Service Academy SITREP

We know that the main course this weekend are the week one football games. Army takes on Duke tonight at 7pm EST, Air Force hosts Stony Brook at 2pm EST tomorrow and Navy finishes it off in an 11pm EST clash with Hawaii.

But those three games are hardly the only service academy athletics competitions taking place this weekend.

In a segment that we are going to call the SITREP, we will get you up to date on the other sporting events taking place this weekend, and those matches are highlighted by our first interservice tilt of the year with Air Force traveling to Annapolis to take on the Navy Men’s Soccer team at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium at 7pm EST tonight.

The Ike Award

If you are a fan of Army or Navy, you know all too well about the Star Series, the running tally across all sports of who wins the penultimate match each year and solidifies their sport’s stake in the overall rivalry. Last year, Navy won the Star Series 13-9-2. The Star Series even has a sponsor in USAA. Needless to say, beating Army or Navy is taken seriously.

But what about that other school out in Colorado Springs? For far too long, there hasn’t been enough attention given to the contests between Air Force and its service academy counterparts outside of football, and so that’s why we have decided to track competitions between all three schools and give out the inaugural “Ike Award” to the school with the highest winning percentage against the other service academies during the year.

Why the Ike Award? I don’t have to fill any West Point folks in on the importance of one of their greatest alumni. A 1915 graduate of USMA, Dwight Eisenhower played football as a running back and linebacker before suffering a knee injury that nearly kept him from commissioning. Still, he never forgot what he learned competing for the Army football team.

The future General and President of the United States also sought admission to the Naval Academy and may have ended up there had he not been too old to be admitted. Of course, we still have something to remember him by in the naval service.

Photo by Michael R. Gendron/U.S. Navy via Getty Images

But what’s the connection to Air Force? It turns out that when he was serving as President of Columbia University he was assigned to chair a board that ultimately became the Stearns-Eisenhower Board, which was created to study the military academies and determine the feasibility of creating an Air Force Academy. Without that board recommending the establishment of USAFA, we might not even have the legacy of Falcons Athletics as we know it.

So, there you have it. The reason for the Ike Award. It’s important to point out that the winner of the Ike Award at the end of the year will be based off of winning percentage, not number of wins, as Air Force does not play Army and Navy in each sport. And that brings us to the first match of the season, Air Force-Navy Men’s Soccer.

Game of the Week

The Air Force Men’s Soccer team is headed back out to the east coast for the second time in a week, having split two games last weekend at James Madison. The Falcons fell to Virginia Tech 2-1 to open the season, but followed that up with a solid 1-0 victory in overtime against the Dukes.

Navy, on the other hand, has started the season 0-2 after losing their home opener to Manhattan 1-0 and dropping a road match to NJIT as well.

The Mids will look to get their season on track as the Falcons come to town, and in order to do so, the game has been moved from their normal digs at the Glenn Warner Soccer field on campus to Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

If you are in Naptown this weekend and looking for a great way to kick off your Labor Day, head on over to NMCMS at 7pm tonight and check out the action. There are even some sweet posters up for grabs for the first 250 people in attendance and it’s free!

I’ll be on hand to check out the first Ike Award competition, but I’ll have two three year old boys running around like maniacs, so we will see how the whole recap thing goes!

Other Games:

Here is the rest of the action for the three service academies this weekend:

Air Force:

Women’s Volleyball vs Loyola MD Friday at 11am in the Maverick Classic at UT-Arlington. Women’s Volleyball will then take on UT-Arlington later at 630pm in the Maverick Classic. They will then wrap up the Maverick Classic Saturday morning against Binghamton.

Cross Country at the Wyoming Invitational Friday at 6pm.

Women’s Soccer is taking a break after an opening 3-0 shutout of Creighton to hold the Blue/Silver scrimmage Friday at 6pm at USAFA prior to a big Ike Award matchup against Army next week.

Waterpolo is competing against Cal and Concordia in the Triton Tournament being held in La Jolla, CA on Saturday.

Men’s Soccer will then follow up their match with Navy and take on UMBC in Baltimore on Sunday before returning to Colorado Springs.

Army West Point:

The Men’s Cross Country team is receiving votes in the Coaches Preseason Poll and along with the Women’s team will open up their season Friday at Maine.

Women’s Volleyball will take on Albany, SE Louisiana, and Hofstra this weekend as they host the Black Knights Invitational at West Point.

Women’s Soccer travels to Arizona to take on Northern Arizona and CSU Northridge after starting the season 3-1-1 and having sophomore Erynn Johns named AWPAA Athlete of the week.

Men’s Soccer is also on the west (best) coast, headed out to face San Diego State Saturday night.

Navy:

Men’s Soccer will host College of Charleston in Annapolis Sunday at 7pm after their contest against Air Force tonight.

Women’s Soccer is headed to the Tarheel State to take on Gardner-Webb and Western Carolina.

Women’s Volleyball will play host to Alabama, Dartmouth, and Villanova in the Kristen Dickmann Invite at the Wesley Brown Field House this weekend.

Men’s Waterpolo will take on Iona and Lindenwood Saturday before facing off against the #13 Princeton team and Fordham on Sunday.

Here’s to hoping for a successful weekend for all the service academy teams. We will give everyone a wrap-up of the non-football competition in our weekly After Action Report next week!