INDIANAPOLIS – For the third year in a row, the Rockhurst University men's soccer team has been chosen to win the Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) Championship, it was announced by the league office Wednesday. The Conference's preseason poll reflects the opinions of the GLVC head coaches, who awarded the Hawks eight of the possible 13 first-place votes, as league policy prohibits coaches from voting for their own team.
The GLVC regular season will feature a 13-match, round-robin schedule with the regular season champion, along with the next seven best teams based on Conference winning percentage, earning a berth to the eight-team GLVC Men’s Soccer Championship Tournament. Seeds 1-4 will host seeds 5-8 on campus Oct. 28 with the winners advancing to the Woehrle Athletic Complex in Jeffersonville, Ind., for the semifinals and finals on Nov. 2 and 4.
The Hawks, who finished the 2017 campaign with a 16-2-3 record and a visit to the NCAA national semifinals, earned 158 total points and the top spot in the GLVC Men's Soccer Preseason Poll. In addition to the No. 1 ranking in the league’s poll, Rockhurst was picked third in the United Soccer Coaches NCAA Division II Preseason Rankings. The team returns to the pitch under the direction of long-time mentor and three-peat GLVC Coach of the Year Tony Tocco, who led his squad last fall to a regular season GLVC title with a 12-1-1 mark and NCAA Midwest Regional crown. The squad loses last year’s GLVC Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year but returns four other All-GLVC honorees.
Defending GLVC Champion University of Indianapolis will be led by John Higgins in 2018, entering his ninth season at the helm, after garnering three first-place votes and 154 points for second in the GLVC poll. The Greyhounds, having gone 13-6-1 (9-4-1 GLVC) in 2017, enter this season on a quest to repeat with two All-GLVC picks back in the lineup.
Maryville University, under the guidance of third-year head coach David Korn, enters 2018 as the league’s third pick – a program best – after tallying 153 total points and the other three first-place votes. The 2017 squad was 10-2-2 in the league and 13-4-2 overall. Reigning co-GLVC Freshman of the Year, JD Sohn, returns to St. Louis along with two other All-GLVC first-team members in senior goalkeeper Christian Kjaersgaard and sophomore defender Iwan Webster.
Bellarmine (124) University earned the No. 4 spot in the poll, while Lewis University rounded out the top-five with 122 points. University of Southern Indiana took the sixth spot with 105 points; Drury University earned 85 points and seventh place; and University of Illinois Springfield (81), Quincy University (75) and University of Missouri-St. Louis (70) respectively rounded out the top 10 in eighth, ninth, and 10th. Missouri S&T and Truman State University followed in 11th and 12th with 68 and 35 points, respectively. Rounding out the list at No. 13 is McKendree University (28) and No. 14 William Jewell College (16).
Be sure to follow @GLVCsports on Twitter and Instagram – hashtag #GLVCmsoc – and stay tuned for coverage throughout the season on the GLVC Sports Network. Coverage can be seen by logging on to the GLVCSN’s official website,
GLVCSN.com, or on the GLVCSN iOS/Android mobile apps, as well as on the Roku TV, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Android TV OTT platforms.
The complete poll follows below.
| 2018 GLVC MEN'S SOCCER PRESEASON POLL |
| Rank |
School |
Points (1st-Place Votes) |
| 1. |
Rockhurst |
158 (8) |
| 2. |
Indianapolis |
154 (3) |
| 3. |
Maryville |
153 (3) |
| 4. |
Bellarmine |
124 |
| 5. |
Lewis |
122 |
| 6. |
Southern Indiana |
105 |
| 7. |
Drury |
85 |
| 8. |
Illinois Springfield |
81 |
| 9. |
Quincy |
75 |
| 10. |
Missouri-St. Louis |
70 |
| 11. |
Missouri S&T |
68 |
| 12. |
Truman State |
35 |
| 13. |
McKendree |
28 |
| 14. |
William Jewell |
16 |