End of games streak a blessing?

A team finally took a game off of the Titans. Hope College won game 1, 30-22, over Oshkosh today at the Illinois Wesleyan Invitational. The D-III record game-winning streak is over at 57. More importantly, Oshkosh bounced back and won in four games to win its 20th straight match.

In a way, I’m happy the Titans were threatened a bit tonight. Going the equivalent of 19 matches without dropping a game is ridiculous enough. They were never going to reach the all-time record of 105 by Florida in 2003, so a little reminder of what it feels like to lose could be a good thing.

A run like the games streak is awesome, but like assistant coach Ashley Fischer said earlier this year, that sort of stuff doesn’t matter if they don’t hoist the national trophy in November.

What a run by the Titans. It’s something to really be proud of and a record that may never be broken. It will be interesting to see how they play without the games streak on the line. It stands to reason that the game loss will be a positive. There had to be a bit of added pressure with each game as they passed more and more D-I teams in the record book.

Settling for fourth best in any division and the best in D-III by eight games will have to do. With the prospect of entering their rightful place in the top 5 of the next AVCA poll, there’s nothing more to think about other than winning matches – just like every other team in the nation does. The coaches and players may say otherwise, but it’s hard to expect perfection for five weeks.

I think the game loss came at the right time with the Titans hosting a tourney next weekend that will include No. 1 Juniata, No. 3 Whitewater, No. 10 Carthage and No. 20 La Crosse. Juniata and Whitewater are tough enough without the extra incentive for them to be the ones to bust the streak next Saturday.

-Ricky Nelson