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After winning six of their first seven games, including a victory over #12 ranked Grand View, the Pioneers hit a rough patch. After losing their first four conference games, MNU was in a huge hole. "You can't have a start like that in this conference," says Wardlaw. "The teams are too strong to climb out of that deficit." The Pioneers rebounded and won five of the next seven, finishing the regular season with an 11-7 record.
The 2007 season will always be remembered for the program's first appearance in the NAIA National Tournament. MidAmerica Nazarene University along with the Olathe Chamber of Commerce hosted the National Tournament and because of this, the men's team received one of the six at-large bids to the 20-team finale. MNU was seeded #17 in the tournament and faced the #16 seed, Covenant College out of Georgia in the first round. MNU won that game 2-0 and broke a 5 year NAIA National Tournament streak of the host team losing in the first game. "That game was huge for us," Coach Wardlaw said, "we had worked so hard to prepare to play in this tournament and it was important for us to win that game." The next day the men had to face the #1 seed and eventual National Champion Azusa Pacific out of California. MNU lost that game 1-3, but showed very well in the match. "The guys played very hard in that game, but we just ran out of gas and Azusa did a great job of capitilizing on our mistakes." - Coach Wardlaw.
It was a good season overall and the end of 5 careers at MNU. Jose Sibrian, Jeff Christensen, Kyle Sloan, Dave Richards, and Renaldo Canady will leave knowing that they contributed to a large majority of the success that the soccer team has enjoyed over the last 4 years. The success is best demonstrated by the 2 NCCAA National Championships the team won in 2004 and 2006.
Some of the post-season awards have been released and MNU was once again well represented. Below are the awards that have been released. NSCAA All-American awards will be announced in a few weeks.
1st Team All-Conference NCCAA 1st Team All-Region
Jose Sibrian - Lucas Rodriguez - Jose Sibrian - Jon Lemmon -
Jon Lemmon Alec Lemmon - Seth Turner
2nd Team All-Conference NCAA 2nd Team All-Region
Dave Richards Dave Richards - Victor Ramirez
3rd Team All-Conference
Seth Turner - Victor Ramirez
NAIA Region V Team NAIA Honorable Mention All-American
Jose Sibrian Jose Sibrian
