Oregon/Washington Games

Two big games coming up this weekend against Oregon and UW. I'm wondering if others are as on edge about these games as I am. After the build up to last weekend, the Pilots will need to be sure there's no let up.

I'm also wondering whether Sophie will be available for the games. Canada has been in camp this week and plays China on Thursday, but a check of Canada's roster for the game shows Sophie is not on it. I hope that means she will be playing in this weekend's games. I did notice after the Stanford game that she went from player to player, making contact with each of them. Great captaining, but I wondered if it also meant she might be flying to Canada right after the game and thus away from the Pilots for a couple of days.

I don't think either opponent can be taken lightly.

Leslie Gallimore talking about last weekend matches and a very little bit about the Portland match
https://www.youtube.com/UWAthletics#p/u/1/xY3DFncZcTI

Washington received 2 players on the Top Drawer Women's Team of the week, both defenders.
http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/college-soccer/college-soccer-archives/nid-16328/Eagles-now-#1;%20Nuzzolese%20and%20Stengel%20POTW
Sounds like their defense may be toughening up.

When They were here for our tournament, I enjoyed watching their freshman left back Lindsy Bos.

Boundless energy, Good speed, a little gangly, but she is a real competitor. Gallimore got a good one there.

A little something to get you fired up for Friday...

Ther's a pretty funny tweet war going on between @PortlandPilots and @Strongatnight over Friday's game between the ducks and the Pilots.

it seems John Strong is predicting a Ducks upset.

Does he know that the Ducks haven't beaten UP since the Pilots were an NAIA team?

http://twitter.com/strongatnight

He's a Sports talk guy, their job is to say silly things and get folks fired up.

I wondered about Strong's connection to U of O and got this from Wikipedia:

"...While attending University of Oregon, Strong worked at 750 KXL in Portland and was active at the school's campus station, KWVA. Strong continued his play-by-play work by broadcasting University of Oregon women's soccer, softball, and women's lacrosse."

Busted...

Strong might know something about soccer, but predictions from the fringe don't fly here.

I don't know if Strong will even be there tomorrow since he and I will be out of the country on business Saturday.....

Stonehouse wrote:A little something to get you fired up for Friday...

Perfect.

Oh! Fortuna.

I wonder if the guy who did the video knew Carmina Burana is at the Keller or just picked it out of the air.

Food and Beer for this weekend:
Did I hear right that tonights match has the Ocktober Fest Beer Garden and Sunday will have the Pulled Pork Sliders? YUM! Too bad we can't get them for the same match...

FINAL UP 4, U-0 1

Overall, a good night for the Pilots. A decisive win over Oregon, with four different players scoring. No Pilots injured, so far as we could see. Lots of players got to play.

As for the Pilots' opponents:

Cal State Northridge 2, UC Davis 1
SMU 1, East Carolina 0
Texas A&M 1, Kansas 0
Loyola Marymount 1, CS Fullerton 0
Oklahoma Sate 2, Missouri 1
Rutgers 2, Connecticut 0
San Diego 1, USC 0 (San Diego sweeps home/away pair with USC)
Pepperdine 1, UCLA 0
Portland State 1, Utah Valley 1
San Francisco 0, Northern Arizona 1
Syracuse 0, Notre Dame 3
Gonzaga 0, Washington State 4

Overall the Pilots' opponents went 8-3-1 for the day. (Did I get all of them that played games today?)

Let's have another great day on Sunday. The Huskies, by the way, had no game tonight. So, getting some rest for a lot of the Pilots was a good thing.

I think you got them all. Yesterday and today were good to the Pilots opponents.

(Wisconsin and Penn St. won yesterday)

So– about tonight.

This is the first time we've seen UP in a 4-3-3 at Merlo in a while. the players seemed comfortable with it for the most part. and lanes opened up that players could run on to with more regularity than they have been doing. I don't know if that was the formation or just UofO.

Was that the same way they were arrayed in the second half at stanford? I mean same players in the same positions?

It was interesting to see the 4-3-3.

Midfielders were Keelin, Sophie and Ellen. All are naturally central players. That combined with the 4-3-3 to men that there was not as much width to the play as usual: and calls upon Elli and Jess to provide it. Not a bad thing, necessarily.

The Pilots played more balls over the top last night. I liked that. I think they had a better balance between looking wide, being patient, and trying for penetration with through balls. I think that is also a result of playing three up front.

The starting lineup versus Ducks was definitely a new wrinkle for the Pilots. From where I saw it Foxhoven was playing more of a left midfield than a forward. Would we call this a 4-3 1/2-2 1/2? She played behind the forwards Kreminski and Capelle and in front of defender Reed for the most part. She did move up frequently; she did a lot of ball distribution in the middle third as well.

When Brooke came in to start the 2nd half the team got a big energy boost and the passing and ball handling was really crisp. The right side of the offense really put together a nice run of play and broke the game open. Brooke and Tsao together were a treat to watch.

It will be fun to see if 4-3-3 or some variation is how the Pilots will line up while Schmidt is gone. The coaching staff looks to be experimenting to see how to maximize the team's firepower.

The Pilots did play directly with log balls forward at times. Foxhoven had a goal called back for a foul after she took a nice though ball. The Pilots also mixed it up with some long shots; it never hurts to try the occasional blast from outside the box, IMHO.

I have to admit, I just can't wrap my head around how this year's team is ranked where they are. I think they are going to have lots of league troubles along the way and will probably pick up a couple of losses. I hope not, really. First, our defense is definitely one of the best in the country although GK hasn't been in enough situations for me to make judgement of that position. I only heard the Stanford game so couldn't tell exactly how the defense and GK position was organized there in the first half. The thing that I notice most about this team is that they are not "dangerous" in attack very often, not creating the number of quality chances as in year's past. Last night against UO they came out like gang busters until they scored against the much weaker Ducks. Then they went back to the same repetitive target balls up the middle attacks. Someone posted that there were more crosses and through balls but I wasn't really seeing it. At one time I counted 13 straight turnovers by Capelle. She lost it every time she got the ball until she took a wicked left footed shot from the top of the box. They just play very young to me up front, often pulling back on dangerous 2v1 situations with space on the flanks to play back to defenders, knock it around and build another slow attack with 11 defenders behind the ball. And finally, we don't have anyone I can see that has breakaway speed a la Enyeart. I remember very few of our forwards beating defenders cleanly on through balls. Capelle seems very quick but her runs are not quite so productive off the ball and seems extremely talented when she has space to run straight at defenders at speed. I look forward to her maturing and she is definitely getting plenty of field time to develop. So, after this many games I'm still in "wait and see" mode but I haven't yet seen anything that would cause me to think that we'll dominate many teams in our division this year. There are always bright moments but long stretches of "kickball giveaway" and unless they gel as a team from midfield through to finish, I predict close games and a few surprise results ahead.

Conference play will be a new phase for this team because Sophie will be gone. Assumption is that Ellen Parker plays attacking mid - that's if they are playing 4-4-2.

Others have to step up.

I thought Michelle Cruz looked good playing up front yesterday.

Agree with some of the concerns about Micaela C. She has good foot speed and has scored some inportant goals, but her first touch and her ability to see the passing option are not as good as we'd like. Having said that her assist on Cruz's goal yesterday was excellent and very unselfish.

I'll be interested ot see who plays and in what formation tomorrow.

Despite her lack of goals this year, I'm a lot happier when Dani is on the field than not. She plays a lot of one- and two-touch passes that keep the ball moving; and she is the best finisher on the team.

decrink - I really think you hit the nail on the head. I have been thinking those thoughts, ALL those thoughts, all season long, hoping I would turn out to be wrong, but I'm afraid I was right. This team does not have a dangerous finisher. That is the ONLY thing they are lacking, but it is probably the single most important thing you need. I do disagree slightly when you say the Pilots don't create enough dangerous situations. When I was out there for the 4 games, I saw them regularly get the ball to players in what should have been dangerous situations, but we weren't able to get anything out of it. Think how this team would look with a dangerous go-to scorer like that forward from Penn State, someone you can get the ball to in a dangerous spot and let her take people on and score. Capelle will be that dangerous finisher at some point, but, as you say, not yet.

Harry - I also thought Cruz looked good at forward. She might be better there than at outside mid. Maybe Cruz and Capelle as the attackers in the future. Who knows -

Harry Redknapp wrote:
Agree with some of the concerns about Micaela C. She has good foot speed and has scored some inportant goals, but her first touch and her ability to see the passing option are not as good as we'd like. Having said that her assist on Cruz's goal yesterday was excellent and very unselfish.

I overheard Micaela talking to her mom after the game regarding the assist to Cruz. She half-jokingly said something like "I was tempted take the shot, but I didn't want to get yelled at".

Micaela did have a couple of nice assists last night.

eProf wrote:

Harry Redknapp wrote:
Agree with some of the concerns about Micaela C. She has good foot speed and has scored some inportant goals, but her first touch and her ability to see the passing option are not as good as we'd like. Having said that her assist on Cruz's goal yesterday was excellent and very unselfish.

I overheard Micaela talking to her mom after the game regarding the assist to Cruz. She half-jokingly said something like "I was tempted take the shot, but I didn't want to get yelled at".

Micaela did have a couple of nice assists last night.

Interesting. I thought the pass was a poor decision that turned out well as Cruz seemed to miss hit it from a weaker position. When they go in the net, I can only shut up and say "goal". I wonder what the "yelled at" comment was about? When things aren't clicking it's often because play recedes into a "too many passes" or "too few passes" but I don't see the Pilots sending raised eyebrow glances in each other's direction. Maybe she was just kidding?

fan from afar wrote: I do disagree slightly when you say the Pilots don't create enough dangerous situations. When I was out there for the 4 games, I saw them regularly get the ball to players in what should have been dangerous situations, but we weren't able to get anything out of it. -

Let me clarify the "dangerous situations" comment because I agree with your "slight disgreement". What I mean is, I can't remember a season in the past many years (wow! How long have I been going to these games?) that I have had so many moments of scratching my head and wondering why they didn't find the proper pass to set up the most dangerous situation available. I can't put my finger on it exactly and I don't want to hype on a player's decision making abilities because it is always easier to second guess from the sidelines. But, there are many more times this year when I find myself saying why "that pass" and not a shot? Why play the ball back to a defender who is near midfield rather than pushing a 3 on 2 advantage? Why try to make a wall pass up the middle when there are three defenders just inside the box waiting for it and a player wide with an opportunity to whip in a cross? I guess there is a level of nostalgia hearkening back to the Sinclair moments when she had exactly an area the size of the ball to score and she would find it and put it there. Now, I find too many moments where an opening the size of a small truck opens and the choice is to look for a safer possession, a player in a less dangerous position, or a fruitless "afraid to get yelled at" attempt at goal. It other words, go Pilots beat Washington.

Yes, it was the same lineup and formation they played in the second half at Stanford. I don't see them losing again in the regular season even without Sophie. They are a tough (both mentally and physically), talented and senior laden squad. The freshmen are getting better game by game. The offense is not what we saw last year, but they are getting the job done. Let's remember they only have 1 loss, on the road, against the #2 team in the country. Everything else has been a win and several victories against ranked teams.