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Tulsa Men's Soccer Weekly Release #1
8/28/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
Aug. 28, 2001
Tulsa Opens the 2001 Season with the Microtel Inn & Suites/Golden Hurricane Kickoff Classic:
The Tulsa men's soccer team will open the 2001 campaign at home this weekend with the Microtel Inn & Suites/Golden Hurricane Kickoff Classic. The two-day tournament will begin on Friday, Aug. 31 and conclude a day later on Saturday, Sept. 1. The four-team field includes Cal-State Northridge, UNLV, Southwest Missouri State and Tulsa. All four games will be played at the Donna J. Hardesty Sports Complex on the TU campus.
Tournament Schedule
Friday, August 31, 2001
- SW Missouri State vs. UNLV 5:00 p.m.
- Tulsa vs. CS Northridge 8:05 p.m.
Saturday, September 1, 2001
- SW Missouri State vs. CS Northridge 5:00 p.m.
- Tulsa vs. UNLV 8:05 p.m.
TU's 2001 Recruiting Class Ranked 23rd Nationally:
The Hurricane's class of 2001 was ranked as the 23rd-best recruiting class in the nation by College Soccer News and two incoming freshman - Kyle Brown (Southlake, Texas) and James Dabney (Los Alamos, N.M.)--were listed as National Freshmen to Watch in 2001 by the same publication. Tulsa's 10-member newcomer class includes nine freshmen and one sophomore. The freshmen class consists of Ethan Althaus (Newburgh, Ind.), Brown, Dabney, Jack Goodloe (Little Rock, Ark.), J.J. Havlik (Broken Arrow, Okla.), Michael Haynes (Coppell, Texas), Scott Kincaid (Mission Hills, Kan.), Cale Lalumia (Mesquite, Texas) and Rhodri Payne (Christchurch, New Zealand), while Kenny Infante (Carrollton, Texas) is a sophomore-transfer from Radford University.
Tulsa Picked Fourth in MVC Preseason Poll:
The University of Tulsa men's soccer team has been picked to finish the 2001 Missouri Valley Conference season in fourth-place according to MVC coaches poll.
After returning to the Valley in 2000, Tulsa made quite an impression as the Golden Hurricane tallied 65 points and is picked No. 4 in the coaches poll. Perhaps it was the seven, one-goal losses that Tulsa suffered in 2000 that give Valley coaches cause for pause. Last year, Tulsa finished 10-7-2 overall and 5-4-2 in the conference with half of TU's defeats coming in the waning minutes of the games.
SMU is the 2001 preseason pick by Valley coaches. The Creighton Bluejays were picked to finish in second place, while the Bradley Braves collected 78 points for third-place.
Three Hurricane Garners Preseason Honorable Mention All-Conference Honors:
A total of three TU players received preseason honorable mention MVC all-conference honors, including senior Chris Spears (Tulsa, Okla.) and the junior tandem of Mario Gonzalez (Santa Ana, Calif.) and Derek Meyers (Chesterfield, Mo.). Gonzalez and Meyers were each selected to the MVC All-Newcomer team a year ago.
Four Preseason Top 30 Teams, Nine Home Games Highlight Tulsa Men's Soccer Slate:
Tulsa's 2001 schedule features nine home games, including a four-team tournament to begin the season and dates against four teams fresh off NCAA Tournament appearances. Tulsa will face national runner-up and preseason No. 4 Creighton and preseason No. 1 SMU, who also reached the Final Four, NCAA Tournament participant Bradley and an always competitive Missouri Valley Conference slate.
"The conference race will be wide open. I think SMU, Creighton, Bradley, Southwest Missouri State, Vanderbilt and Tulsa all have a good chance of taking home the conference championship, but with this league there are no easy games," TU Head Coach Tom McIntosh said.
McIntosh Nearing TU's Career Coaching Mark:
Tulsa Head Coach Tom McIntosh begins his seventh season just six wins shy of becoming the school's winningest head coach. He needs just five wins to tie Randy Waldrum's (1989-94) school record 66 wins. McIntosh, whose tenure is the longest in the 20-year history of the TU men's soccer program, boasts a career head coaching mark of 61-47-6.
Player Notes:
Freshman Kyle Brown also excelled in football at Southlake (Texas) Carroll High School. Brown was the 2000 Fort Worth Star-Telegram Offensive Player of the Year and Male Athlete of the Year after catching 87 passes for 1,381 yards and 13 touchdowns in 14 games. He concluded his senior season with 2,004 all-purpose yards.
Junior walk-on Cort Moffitt (Tulsa, Okla.) transferred to Tulsa from the University of New Mexico where he was a 2000 honorable mention all-Mountain West Conference performer as a punter. His sister, Tara, played on the TU women's soccer team from 1995-98.
