The Dukes had tremendous leadership among its upperclassmen, and those players are phenomenally talented. He highlighted an amazing defensive line, and he always seemed to be a steady presence on and off the field. Isaac Ukwu is among the leaders defensively, and he performed exceptionally all season. He led one of the best running back rooms in the entire conference, running with heart throughout the duration of the season. Running back Percy Agyei-Obese was an absolute force when healthy, running over Sun Belt competition with speed and power. Todd Centeio catapulted JMU into another echelon we didn’t think was possible- JMU Sports News November 26, 2022 He was gritty, and he’s a player JMU fans will remember fondly for a long, long time.Ĭole Johnson carried the torch and was the perfect example of QB Growth w/ Cignetti He dealt with injuries to his shoulder, oblique, and ankle and still put up unreal numbers. He deserves Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year thanks to stellar stats, but perhaps most impressively, Centeio battled through injury nearly the whole season. Quarterback Todd Centeio was a revelation in his one season in Harrisonburg. That’s culture.Ĭurt Cignetti deserves credit for that culture, as do the seniors. Talk about playing the full 60 minutes without worrying about the scoreboard. The Dukes ended the Coastal Carolina win by downing a punt at the 1-yard line with about 10 seconds left in a 40-point win. The Dukes erased a 20-point deficit against Georgia State, and they smoked Coastal Carolina by 40 points. After dropping three straight games, JMU rallied to end the season with three consecutive wins. The Dukes started 5-0 and earned the 25th spot in the AP poll. JMU rallied back from a 28-3 deficit to win at App State. The result was one of the most memorable seasons in program history. Instead of focusing on what they couldn’t accomplish (making a bowl game, playing in the Sun Belt title game), the Dukes were focused on week-by-week performance. Coming off its best season in program history, Kentucky will look to become the first conference champions in the newly reborn Sun Belt conference, possibly taking the claim for final champions of Conference USA if the conference is unable to secure new member programs.Cignetti: “Everybody knows we’re the champions of the East.”- Grant Johnson NovemSenior class leaves legacy The 2022 mens soccer season is currently scheduled to begin in the fall, with the first games set for August. With the new decade seeing wild conference changes and movement, including the addition of at least two more new Division-1 mens soccer teams in the fall, the move can hardly be described as out of nowhere. The conference landscape in mens soccer is a lot different than many college sports fans may realize, with only around 205 colleges hosting mens soccer teams as opposed to around 333 womens soccer teams. The announcement was not the first of its kind, with the Sun Belt having previously sponsored mens soccer from 1976-1996 and again from 2014-2020 before returning this coming fall. Kentucky, South Carolina and West Virginia will all be Sun Belt members in mens soccer only, remaining in the SEC and Big XII for other varsity sports. 3 Georgetown, with both teams looking to be top dogs in their new conference. Kentucky would go on to be defeated by eventual champions Clemson in the Sweet 16, while West Virginia made it to the Elite Eight, where it lost on penalty kicks to No. The addition of the Mountaineers is an exciting one for Wildcat soccer fans, with UK and WVU putting on a double-overtime thriller in the season prior, with Kentucky’s Daniel Evans scoring the golden goal in the second extra period. With the announcement and subsequent hype video, the Sun Belt showed Kentucky, fellow SEC usual South Carolina and Coastal Carolina, who plays in the Sun Belt for most of its varsity sports, as new members of the conference.Īlso joining the Wildcats in the move is James Madison, who formerly played in the Colonial Athletic Association before moving all varsity sports to the Sun Belt, Georgia State and Georgia Southern, who are regular members of the Sun Belt but had been playing in Mid-American Conference, and West Virginia, who also played within the MAC. The announcement came on Wednesday morning, when the Sun Belt Conference went public with the fact that it was bringing back mens soccer as a sponsored sport following the acquisition of C-USA’s Old Dominion and Marshall. Kentucky mens soccer is headed to the Sun Belt Conference for the 2022 fall season, ending a 16-year stint with Conference USA.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |