St. Mary's & San Francisco

Gameday tomorrow so it seems like we should have a thread started for this weekend.

From a brief perusal of the records, it seems like St. Mary's is the better team notwithstanding the loss to USF. They played Stanford, Santa Clara, and Texas A&M tough and beat San Diego last weekend.

USF had an amazing 5 consecutive draws against unranked opponents prior to league play. Other than St. Mary's, their best result might be a 1-0 loss to Santa Clara.

Both teams seem to have held good teams to low scores, so I wonder if they play pack-the-box defense.

Anyone have any info about these teams?

SoreKnees wrote:Both teams seem to have held good teams to low scores, so I wonder if they play pack-the-box defense.

Anyone have any info about these teams?

From Kai Edwards, head coach of the St. Mary's women's team (on smcgaels.com):

We do a good job at doing the little things right. Noelle and Larson have done a very good job at leading the young bucks in the back. Kruez has stepped up in her center back role, but one our biggest strengths is, instead of flat out defending those teams, we’re trying to attack them, keep possession, and go for the win. By doing that, it allows us to keep them away from our goal for longer periods of time. Minus a couple games, we have not just sat there and absorbed the teams, and if we have, it wasn’t on purpose.

Interesting! We'll see if they can attack the Pilots and keep possession. I'm not betting on it.

From the stats, it looked like SMC was not totally overmatched in their game against Stanford:

• score: 1-0 Stanford
• shots (on goal): 17(6)-9(3) Stanford
• Corners: 6-2 Stanford

Stanford scored in the 59th minute, and earned a red card in the 74th.

Would "Kruez" be Carolyn Kreuz misspelled? Kendall's teammate and good friend of many years, on the twice-champion Lincoln team. It kind of rings a bell that she went to St Marys.

dwm wrote:Would "Kruez" be Carolyn Kreuz misspelled? Kendall's teammate and good friend of many years, on the twice-champion Lincoln team. It kind of rings a bell that she went to St Marys.

Indeed it would be, or so the power of the internet tells me.

St. Mary's has "young bucks in the back"? Better get them a chromosome test, coach. The weather looks wet and icky tonight so I hope the soccer will be good nonetheless.

Bucks, Does - whatever - bring 'em on!!

Latest I've seen has precipitation probability dropping from 100% at 5pm to 20% at 8pm. Field will be wet, but drains so well that it shouldn't be sloppy. (Plus no games on the field last weekend helps.) And maybe we won't get too wet...

It never rains in Merlo Field.

Or am I thinking of somewhere else?

Final score: UP 5 - 1 SMC.

Nice win over a good Gael team.

Yes, another good performance with lots of good finishing. The Pilots had 22 shots and they were getting them in bunches. There were plenty of times they could have had one or two more but the ball was deflected or cleared.

I would say Sophie's ~25-30 yard rocket is probably my favorite this year. It literally came right after a Gael tried a long-range shot that went straight to Kelsey. It's almost as if Sophie was saying, "No, no, no--here's how you launch one."

I never really paid attention to the tactics and strategy when I was in school. I've only really been studying the game since I started watching again last year. Each time I try to pick out at least one thing I notice about the game. If I'm wrong here, just put up a "you're doing it wrong" image. I won't take offense.

With that, tonight one player who stood out to me was Kendall. From what I saw she is very good at getting deep down her side, then still putting in a good cross even with--in most cases--more than one defender closing in on her. She's really a key part of the attack.

Kind of along those lines: I just read about a term the Italians have for an attacking position called the trequartista (three-quarter), who plays on the edge of the penalty area. It sounds a lot like what Kendall does. BTW, if anyone's wondering, she was legitimately tripped to draw the penalty early in the 2d half.

I'll echo the kudos for Kendall--outstanding game. She had some nice moves, showed better speed than I realized she had (or was SMC just slow?), and played with tons of energy, passion and confidence. As mentioned above, she also did a good job with crosses. She also continues to improve in communication/combinations with her teammates, particularly with Elli and Sophie.

There are certain players throughout Pilot history that brought a sense of anticipation/excitement whenever they have the ball at their feet--Enyeart and Millbrett come to mind. Kendall showed some of that tonight.

I also continue to be pleased with the solid defensive work of Kristen Kelly.

I suppose others noticed this as well, but the Pilots played 22 players tonight (all but Cloee, who is presumably still recovering). The 11 in at the end of the game were the 11 who did not start.