SCU

Well, that was disappointing!

Santa Clara may have been the better team, but UP squandered a number of scoring opportunities in OT, instead allowing SCU to score on a counter down the left side for the 3-2 win in the golden-goal format.

It was cold, wet, and rainy….something we hadn’t experienced since last season, but when a red card against SCU allowed Evans' free kick to hit the bottom of the crossbar for the goal that tied the game with 21 seconds remaining it was (almost) easy to jump and feel warm again.

Up a man in OT, UP had a number of balls across the goal mouth representing a potential winner, but it was not to be……..

Evan's two goals wrre beauties, which was about all the good you can say about the effort. The whole game was squandering chances, though more so in the second half.

The defense was again our downfall - right from defenders clearing to maroon shirts to defenders not defending across the back. Did anybody tell them that Hurtado has a great right foot but can't hit the side of the Chiles center with his left? Why not cover that? And did the entire defense have to collapse on him and ignore Kameya?

We did have a man advantage, it's not like we couldn't have played honest positioning.
The defense just plain hasnt been good. They need to commit to getting better.


This year we have given up 4 goals to Northridge, Bradley, Seattle, and USD. Now we have given up 3 goals to Brown and SCU. It isn't a recipe for success.

Shooting ourselves in the foot.

Seemed like we had problems with the counter on the other two goals. The defense doesn't look very composed with guys running at them.

What was SCU mad about on the equalizer? I saw a bunch of them chasing the referee and the coach had some words after the end of regulation.

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:What was SCU mad about on the equalizer? I saw a bunch of them chasing the referee and the coach had some words after the end of regulation.

Just a guess, but it may be they did not hear a whistle to continue play, and were not ready for the free kick.

I don't think they would have stopped Evans' kick regardless of their readiness.

Nationally televised rematch with SCU tonight on the Fox Soccer channel at 7 p.m.

A very disappointing game for the Pilots two weeks ago. The big question....can anyone besides Steven Evans be able to pick up their game enough to keep it close?

I'm assuming Evans is healthy enough to play after taking himself out of the game a week ago....if not, it could be a long evening.

He just had a hip pointer. He should be good to go

Looks like the Pilots pulled it out 2-1 in 2OT. After Evans (who else?) opened the scoring in the first half, the Broncos leveled ten minutes from time. Ricardo Carrillo scored at the death to recover two points. Great job Pilots!

Just rewinding the DVR to catch the highlights and caught the last minute.

Carrillo scored from a cross ( too excited to catch who) and battled with the keeper to get possession and poke it in with just seconds left in the game. very sweet.


After the game they showed the highlight scores. Evans went 1v1 with the keeper and chipped him nicely.


good night to be a Pilot.

Just finished watching the nationally televised game, and was pretty impressed with the Pilots’ effort.

Two week ago against SCU I wrote, “Well, that was disappointing!” Tonight was a different story…. the Pilots appeared to be much more aggressive throughout the game than they were two weeks ago. A little luck and some stellar play by Justin Baarts gave them the chance to win it with just seconds to go in the 2nd OT…and they did.

Much more thrilling and a MUCH better result than two weeks ago at Merlo.

What a wonderful little chip shot by Steven Evans in the first half to give the Pilots confidence and momentum, and then Ricardo Carrillo’s game winner was equally as nice.

On the minus side, it appeared Evans may have suffered an aggravation of his hip pointer (very painful) with just a couple of minutes to play. On the plus side….we finally scored and WON ON THE ROAD without Evans in the game.

I agree, the boys showed real grit tonight to get a positive result in a tough matchup. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come and UP can gain that mental edge to grind out a few more wins, since conference games are always close battles. I think Justin played alright, he just seems a little hesitant to me. He definitely froze a couple of times on chances, most notably the one of the post in the first half and on the goal in the 2nd half, I'd like to see him be better with his reactions. Steven did well to read the pass and his finish was top class, but both him and a couple of the other guys seemed to be lacking a little bit of sharpness in my opinion.
The really positive note however is that the defense looked to be much more cohesive and showed some sense of a gameplan, as whoever was marking Hurtado was consistently helped by another teammate (much credit goes to the outside mids tracking back). Hopefully we don't have to do that all the time, because there were long stretches when our offense was not real dynamic because the outside middies couldn't offer support to our forwards. However, I guess if our crux of the season has been giving up goals, I'll buy only giving up 1. Boggs looks to be fitting in quite well back there and offers a very good physical presence, and Gatewood played well when Keith Grubisich went down with injury. We blocked a ton of shots which is certainly an indication of the guys effort!