do it, and we want to do it. We’re going to fight for that.”
Tulsa volleyball picks up pace post-COVID
Sports writer Callie Hummel summarizes the Hurricane’s season as of now. University of Tulsa’s volleyball season was supposed to open with three games at the Husker Invitational in Lincoln, Nebraska, however, COVID-19 complications required the team to drop out of the tournament. After only playing ten games during the 2020 season for a 2-8 record, the entrance of COVID implications into the 2021 season created a slow start for the team. With no pre-season tournament to warm up as a team and a lineup still affected by COVID, Tulsa went up against Sam Houston on September 3 during the Maverick Classic, taking the match to a tiebreaker but losing in the fifth game making the match score 2-3. In collegiate volleyball, teams play best of five games to make up a match, each being rally scoring to 25 points except for the fifth game, the tiebreaker, which is to 15. The fifth game is only played if teams are tied 2-2 after the fourth game. Just hours later in that same tournament, Tulsa quickly picked up the pace in their
next game against UT Arlington making the tie breaking game unnecessary with a solid 3-1 match win. In a hard fought first game, Tulsa won at a close 27-25. For their third game of the tournament, Tulsa shut down North Texas with a match score of 3-0 and individual games at 25-22, 25-16 and 25-23. Kayley Cassady, a Junior on Tulsa’s team, dominated the matches with 43 total offensive attacks. Cassady stands out as a powerhouse on the front line as an outside hitter, already with 138 total kills, surpassing her 112 from last season when she led the team in kills. With 66 more kills than the next hitter, Callie Cook, it seems as though she’ll keep this ranking in the 2021 season as well. On the defensive side, the team’s libero and defensive specialist, freshman Marta Pecalli, leads the team in total digs at 163. Of those digs, 22 were during their most recent game against Southern Illinois, helping the team get their 3-1 win.
Cook, a graduate student and middle blocker, had a record breaking season last year, surpassing the all-time career blocks record that was previously set at 348 (Tulsa Athletics). Leading the team in total blocks at 34, she’s continuing to increase that new record this season. While there are stand out players on the offensive and defensive line, the team’s aggregate chemistry is something spectators notice as soon as the match starts. With cheers after every point in their favor or huddling up with every point against, it’s obvious that the players on the court have each other’s backs. Off the court, players on the bench choose to disregard the chairs set up for them, opting instead to stand and cheer on their teammates playing, enhancing the community spirit even more. The team has currently played nine matches and finished with an overall record of 5-4, and 25 games with a 20-15 record. In the upcoming matches, Tulsa is at home
courtesy @TulsaVolleyball on Twitter
playing against South Florida (6-5) on Oct. 1, and UCF (6-5) on Oct. 3, both at 1 p.m. at the University of Tulsa’s Reynolds Center.
Sept. 27 - Oct. 3 Monday
Tuesday 28
27
W Golf @ Norman All Day
Wednesday
none
Thursday
M Soccer SMU 7:00 p.m.
Saturday 1
30
29
Softball NE Oklahoma A&M 5:00 p.m.
Friday
W Tennis @ Baylor All Day W Soccer @ Temple 6:00 p.m.
Volleyball @ South Florida 1:00 p.m. Football Houston 6:30 p.m.
Sunday 2
W Tennis @ Baylor All Day M Tennis ITA All American Championship All Day Rowing Head of the Oklahoma All Day
Cross Country Chili Pepper Festival All Day
3
Rowing Head of the Oklahoma All Day
M Tennis ITA All American Championship All Day W Tennis @ Baylor All Day Volleyball UCF 1:00 p.m. Softball @ Central Arkansas 1:00 p.m. M Soccer South Florida 7:00 p.m.
