ucla

Schmidt (on UCLA): We have taken tremendous strides since the last time we played UCLA, in terms of healthy bodies, confidence in ourselves and enjoying the way we play. UCLA is not to be taken lightly, but I have tremendous confidence in the group we have now that we can get the job done.
took this off the pilot web page. as a few of us discussed earlier, we were very nervous about the tennessee game. however, after witnessing the tennesse game an how well the girls played, i feel better about ucla then i did the vol's.
if i remember correctly, we were w/out lopez, sophie an kelsey got knocked out w/a concussion. ucla was missing kara lang who i hope would come to u pf p because of christine. oh well. i will still be on pins an needles, but i feel more confident.

UCLA had Lang there, just back from the World Cup, and she scored both goals. Sophie was there and played part of the second half. Kelsey got her concussion in the first half and was bonkers in the second half, shanking lots of kicks. UCLA's overtime goal was an easy save, but Kelsey was so dazed that she misplayed it. Those Portland fans who were there thought Portland looked to be the better team.

The team now is a completely different team, as Sophie says. I bet UCLA would rather be playing any other team that is left. Did you all see the Tennessee coach's comment -- she'll be shocked if we don't win the tournament.

By the way, I entered the round 1 and 2 games into my RPI program this afternoon, trying to pass time until the game, and ran the program to see where Tennessee came out after their first and second round wins. They came out at #6!

Also, it dawned on me at the game. The last time the Pilots played a tournament game here was the quarters two years ago against Notre Dame. Electricity then, electricity tonight!

The game the Pilots should be thinking about is last year's playoff game versus UCLA...when they knocked us off! That's the more significant game to think about. That's the game that should motivate and inspire payback!

The only advantage the Bruins should have about hosting this quarterfinal game....is that they won't have to make another trip to LAX.

Keep em home Pilots!

GO FOR 3!!!

Here are some comparative stats, for what they're worth. UCLA has played 22 games, the Pilots 21. The team's number is followed by its opponents' number:

Goals scored:

UCLA 59/12
Pilots 54/9

Shots:

UCLA 350/159
Pilots 389/123

Goals per game:

UCLA 2.61/0.53
Pilots 2.57/0.43

Goals per shot:

UCLA .169/.075
Pilots .139/.073

Shots on goal:

UCLA 176/80
Pilots 188/54

Shots on goal per shot:

UCLA .503/.503
Pilots .483/.439

Shots per game:

UCLA 15.9/7.2
Pilots 18.5/5.6

Corner kicks:

UCLA 110/72
Pilots 149/53

Average home attendance:

UCLA 1242
Pilots 3771

You forgot one

NCAA Championships:

UCLA 0
Portland 2

does anyone know yet if comcast sportsnet is going to carry the game live this friday?

Sure would be nice to have the game on TV. I'd be willing to bet it's an issue of money to send a crew down there.

Anyone have a few grand spare cash?

Geezer got it right... no TV for Friday. Comcast has a Denver office but not one in LA. Go figure.

Oh well. We'll have live audio and Gametracker... and the chat room, of course!

For those who have been following the discussion under the Tennessee game topic about the USC/West Virginia game being set for West Virginia, I just looked at the most recent bracket on the NCAA Women's Soccer website. That game indeed will be at West Virginia. The Notre Dame/Duke game will be at Notre Dame; the Connecticut/Florida State game will be at Florida State; and the Pilots/UCLA game will be at UCLA.

I think the siting of the Connecticut/Florida State game at Florida State in particular violates the NCAA's rules. Especially since one could argue that since Connecticut beat the #1 seed, they should get some extra consideration in relation to a #2 seed. And,Connecticut appears to me to have had the advantage on most of the other siting criteria. Am I surprised that the NCAA didn't give Connecticut the game? Of course not. And, I don't really think the rules should allow a game to be sited at a lower seeded/ranked school unless the higher seeded/ranked team can't host the game for some reason. But, if the Championship Committee is going to hide behind the rules as a rationale for shipping seeded teams during rounds 1 and 2, then it ought to abide by the rules when it comes to siting rounds 3 and 4.

Maybe I'm beating my head against a wall, but there's got to be some way to embarrass the Committee into fighting harder to get the Championships/Competition Cabinet to change the round 1 and 2 siting rules.

Well, it's late and this has been a great weekend for the Pilots' women's soccer team and fans, and I'm starting to sound incoherent. GO PILOTS!

I looked on the UCLA site and it shows the game will be on TV
ESPNU but I can't find it anywhere else.....

UPSoccerFanatic... perhaps helping explain the decision to host the game at West Virginia was the apparantly deplorable condition of the field at USC this past weekend. I saw this from a disgruntled Florida fan on Big Soccer:

It was bad. the sidelines were all torn up(cause that's where the teams stand and tear it up during football games), the corners were full of sand, the middle of the field had patches of brown and no grass at all.

If this is true, it wouldn't surprise me too much if USC was unable to guarantee that they could provide a better field to play on.

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=621511&page=21

Graham Hays weighs in again on UP soccer with his five burning questions

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/columns/story?columnist=hays_graham&id=3127868

His second question is:

Wasn't the championship game supposed to be in College Station?

And his fifth is:

Shouldn't we really be playing the Canadian national anthem?

Nice way to kill time 'till we play.

LOL!!! just watched kgw's news broadcast on the wb at 10:00 pm. the sports segment had a piece on the girls an did a little interview w/michelle enyeart. paraphrasing, she said she has been having sleeping the last couple nights, having troubling focus in school, but mainly she just wanted to go down to l.a. an , 'ummm, KILL 'EM'. the anchors got a good laugh out of that.

an just my opinion, i took her not sleeping an having trouble focusing in school not as nervousness, but excitement. as in, i cant wait to get down there. i am so ready!! if anyone sees this before 11:00 p.m., im sure kgw will play it again. they're sports usually comes on about 20 after the hour.

Thanks for that bit of news, fozzie. I agree she sounds like she is extememly excited, and possibly because she can smell blood in the water now with the real opportunity to continue our steamroller-like march through the play-offs. (I loved the "umm...KILL 'EM" quote!)

I must admit I feared the Bruins quite a bit in recent weeks, and there is no question about their talent level and big-game experience. However, after the wupping we put on Tennessee, and the revenge factor after losing two straight to them down there, (including our season-ending loss last year in the Quarters), I do believe we stand well prepared to knock them bonkers!

Granted this will probably change to absolute nervousness come Friday, but I am feeling confident about the game on Friday... The team really seems to be in the right frame of mind, we are playing really well, and are ready to avenge the last 2 losses.

Lets go to UCLA and take care of business.

Question for all my Pilots' Women's Soccer brothers and sisters out there. I don't normally care about the other team's players, playing style, won/loss record, etc.. I am really only interested in MY team. However, since I am biding my time here, waiting for WWIII Friday night, I thought I'd ask a technical/personnel question or two about LewCLA; oops, I mean UCLA. (You old gassers out there probably will get that one. If you just have to know, send me a PM. I'm kinda lonely anyway. )

Oh, I almost forgot, my first question: I have heard the names Lang amd Cheney associated with great scoring. There are probably others deserving to mention, but let's start with those two. Do the Pilots put Emily on Cheney, (who I've heard is the MAC-Hermann favorite as well as only a soph.)? What about Lang. I know Emily was assigned to mark her in the 2005 Championship final, and flat out shut her down. ZERO shots. So then does Kelli take Lang or do they play a zone, or mixture of zone and one on one? Any other monsters I should know about? (Do I really want to know?)

How does UCLA's defense stop our "tremendous and dynamic offensive attack", to paraphrase Tennessee's coach Angela Kelly? I know Kelsey probably wishes she didn't attend UCLA her freshman year, having to sit behind an excellent GK, Val Henderson. (Although looking at their youth national team, I think Kelsey may have played more minutes there than Henderson.)

O.K. - I'm done. Thanks.

UCLA's other big-time players are Christina DiMartino and Danesha Adams. DiMartino is UCLA's version of Woznuk - a very crafty and skillful midfielder who likes to come up and attack. She is maybe UCLA's best player, despite Cheney's gaudy stats. Adams has speed and power... definitely a difficult matchup for anyone.

I'm not really sure if you'll see a lot of direct one-on-one marking per se. I'm sure that Emily and Kelli in the middle will share duties on Cheney and Lang, with Lopez and Tsao coming over to help out a ton. Winters will likely have to deal with DiMartino a lot, which is definitely a match-up to keep an eye on.

I really think the key to this game will be winning the ball in the midfield and trying like heck to play possession and keep it up in our offensive third. If UCLA has the run of the game and if their skill players up front have enough opportunities, it's going to be extremely diffictult to keep them off the scoreboard.

I thought our strategy against Tennesse in terms of utilizing our wing players to stretch the defense and help maintain possession worked really well. I know UCLA has more talent all around than the Vols, but again... keeping the ball away from the likes of DiMartino and Lang in the middle will be pretty crucial.

But hey... in the end, it's going to take some tremendous defense no matter what to win this game, and I definitely believe that the Pilot back line is up to the task!

This should really be a tremendous game--especially with all the talent on the field. I believe this is a match that UP wins, but I suspect it's going to take more than one goal. I don't think either team is going to be kept off the board.

here's a little piece on her rematch with the Bruins--
http://www.dailynews.com/sports/ci_7585462