On Saturday, Sept. 21, Macalester’s men’s soccer squad welcomed the then-national number 6 Gustavus Adolphus College to the John Leaney Field for a heavyweight clash. The game that followed would be in many ways emblematic of these Scots’ season. Fresh off of a run of six straight wins, the Scots went blow for blow with the Gusties but struggled to gain the upper hand. On a cloudy afternoon, though, the weather wouldn’t hold; lightning delays ultimately froze the game at the 24th minute.
When the game resumed four days later on Wednesday, Sept. 25 and the Gusties arrived again, having stepped up to national number 4 in the intervening days, the Scots stepped up to their tall task. They took control of the game, bossing possession of the ball, if not generating a huge number of good looks at goal. Playing some of their best soccer of the season, the Scots were able to carve out stretches of free flowing soccer, especially between midfielders, winning battles and holding the run of play. They had two major chances, one from the prolific Hans Haenicke ’25 and another from Chris Frantz ’27, although both fell short.
“I thought [the delay] gave us an opportunity to evaluate the game and how Gustavus plays at the beginning of the game,” Head Coach Gregg Olson said. “We didn’t really have to change too much with what we did; our guys came out and played really, really, really well, and we just couldn’t score … it was a really fun game to be a part of as a coach, because it felt like a heavyweight fight where you knew it was going to be one goal, just didn’t know [for] which team.”
In the 67th minute, the Gusties earned a free kick 35 yards out. Set piece defense has been a weakness for these Scots and here it would come to haunt them. The ball swung out to the back post, out of the reach of keeper Sam Price ’25. Via a header back across the face of goal and a failed clearance it reached Simon Woods of Gustavus, who took his shot and found the net, providing what would remain the only goal of the match. The Scots lost, 1-0, in a match where more was surely on the table for them.
“It was really weird going into it almost feeling like it was a totally new game, but we only had a few minutes left in the first half,” Haenicke said. “We actually, I think, played better in the second go about than the first one, and I think we had a really good chance of winning. We played really well. I think it was actually one of the best games we’ve played this season. But we kind of just got unlucky. And I think the positive out of it all is that we played a really good opponent, and we’re super excited to play them again.”
Forward Grant Luce ’25 was also able to point out the positives in how the match payed out.
“We kind of got a second to readjust and re-prepare and we came out and played really well,” Luce said. “I think we outshot them on the day, had the better chances, [then they] scored off a set piece, which has been a bit of a downfall of ours this year.”
In a bounceback game, both Haenicke and Frantz would find themselves on the scoresheet against Concordia College (Minn.) in a 2-0 win, then each of them would score twice in a supremely chaotic match against Bethel University that featured four goals in the space of 3 ½ minutes in the first half, two for each team. Bethel first scored in the 12th minute, then Haenicke equalized in the 13th for the Scots. Just two minutes later, Bethel reestablished the lead in the 15th minute, only for Macalester to come right back and equalize at 2-2 via Chris Frantz, exactly 10 seconds after the resumption of play.
“It was this hectic, — I don’t even know — it could have been like, five minutes or so,” Haenicke remarked. “We were like, ‘what is going on?’ … It was like a game of FIFA! You can print that. It was like a game of FIFA.”
With two goals in the second period, the Scots ultimately pulled away to a resilient 4-2 win. That 4-2 slugfest was a reminder of the strength of the MIAC, especially in the current season.
“I really feel like more teams could win [the conference] than ever before,” Haenicke said. “Bethel is playing really well. Hamline is playing really well. Obviously, Carleton, Gustavus, Olaf, Mac, we’re all playing [well] — I really feel like Augsburg is playing well. It is one of those seasons where I think anybody can win. And that game is just a testament to that.”
The win against the Royals set them up for another important match, at home against reigning DIII national champions St. Olaf College.
In a game that once again spotlighted both the Scots’ strengths and shortcomings, the home side jumped out to a dream start, looking threatening from the first minutes and going ahead quickly, again via Hans Haenicke, marking his 10th goal of the season. The national champions wouldn’t go down easily, and pressed the Scots relentlessly through the remainder of the first half. The Scots, without the services of some of their starting defenders due to injuries, relied on some heroic efforts from backup players stepping up, trying to hold onto the one-goal margin.
“We like to think we’ve got a pretty deep team. We’ve got a lot of guys who we can put on and trust to play,” Luce said. “Recently, we’ve had a number more injuries along our back line and midfield, so we’ve had a lot of guys filling in who haven’t played a lot of minutes before and I think they’ve done a good job stepping up and playing well”
“By no means do we have this true pecking order of things, of players by positions.” Olson said. “ … There’s times we’ve had our third or fourth string [player] in, and that takes a toll, but the guys haven’t dropped the level like you would expect like with a third or a fourth string guy, so that’s been really neat, and some of the young guys have really stepped up too.”
In the 35th minute though, the Scots couldn’t turn back the pressure from the Oles anymore. Caspar Olseth leveled the score via a corner kick, then a penalty conceded in the final minute of the first half gave the Oles the lead. In the second half, the Oles used a flurry of goals to pull away, scoring three goals within 4 ½ minutes of each other to establish the final scoreline, a 5-1 result to send the Scots back to the drawing board.
Across the season, these Scots have looked to regroup and improve after these more difficult matches. “We’ve come together as a team after some of our tougher losses more recently and had some hard discussions,” Luce said. “But also pretty positive [ones] in terms of reminding ourselves what our non-negotiables are and [what our] standards are as a team that we need to hold ourselves to.”
Despite a bleak scoreline, the Olaf match held some positives, including some standout defensive plays from Luc van der Graf ’28, a first year right back from Amsterdam, Netherlands, whose rise has buoyed the Scots in a year where they’ve had to rely on a rotating cast on defense.
“He’s excellent in each part of his game,” Olson said of the first-year defender. “And one of the things that he’s starting to do more of now is help others move and communicate movement … when Nick [Kent ’26] stepped out and was dealing with his injury, Luc had to step up into that void with his voice. But he’s more than that, he’s a really good passer on the ball [and] he’s a really good individual defender.”
The loss against St. Olaf turned the next game, a distant away fixture against College of St. Scholastica, into a must-win affair. Against a team that the Scots haven’t lost to since 2012, Macalester created a decent number of attacking chances, taking more shots than the Saints but not getting on the board. The Scots haven’t failed to win against the Saints in five years — the last time that Scholastica was even able to earn a draw in this fixture was in 2019 — but as the second half progressed scoreless, dropping points was a real possibility. In the 67th minute, Hans Haenicke got the ball 40 yards from the net, and looked to dribble towards the opposing goal. Slicing through the defense, he took his shot and found the net.
“I took a bit of a risk, expending some of my energy just trying to get into the box and I was able to get a good look on goal and we were able to go up 1-0. It was a really important game. And it just shows that every game in this conference is, like, super important, despite the opponent.”
The goal remained the only one in the match and the Scots walked away with a 1-0 win. Haenicke’s goal was the senior’s 11th of the campaign. His five game-winning strikes also lead the conference, including his solo effort against the Saints.
“I would just say, I have some amazing teammates around me and this team is really talented this year,” Haenicke said when asked about his scoring total on the season. “I wouldn’t be able to have as much success if it wasn’t for the amazing kind of raw talent we have on the team. And I think personally, it being my senior year helps a lot too, because I kind of feel like I have nothing to lose, so I’ve just been going in every game, just being really excited and just focusing on having fun.”
That win at Scholastica kept the Scots hopes truly alive, as Carleton College arrived at the John Leaney Field on Oct. 15. On a chilly Tuesday night, the Knights had the measure of the match, although the Scots had stretches of superior play. Neither side had major chances until the second half, when another set piece would hurt the Scots. A Carleton free kick from 35 yards out swung in and found Dylan Stiffler, who directed a fierce header low and on target. Keeper Sam Price reached out and made an acrobatic stop diving to his right. Price’s effort would have been a season-defining action, but he was only able to parry the ball as far as Owen Flanagan, who scored for the Knights with a follow-up header. After going behind, the Scots weren’t able to recover and ultimately fell 1-0, a third major setback in a roller coaster season.
Then, after Carleton, an unusually long eight-day break. That time out of competition afforded Olson and his squad an opportunity to rest and reset, to recover and refocus, reinforcing fundamentals and building confidence from there. The break also gave some time for some of the Scots’ injured players to rejoin the playing squad.
“Part of [keeping heads level among the team during a difficult season] is just in trying to get back to doing some of the basics really well, to make sure that you get confidence back underneath you,” Olson said. “It’s really apparent that we also had guys out, a substantial amount of players out, too. So as some of the guys start coming back in, there’s no tension when somebody comes back in … it probably is an injection of confidence when somebody comes back … we went back and kind of went to foundational principles and hammered home on those for the last week, because we’ve had seven days since our last game.”
The next fixture was an away contest against St. Mary’s University (Minn.). Against the Cardinals, another team that hasn’t beaten the Scots since 2012, a win was not only expected, but also required, in order to keep the Scots’ hopes alive of favorable seeding in the playoffs. In interviews with The Mac Weekly held in the days leading up to the St. Mary’s game, it was clear, to the members of this team, that any viable path forward involved a win in Winona.
“Our goals at the beginning of the season were that we want to win the MIAC and that we want to make an NCAA run and I think everyone on the team still believes we have the talent, especially with guys coming back from injury, that we can do that,” Luce said. “We’ve got three regular season games left before playoffs. We haven’t secured a playoff spot, so that’s our first goal, is to get in the playoffs, hopefully a home playoff bid, and then from there try to win the MIAC and, I don’t know, hopefully we just win out. That’d be the best case scenario. But we need to take care of the next couple games and get ourselves in a playoff position and figure out our opponents from there.”
Through the first half the Scots dominated the run of play, making plays in the opposing box and creating multiple chances, but they weren’t able to convert. In the dying embers of the first half, Zach Liptzin ’27 broke out down the right side and crossed the ball into the box. Off of a St. Mary defender the ball landed at the feet of the talismanic striker, Hans Haenicke, who calmly finished the chance, putting the Scots ahead with an important goal to reward a half where the Scots dominated play but couldn’t find the net. It was his 12th of the season, best in the MIAC.
Despite further chances, Haenicke’s strike remained the only goal of the game, an all-important game winner in a critical match. Also notable was the return of Nick Kent, who shored up the Scots at the back and had them looking more solid than they have in recent matches. After the win, the Scots will play two more regular season contests, against Hamline University and Augsburg University, where they will look to solidify their playoff seed and make a postseason run, with dreams of appearing in the NCAA tournament.
“Our initial goal going into the season was to win the MIAC and to go to the NCAA tournament, Haenicke said. “And so we keep telling ourselves that those goals are not out of reach. We still are in sight of winning the MIAC and we can still go to the NCAA tournament … something we’ve all been telling each other is, this is the last time this team will ever be together; every season you’re with a group of guys, then the next season, it’s a totally new team. And so I think we’re just grateful for who we are and the teammates that we have and we’re just excited to work hard. We’re just grateful that we’re all together and we really appreciate each other and I think we’ve got a lot of talent.”
