BU

Anyone familiar with the Terriers?

RPI 43 last year.

They are 4-0-1 this year, with a tie with BC their first game. Their best win was Friday against UW.

but they are scoring every game and we aren't. This is as close to must win as we have had in awhile, I would think. The schedule gets worse from here.

Let's hope everyone is healthy and ready to play.

GS out. you will all disagree with me and support him and say this is a rebuilding year....but he has lost this team. 5 years of disappointment and under-achieving and now sub-par recruiting has set in. OUT

Pilots lose 2-0 to BU. I live on the East Coast so I seldom see the team play and haven't seen them on TV this year, so it's a little hard for me to analyze this. It looks like we are heading toward the kind of season Santa Clara had a few years back.

It's hard to know what to make of all this from so far away, but here's how I read what's going on. First of all, UP decided to make an investment in women's soccer about 20 years ago, long before most every other NCCA Div I school did. That gave us quite a head start on our competition. Now everyone has made that investment or even bigger ones. That head start which gave us a competitive advantage is long gone.

Second, we should realize that we were lucky to have Clive Charles as a coach. In retrospect, he appears to have been one of the best college coaches in history. It's hard to replace a "John Wooden" like figure. And as years pass and Clive's imprint becomes faded, the resulting decline is almost unavoidable.

Finally, in retrospect, Ms. Sinclair was one of the greatest players in the history of collegiate soccer. It's no accident we won our national championships when she was around. Players like her sometimes only come around once in a program's history.

So, UP happened to experience a very lucky head start in developing women's soccer, happened to employ one of the greatest coaches of all time, and happened to have one of the greatest collegiate players of all time occur all at once. That kind of amazing combination of events seldom happens in college sport, especially at a little place like UP. Unfortunately, that confluence of miracles no longer exists and we may have to realize that it was a wonderfully happy exception to the usual. We're now like every other soccer program and can't expect results like we had in the past. It appears this fade happened to the men's program a bit more quickly, but it seems to be inevitable unless there were some radical new factors introduced to the program.

I bet you said the same thing in 1999 when UP lost 7 games, didn't make the tourament and lost 8-0 to Santa Clara. There were a bunch of "fans" said we would never have another like Tiff or Shannon, our string was done, and we would never dominate again after going to the final four four times in a row.

UP's best years were and are ahead of us, and the freshmen from that year went on to a National Championship. The next year they went to the semis before Sinclair got to UP.


Just came back from Seattle. We actually did a lot of things right in that game. Possession was dominant (60-70%) range, we got players forward better than we have been doing, there was only a couple scoring chances for BU, and we dominated the midfield. What we didn't do well is connect better in the final third. we are getting crosses, but forwards have to come back to them or not getting into the box soon enough.. we are getting getting shots, but trying to play them too fine, and we are often trying one too many passes in the box.

we made two pretty horrid defensive lapses. On one, we left a player unmarked at the penalty spot on a restart from about 40 out. stupid mistake. i'm not sure who should have been covering. The second was a poor choice in clearing the ball. a defender tried to head a ball to our own defender in our box instead of just taking the corner. again, a poor choice borne out of trying to do to much.


credit BU, they only had a few chances and made the most of them, we had more closer in and didn't..


we hit two posts and forced fingertip saves of the crossbar twice. snakebit, i guess.

Maybe its me, I watched about 10 minutes of the Mens game on my way home, and watched us give up three goals.

that was enough for me for one day....

golaso wrote:GS out. you will all disagree with me and support him and say this is a rebuilding year....but he has lost this team. 5 years of disappointment and under-achieving and now sub-par recruiting has set in. OUT

i value the post by golaso. after the season is over we will have more stats to chew on.

GS has had big shoes to fill. sure we are witnessing the end of the "Clive effect" recruiting classes, but does that mean GS has taken down the program? i don't think so. In many ways, because academics are important at the school, it is like Stanford Football. Does anyone expect them to win a football National Championship, ever? however they play exciting competitive football. their women's soccer over the last decade have had some big disappointments.

i love watching UP soccer for the style of play, the atmosphere, and most importantly, because it is not Duck Football. my children have grown up on UP soccer and the beauty of the pilots is that it is all about scholar / athletics. they play for the love of the game. there are no agents in the stands. I am okay with losing games as long as the players leave it all on the field. I'd watch UP play over the UCLA, Notre Dame, and North Carolina any day, or any year. well in the case of NC, I do love how they pressure the ball everywhere on the field for 90 minutes.


in regards to recruiting, I think the lost of Lauren a few years hurt us a little, but that is only speculation. with kids verbally committing after sophomore year, it is always a roll of the dice. we play FC Barca possession type soccer. there are not that many coaches that know that game in the US. nor many clubs that develop that style. look at our national women's and men's teams and the struggles for developed players.

here is my bet for this year. we struggle for a few more games. there is no where to hide in our preseason schedule. by conference time we become cohesive and competitive. WCC could go 4 deep this year for the tourney. As UP fans, we are part of the educational process for the student athletic development. it is important to support the team in good and not so good times. It is important to make sure that they continue to love the game and have fun. there is no higher expectation than the ones the players have for themselves. we need to make sure that there is a home team advantage by doing our part. golaso, i feel your pain, but lets make sure we don't take the game away from the players on the field today.

I was at the game today as well. The first half the Pilots did just about everything right except for that one defensive lapse. They were much more aggressive than in Friday's game. They were passing well and got forward often. As Geezer said they just seem snakebit. They had several shots just miss, it was amazing. Distressing, but amazing. They played just as hard in the second half, but once again could not find the back of the net. Give BU credit, they made the most of their opportunities. Nicole Downing did a good job in goal, she had no chance to get either one of the shots that went in.

I think playing at Merlo next weekend will just what the team needs.

PS, couldn't agree less with golaso. If 19-2 is underachieving, then I say underachieve annually.

The last 4 years had Up with the second best winning percentage in the NCAA.

Number I was Stanford by one loss less.

winning percentage means nothing, even G would tell you that.
what have you done for me lately?
#1 seed loses in the second round, at home, to a team that it should have beat, no doubt. that same team starts the next season 2-3 against a relatively weak schedule compared to previous seasons.
it isn't enough to have a record of 19-2. its college, yes, but the goal is to win national championships. there are some programs who would be absolutely thrilled to have such a record. but at UP, it doesn't really mean anything. WCC championships don't really mean a whole lot either.
the players and staff all are open about it...the goal is the national championship, and as of now, they are further than they have been for a long, long time and the future doesn't look promising. you can disagree, but you're just fooling yourself.

Golaso

Were you at the game today?

nope, didn't need to be. they lost to BOSTON UNIVERSITY 2-0 after losing to SEATTLE U and SAN DIEGO STATE

"As UP fans, we are part of the educational process for the student athletic development. it is important to support the team in good and not so good times. It is important to make sure that they continue to love the game and have fun. there is no higher expectation than the ones the players have for themselves. we need to make sure that there is a home team advantage by doing our part. golaso, i feel your pain, but lets make sure we don't take the game away from the players on the field today."

This quote kind of bothers me a little bit. Why is there not the same level of support for the guys team then? Are they not in the same boat? Years ago they would the team that everyone would go to watch, and now that they're not contending for National Championships, not as many people show up anymore...

And this isn't an indictment. I know a lot of the people on this message board get to both the girls and the guys games, but I am just curious and asking this as an honest question

ekrauss wrote:We're now like every other soccer program and can't expect results like we had in the past.

I'll have to disagree on that. The women's team has pretty consistently been a top 10 team. Very few small schools can say that. For a player who wants to play quality soccer and wants the "small college" experience with very good academics, UP is among very small group of choices. Furthermore, we have great fan support, which is attractive to recruits. How many small schools have been to the college cup? the quarterfinals? won it all? Until more such schools come into the mix, UP will be an attractive option.

We haven't made it to the college cup in a number of years, but getting to the college cup (and especially winning it all) takes a certain amount of luck. After our last championship season, we lost in the quarters the next four years by a single goal--and were a bit unlucky (e.g., PKs called and not called vs. UCLA). (Conversely, I can point to aspects in our two championship seasons where luck went our way--lack of injuries, successful shootout victories, opposing keeper mistakes, etc.)

UPPilots:
the statement apples to all the Bluff sports, men and women. from long baseball seasons, to the heart aches of basketball and now crew. the mens soccer team plays exciting soccer. we make every game we can.

skip, no doubt you do get to every game you can, and of course the statement applies to all Pilots sports.

It's just obvious to note the difference in support between the guys and the girls soccer teams in terms of attendance. I was wondering why not as many people come to the guys games?

the girls win

the guys don't

golaso wrote:the girls win

the guys don't

Beyond just winning, though, the girls have in recent years played an entertaining and intelligent game that is fun to watch. The guys too often are just kicking and chasing, and pushing and shoving.

Well... I can't speak for the current squad, but back when I was in school, the guys squad were a bunch of, um, well how do I put this nicely....insufferable pricks (OK so it wasn't nice at all, and probably throws a couple of decent guys under the bus). But, it's kind of hard to really get out there and support a bunch of guys with a superiority complex...especially when they weren't that good.

Oh and BTW there was dancing on Beacon Street celebrating the huge victory for the Terriers... (Ok not really, that was just move in day...)

A_Fan wrote:I was at the game today as well. The first half the Pilots did just about everything right except for that one defensive lapse. They were much more aggressive than in Friday's game. They were passing well and got forward often. As Geezer said they just seem snakebit. They had several shots just miss, it was amazing. Distressing, but amazing. They played just as hard in the second half, but once again could not find the back of the net. Give BU credit, they made the most of their opportunities. Nicole Downing did a good job in goal, she had no chance to get either one of the shots that went in.

I think playing at Merlo next weekend will just what the team needs.

I think the thing that is obvious about this team so far is that UP is not responding well to adversity. We should be doing better at the defensive end...regardless of whether it´s tough to get the goals. We can´t over-react since it´s so early in the season though. I think it´s very premature to say we will have a season like Santa Clara had. The questions are:

Are we less deep than the coaches thought?
Or is our team underachieving?
Or both?

As a new member to the pilot nation I was upset to see so much doubt in this years team and in the coaching staff. I am not really surprised by this years start to the season, but I am sure that the team will begin to gel and we will see the pilot soccer that we're used to.

It's interesting to watch this year's back line. In the past couple of years we have become acustomed to watching a fantasic back four that made the game look fairly effortless (It was beautiful!!). I have only been able to make it to two games this year, and in both games I had deja vu of the 2007 season when Jess was new to the back. It will take the new outside backs some time to figure out thier role. With the loss of two key players in the back and the center midfield we have some pretty major holes to fill. Add in a couple injuries and it makes this year a pretty big challenge. We're deep, but we're also very young and learning the Pilot style of soccer is no doubt more challenging that we as fans could know. A little time and a few mistakes and they'll figure it out.

I admire the pilots style of soccer. I especially appreciate the coaches trust in their players during the game. They let them play and figure it out during the game. I think with time it builds up confidence in the players and the team. The players have to problem solve on the field and with each other. It takes making mistakes to learn about each other and learn how to overcome adversity.

I love pilot soccer in good times and bad, and even if they have a few seasons that aren't as picture perfect as they have been in the past I don't think that means that the program isn't at the same level or of the same quality that it was in 2002 or 2005. The Pilots are true student athletes that represent our school well. Players have to commit being a part of UP, not just a part of an althetic program. I support the Pilots because they are so much more that just a good record with a lot of W's. They have thier own style and flavor. It's exciting to see each year's fresmen class come in and embody the pilot way. The atmosphere is like no other, the fans are like no other, the school is like no other. I'm excited to continue supporting pilot soccer as an alumn because I AM A PILOT TILL I DIE!!!!!

I think you are remiss in saying the guys don't play an intelligent game. The guys college game in general is a different animal, as there is much more parity with far few Division I teams, so talent gets concentrated. The WCC isn't a shining example for how to play pretty soccer, with the likes of San Fran and St. Mary's crafting teams to specifically win games on set pieces and strong defensive play. I think because the guys game is faster paced, it seems ho-hum at times, but I think in recent years the Pilots have been trying to develop a style that is much more sophisticated than the old English route 1 style. The guys game is also always going to be more rough than the girls game, but I don't know, I guess I find it more entertaining and fast-paced than the women's games.
Believe me, I see value in the statement the girls win and the guys don't. I know everyone wants to see a winner. But that goes back to the original statement, that everyone should still go out and watch despite the girls record and offer support. Even though the guys don't win every game they play on Merlo, is that a reason not to go offer the same kind of support?
And I don't know if people don't go to the games because the guys team were pricks back in the day, but that shouldn't be any reason not to go now. What paints the guys in a bad light and the girls in such a good one?

I honestly don't think that the Pilot Men are in a bad light. However, the Pilot Women have been the focus. The two championships, along with the other runs, the hype of nationally-ranked teams playing under the lights at Merlo,
the World Cup appearances, the relationship the Women's team seems to have with kids, fans, students, and the community...all brighten that "good" light. I love it because we are different, from the number of student-athletes, to the friendly confines of Merlo Field, to the coaches who coach and eschew standing and yelling on the sidelines.

We go to all the men and women home games and enjoy cheering on our team, whether they win or lose. Of course, a win is always more exciting!

I'll like the see the pilots have a female head coach. Hopefully one who was a star at UP and keeps the same style of play and who can recruit young women.