A bit of a stunner from the land of rubber: the Akron Zips won't win the MAC. They took all sorts of regular season accolades: the Player of the Year (Darren Mattocks), Coach of the Year (Caleb Porter), Newcomer of the Year (Wil Trapp), and seven of the 11 first team All-MAC positions. None of this was enough, apparently, for the 21st-ranked team (13-4-3) to handle Western Michigan in the MAC soccer first round/semifinals. WMU improves to 7-11-2 on the year with the victory in penalty kicks.

Akron struck first in the 65th minute on a header by Matt Dagilis thanks to a cross by Scott Caldwell and a header by Darren Mattocks. In the 84th minute the Broncos tied it up thanks to a Doug Raak header off a free kick; it was Raak's first goal of the year, and what a better time for it. WMU won 4-3 on penalty kicks after Mattocks' shot sailed high in the fifth round.

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The University of Michigan Wolverines began the season ranked ninth in the NSCAA Coaches Poll. They lost their first game to BGSU and never hit the rankings thereafter. They lost to two other MAC schools: NIU (perhaps the second best MAC team), WMU (decent enough) and fell to 4-10-1 overall, coming into tonight's match with sixth-ranked Akron, the defending NCAA champions and newest MLS talent factory.

And what happens? You guessed it ... Michigan beat Akron 1-0 in overtime.

On a cold rainy pitch Akron mustered seven shots on goal, including two by likely All-American Darren Mattocks, but Michigan's Latif Alashe netted in a goal in the 97th minute to seal their first win against a MAC team this season. It doesn't sound impressive but in this topsy-turvy world of European soccer that can be considered an accomplishment.

UA falls to 10-2-2 on the season, which is already more losses than they had last season. In all fairness their last loss was also a puzzling and random defeat to Cleveland State, who finished 9-10-1 and didn't even make their conference championship game. But with this bad loss the Zips will almost certainly fall out of the top 10. Hope is not lost; this is not as strong a squad as they had last year but they're still expected to go deep into the NCAA tourney again. Especially since Michigan won't be there.

Last year BG fell to Michigan athletics in the following sports:

Baseball: 8-5
Basketball: 69-50
Football: Unable to recall score, entirely possible no score was kept
Hockey: 4-1, 4-2, 5-1, 4-1
Soccer: 5-1
Softball: 4-2

That's nine games and nine losses. Usually the hockey team is good for one poke-check into the Wolverines' record but they were just noncompetitive in every game they played.

All of that has been avenged. BGSU's first soccer game of the year against ninth-ranked Michigan resulted in a positive 2-0 victory in front of a record crowd.

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