Pilots v. Rutgers, Penn St.

I watched practice today - all running. Molly is hard at work getting back into shape after her injury, but she clearly isn't back yet. I'm sure she will get her chances.

On another note. I noticed that Penn State flew home Monday, practiced today, and Plays Bucknell tomorrow. That seems like an awfully quick turnaround after the hard weekend they had here. I wonder who made that schedule - another upset in the making?

fan from afar wrote:

A Fan - I'm devastated!! I thought for sure Garrett was devouring our every word and that our comments were making their way into his game plans every week.

I turn in the starting lineups for the weekend to him every Thursday. Any suggestions?

I just noticed from the game program that Christine Nairn is only a Sophomore! I thought that was a mis-print! Excuse me?! Wow! That was a surprise!

I wasn't paying attention to her class level...but she certainly lived up to her billing this weekend, I thought?! She played hard and definitely runs the show for the Lions! Has a bright future. Very young and plays with an edgy tough attitude...sorta like a Megan Rapinoe.

GO PILOTS!!!

Geezaldinho wrote:

fan from afar wrote:

A Fan - I'm devastated!! I thought for sure Garrett was devouring our every word and that our comments were making their way into his game plans every week.

I turn in the starting lineups for the weekend to him every Thursday. Any suggestions?

Start Enyeart and Rapinoe.

Enyeart is still recovering from injury ... so she fits right in as an outside mid for the Pilots!

Geez, helpful to hear about Molly and the injury recovery. That probably explains why she has not featured yet. She looked useful when she came on last year. But was one of the five "walking wounded" at the start of the season.

I know that there are multiple things going on that we mere spectators go not know about. For example, one of the players we have and are writing about was suffering from heat and dehydration on Sunday - that is bound to have impacted her performance. I only know because of a relationship with a family member. Important reminder to me that we often don't know the whole story.

Speaking of injury recovery, here is the article on the Penn State player (Lexi Marton) injury. It is an MCl so she might be back this year.
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2010/09/15/martons_injury_to_mcl.aspx
Penn State will miss her in the back line.

Thanks for the follow-up link on Lexi Marton, Indigo. Here's hoping she will be able to join Sophie on the Canadian national team later this fall.

On another note. I noticed that Penn State flew home Monday, practiced today, and Plays Bucknell tomorrow. That seems like an awfully quick turnaround after the hard weekend they had here. I wonder who made that schedule - another upset in the making?

No upset. the Nitany Lions took out out their aggressions on a hapless Bison team.

The final hurt was 5-1.

two goals from Toney, and goals from Hayes, Schram, and Brock.

Nairn had two assists.

Christa Matlack had the lone Bison Goal.

Molly K. isn't the only Pilot not playing much or at all. It has to be hard on any bench player to sit and watch during games. (And if it's hard on the players, consider their parents.) These are all players who dominated in high school, always stars on their teams. UP soccer is the stratosphere -- the peak -- and to the top performers go the most minutes. With a bigger roster than usual, the coaching staff has to expect and deal with at least some feeling of disappointment among the healthy team members who think they should be in the game.

purple haze wrote:Molly K. isn't the only Pilot not playing much or at all. It has to be hard on any bench player to sit and watch during games. (And if it's hard on the players, consider their parents.) These are all players who dominated in high school, always stars on their teams. UP soccer is the stratosphere -- the peak -- and to the top performers go the most minutes. With a bigger roster than usual, the coaching staff has to expect and deal with at least some feeling of disappointment among the healthy team members who think they should be in the game.

And each player has to decide after a year or two whether they like the school/team enough to stay will limited minutes or to transfer to a program (an inferior program such as UCLA? ) where they can get more playing time. I think that's why everyone here has been supportive of Charney when she decided to leave. She came as one member of an outstanding recruiting class expecting to be at the top of the program. It never quite came together for her in our system, so she moved.

The one playing-time situation I worry about on this team is having two national-quality freshman goalkeepers. An extra midfielder can always be squeezed in somewhere, but we can only play with one goalkeeper and they don't usually move to an outfield position. Since Erin has gotten the early, Nichole Downing has to be wondering how many minutes she will get.

And "Cheers" to the Portland coaching staff for releasing Charney so she could play right away. The U of W goalkeeper had to sit out a year when transferring from Cal to UW because the coach would not release her. (Plus she is battling back from lymphoma.)

irish78 wrote:And "Cheers" to the Portland coaching staff for releasing Charney so she could play right away. The U of W goalkeeper had to sit out a year when transferring from Cal to UW because the coach would not release her. (Plus she is battling back from lymphoma.)

As far as I can tell, no player who has transferred from UP has ever had to sit. The other ones I can think of include Mary Kuder,(Yale) Regina Holan, (CAL) Kim Engesser, (Nebraska) and Darcy Carruthers (Texas).
I think Reggie may have redshirted, but it was for a chronic injury, not a release issue. All were very successful. Kuder was captain, Holan scored around 60 goals, Engesser lead the nation in scoring at Nebraska, and Darcy started full time back when Texas was a top5 team.
Engesser played in the tournament for UP at Nebraska one year and played for Nebraska at
UP the start of the next fall (UP won both).

Coming the other way the results are mixed. Some sat, some didn't. Tara Koleski (CAL) didn't. I can't recall if Lauren Arase did (USC?) but Kelsey Davis (UCLA) did wait a year to play. All of them were pretty successful, too.

At least that's how I recall it. I'm old and losing it, so I might have gotten one wrong, and I'm sure I missed some.

Geezaldinho wrote:As far as I can tell, no player who has transferred from UP has ever had to sit. The other ones I can think of include Mary Kuder,(Yale) Regina Holan, (CAL) Kim Engesser, (Nebraska) and Darcy Carruthers (Texas).

Rebekah Patrick (2002), played at Lassen Community College in 2003, then at Fullerton in 2004 and 2005. Also, Lauren Mussallem (2000-2001) immediately played at SMU (2002-2003).