Megan Rapinoe NSCAA All-American

http://www.nscaa.com/articles/20081205153208392.php

Megan was named second team all-american this weekend, the only Pilot to make one of the three NSCAA teams. Perhaps no surprise that it looks like none of the U20s were considered.

UNC, Florida State, Stanford: has 4 players listed
Notre Dame, UCLA: 3
William & Mary, West Virginia: 2 (Are these players really that good or is this some sort of east coast bias?)

Shows how remarkable it was that Pilots had the season they did. Great team effort.

Second team??? That first team must be ridiculously good...or not deserving.

I will be the first to tell you that neither Amanda DaCosta nor Becky Edwards deserved first team, third team maybe. Amanda had a sophomore slump and Becky missed too many games. I agree with Sarah and Sanna on second team, they both had great years. In my opinion most, not all, of these girls made the teams simply on name recognition.

FSUfan

Appreciate your honesty in your assessment of DaCosta and Edwards. None of the Pilots U20s should have been named, in my opinion, because they did not play enough. Megan Rapinoe was playing very well by the end of the season, and she was deserving of at least second team. I think you could make a case for Sophie Schmidt too. I'll be interested to see the all-freshmen teams. Michelle Olivier and Danielle Foxhoven should get recognition, and if the phrase"honorable mention" were taken literally, then Kassi McCluskie should be named in that category.

And certainly Charney Burke. It's not often that a freshman takes over as attacking midfielder on a contending team.

harryb wrote:And certainly Charney Burke. It's not often that a freshman takes over as attacking midfielder on a contending team.

memories are short. Megan Rapinoe was the last UP player to do it for UP.

Tereza Noyola did it for Stanford this year, so that's 2 of 5 in one year.

Can anyone explain how they pick the GK's?

Harry, I agree wholeheartedly! The biggest oversight is not including Sophie on these list!....Hello????

I'm a little more surprised that Rapinoe is not first team instead of having Sophie not make the list...mostly because Sophie is just a sophmore. In most collegiate sports if you aren't picked as a pre-season All-American unfortunately you probably won't make it. It's not fair; it's just reality. Both are obviously national team level players, and Rapinoe has a championship under her belt with the help of Sinclair...

Being a junior or senior is pretty huge though in my opinion...

How is this particular team selected? Coaches?

In terms of the national selections, it doesn't seem like any single coach would have seen enough players to make a good judgment. It's not like there's so much TV coverage that he or she would ever see the good players that happened not to be scheduled against his or her team.

Must be pretty much a crap-shoot then, based largely on reputation and statistics. Score a lot of goals, get a lot of assists, put up a lot of shut-outs (as a 'keeper) and you'll get some "sight-unseen" votes.

I remember Megan being surprised to be named WCC Player of the Year because her stats weren't that good. In the case of the conference coaches, they all saw her play and saw how much she meant to the team. Nationally she probably got first-team votes from everyone we played and a bunch of others based on reputation.

The media coverage that our U-20s got this year will probably add a few dozen votes for them in next year's All-America balloting.