The University of Redlands football team has dropped out of the D3Football.com national poll after its 28-14 loss to Pacific Lutheran on Saturday.

The Bulldogs also lost their season opener to No. 12 North Central (Ill.).

The SCIAC is represented at No. 9 by defending conference champion Cal Lutheran which improved one spot after a 33-30 loss to No. 3 Linfield (Ore.).

The Bulldogs are idle this week but open SCIAC play on Sept. 29 against Occidental, which is also off to an 0-2. start.

The D3football.com Top 25, through games of Saturday, Sept.
15:

Dropped out: No. 11 Trinity (Texas), No. 23
Centre, No. 25 Redlands.

Others receiving votes: UW-Oshkosh 68;
Trinity (Texas) 56; Rowan 45; Heidelberg 35; Louisiana College 30;
Willamette 19; Illinois College 18; Wittenberg 17; Albright 16; Coe
13; Wartburg 11; Centre 10; Elmhurst 6; Carnegie Mellon 4; John
Carroll 4; Amherst 3; Concordia-Moorhead 3; Salve Regina 3;
Waynesburg 2; Trinity (Conn.) 1.

The University of Redlands’ 42-16 loss to North Central (Ill.) resulted in an 11-place drop in the D3Football.com Top 25 poll released on Monday.

The Bulldogs were ranked No. 14 last week.

Cal Lutheran, Redlands’ biggest rival, is ranked No. 10.

ept. 8:

Dropped out: No. 20 Rowan, No. 22 Delaware
Valley

Others receiving votes: Johns Hopkins 68;
Rowan 61; Albion 54; UW-Oshkosh 52; UW-La Crosse 47; Louisiana
College 31; St. Olaf 30; Heidelberg 22; Illinois College 16; Kean
12; Willamette 11; John Carroll 11; Carthage 7; Albright 7; Coe 7;
Elmhurst 5; Norwich 4; Salve Regina 4; Lebanon Valley 4; Brockport
State 3; St. John’s 3; Amherst 2; Wittenberg 2; Waynesburg 1.

The D3football.com Top 25 is voted on by a panel of 25 coaches,
Sports Information Directors and media members from across the
country, and is published weekly.

After the first weekend of NCAA Division III football competition,
the University of Redlands program moved up four spots from its
preseason ranking to No. 14. 

Redlands sits just one spot behind its upcoming opponent, North
Central College (Ill.), which lost its season-opener at home on Saturday
to the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse 17-21.  The
defeat marks the Cardinals’ second-straight, season-opening loss after
Redlands upset the Cardinals last year in Ted Runner Stadium.

The only other Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic
Conference (SCIAC) team among the top 25 is Cal Lutheran University,
which moved up to the No. 11 spot.

Kickoff for the Bulldogs’ season opener against North Central is set for 7 p.m. CT on Saturday, September 8, in Naperville, Ill.

Senior
running back Luke Sweeney of Pomona-Pitzer has been named a
first-team Division III Preseason All-American by USA College Football..

Sweeney earned the honor following a spectacular junior season in which
he led all of Division III in rushing at 177.3 yards per game (second in
the NCAA among all division). He set a Pomona-Pitzer record with 1,419
yards on the year, despite missing one game
with an injury and only appearing in eight contests.

In addition to his single-season mark, Sweeney also recorded four of the
top 10 single-game rushing totals in Pomona-Pitzer annals, including a
program-record 265 against Occidental. He also had 246 yards in a road
game against Whittier, which ranks third all-time.

Sweeney enters the new season with 2,319 career rushing yards, already
ranking him fourth in Pomona-Pitzer annals. He needs only 448 yards to
match the Sagehens record of 2,767, set by Jim Regan from 1995-98.

Other locals were also mentioned. University of Redlands linebacker Jordan Garcia and University of La Verne defensive lineman Alex Barrios, both seniors, are named to the third team.

The SCIAC had a total of seven players singled out. The others were senior wide receiver Eric Rogers and senior tight end J.J. Gallagher of Cal Lutheran who made the first team, Occidental senior receiver Matt Tuckness on the second team and senior linebacker Chuck Scicli of Whittier on the third team.

For a complete look at the USA College Football Preseason All-America team, go to the following link:

http://www.usacollegefootball.org/ncaa3fb.htm

The University of Redlands men’s soccer program earned a No. 9 ranking on the 2012 NCAA Division III Preseason Top-25 Poll.

The Bulldogs are the only Southern California Intercollegiate
Athletic Conference (SCIAC) program in the national rankings, Redlands
is joined by three teams from the Far-West Region, including Trinity
University (TX), the University of Texas-Tyler and Pacific Lutheran
University (WA). 

The Bulldogs come off of a record-breaking season in which they compiled a 20-3-2 overall record in addition to winning their 10^th
SCIAC title in the last 11 years.  Subsequent to earning an at-large
bid to the NCAA Championships, Redlands advanced to the Sweet 16 after
tallying wins against Pacific Lutheran and SCIAC rival
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges.

Redlands returns a number of playmakers from the team that led
the country in goals scored (87) this past season, including First-Team
All-SIAC senior midfielder Gabe Ramirez.  Fellow
First-Team member sophomore forward Charles Izydorek looks to build upon his SCIAC Newcomer of the Year honor by adding to
the dangerous Bulldog attack.  In the defensive third,

Redlands returns
junior defender Richie Marquez and junior goalkeeper
Andreas Silva, both looking to improve on last year’s
impressive goals-against-average (0.58) which helped them garner
All-SCIAC First-Team accolades.

Head
Coach Ralph Perez enters his seventh season with the Bulldogs after
compiling a 99-24-10 overall record during his first six campaigns at
the helm.  He strives to earn his 100^th career victory at Redlands when the Bulldogs open up the 2012 campaign at 5 p.m. on Aug. 31 against Whitman College (WA).

San Bernardino Valley College sophomore soccer standout Mario Villafana (Summit HS) has chosen to stay close to home and will attend and play at the University of Redlands.

Villafana, a defender who helped contribut to 10 shutouts, earned second team All-Foothill Conference honors in helping the Wolverines to their first conference title and first playoff berth since 1994. The team went 14-4-3 overall and 6-2 in conference play.

The Bulldogs are coming off a 20-3-2 showing that included a SCIAC title and a berth in the NCAA Division III Sweet 16.

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps may have finished second to the University of Redlands in the regular season but it is the Athenas softball team looking pretty good after one day of play at the four-team double-elimination conference tournament.

CMS is the only team without a loss after defeating Pomona-Pitzer 9-2 and Whittier 5-2.

Pomona-Pitzer was the first team eliminated as the loss to the local rival Athenas was followed by an 11-0 shellacking by Redlands. But make no mistake about it, this is a team on the rise. It has a handful of talented freshmen that will have an impact for years to come.

Redlands was upset by fourth-seeded Whittier 5-1 to start the day. So the Bulldogs have their work cut out for them. The good news for the Bulldogs is that their playoff life will probably go on whether they come through on Saturday or not. They have a good enough resume to get an at-large bid if they don’t win the automatic berth that comes with the conference tournament. The same can’t be said for ther teams.

It’s always interesting to see what coaches do with their pitching on the second day of a double-elimination tournament.

So the schedule for today: 10 a.m. Redlands vs. Whittier – the loser is out

12:30 p.m. – Claremont-Mudd-Scripps vs. the winner of that early game. A deciding game will follow if the loser’s bracket team hands the Athenas a loss.

The University of Redlands softball program will embark upon the 2012 campaign as the No. 11 team in the country according to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) .

The Bulldogs, coming off a 36-11 overall record, nabbed 121 points in the NCAA Division III Top-25 Preseason Poll.

In 2011, Redlands captured the program’s eighth overall and seventh consecutive Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) championship while dismantling various school records, including wins in a season.

In addition, the Bulldogs ran the table at the SCIAC Postseason Tournament to secure the automatic berth to the NCAA Championships for their seventh straight appearance. Equalizing the program’s best performance at the national tournament, the Bulldogs came out of the losers’ bracket to finish tied for second against host University of Texas -Tyler.

Sophomore All-American Amanda Lievanos headlines the team’s returning crew as the SCIAC Player of the Year. She led the Bulldog starters in nine offensive categories and ranks among the best in school history in six categories.

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps checks in at No. 18. The poll is topped by Linfield (Ore.)

The Bulldogs kick off the 2012 season on Friday with a 5 p.m. doubleheader at Azusa Pacific University before hosting their home opener on Sunday against Concordia University – Irvine at 11 a.m. at the “Field of Dreams.”