2023 Season

Just a reminder that the Pilots play UBC (British Columbia) on Wednesday at 1:00 pm at Merlo, in a pre-season game.  Looks like good soccer weather, cloudy but in the high 70s or so, so a little warm for the players.  I am really interested to see the team.

Based on all team schedules, I have the Pilots finishing in the high 30s of the RPI ranks although really being in the high 20s using a proper rating system such as my Balanced RPI.  I also have a very close West Coast Conference competition among Santa Clara, Pepperdine, and the Pilots for the top spot, with the teams ending in that order but the definite possibility of any of the three ending at the top of the conference.

In all the conference shuffling going on, I see the possibility of the WCC growing (but Stanford and Cal, as suggested by some, do not seem likely candidates to me).  I am seeing Seattle U, Denver, Grand Canyon, and Utah Valley as possibilities).  But unlike for rating systems and how teams should schedule, I am a pure novice when to comes to conference reorganization.

Come see the Pilots on Wednesday!

There's no posted score or social media updates from this exhibition. Did anyone go in person who can provide a report?

ExpatPilot wrote:There's no posted score or social media updates from this exhibition. Did anyone go in person who can provide a report?

The game ended as a 1-1 tie. The Pilots scored first with a nice header, I believe by Katana Norman, off a corner kick. It was very well done.

UBC scored late in the game off a deflected cross that went over the head of keeper Rutledge into the far corner. She got a hand on it but could not parry it away.

Shay Adams did not play, was there but with her knee wrapped. A lot of players got onto the field, a few did not and I am guessing are nursing some sort of ailments.

The game Sunday at UCLA now will be at 10:30 am due to the potential arrival of a hurricane (!) later in the day.

The game was cancelled because of Hilary (no , not her).

I hope the team got out of dodge before the 5.1 magnitude earthquake hit the LA area at 2:45 PM.

The Pilots should be furious! Cancelling Sunday's match was unfortunate, but totally predictable, even as early as Friday. Instead of coming home, they spent at least two extra nights racking up hotel bills in LA, then trying to sneak out ahead of the storm/quake.

The latter may be unique in US history, The parts of the country that get hurricanes don't usually get earthquakes. Having both at the same time can't have happened often.

The Pilots host Washington State tomorrow (Thursday) at 7:00pm, their home opener. The Pac12 coaches, in their pre-season poll, have the Cougars at #5 in the conference. I have them ending up at #5 in the conference. Chris Henderson has them at #4.

I have them ending the season at #49 in the NCAA RPI ranks, but at #33 in my Balanced RPI ranks, which is a better rating system. I have the Pilots ending at #36 in the NCAA RPI ranks and #32 in the Balanced RPI ranks. So, we can expect a close competition. The Pilots have an edge due to home field advantage, but the teams are close enough to fall within the statistical expected tie range even after taking home field advantage into account.

The more noise fans can make the better!

The Pilots play UC Davis tomorrow (Thursday) evening at 7:00 pm at Merlo. I have the Pilots as favorites to win, but one never knows. UC Davis has performed better than my expectations so far, with a 3 wins and 1 loss record. Of their games, there has been one significantly better result than I expected, which is a 3-1 win over San Francisco. On the other hand, they lost to St Marys 1-0, which fits my expectation. My overall assessment is that they may be better than my system anticipated.

If there is any way you can, come out and yell and scream for the team.

Article on Pilots' Web site had Sunday's match at 7pm, but my calendar says 1pm. Anybody have definitive info?

SoreKnees wrote:Article on Pilots' Web site had Sunday's match at 7pm, but my calendar says 1pm. Anybody have definitive info?

The team schedule page says 1:00 pm, as does the UC Irvine schedule page.  I assume 1:00 pm is the correct time.

I had seen that too, and just sent Dave Taylor an email suggesting someone make a correction to the game report so they do not lose fans for the game.

EDIT: Dave verified the game is it 1:00 pm. He has sent notice of the error along so that it can get fixed.

Big game Sunday v UC Irvine at Merlo at 1:00 pm.

I see UC Irvine as one of three teams competing in a very close battle for the Big West championship -- the Big West being a conference that is much stronger than those elsewhere in the country think. (The coaches and I put them at #3 in the conference, but I have the top 3 being very close.) The RPi probably will put the Big West as the #21 conference, but that is due to its defective way of computing strength of schedule. In real life, it probably will be the #12 conference.

A win will be really great, so show up everyone and give the Pilots all the support you can!

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:Big game Sunday v UC Irvine at Merlo at 1:00 pm.
A win will be really great, so show up everyone and give the Pilots all the support you can!

1-0 Pilots win.

up7587 wrote:

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:Big game Sunday v UC Irvine at Merlo at 1:00 pm.
A win will be really great, so show up everyone and give the Pilots all the support you can!

1-0 Pilots win.

I would have liked it better if it seemed more like a win than it did...

It was wonderful the see freshman defender Marlee Cavitt get her first collegiate goal in the first half, but in the second half the best seats at Merlo were behind Bre Norris in goal for the Pilots because that's where all the action was with the Anteaters controlling the game.

Those who know much more about soccer than I should weigh-in on the Pilots style of play, but the team just seemed "out of gas'" in the 85-degree weather and never seemed to get anything going.

University of Portland and Sparta Science Forge Innovative Partnership to Introduce Multisource Data-Driven Performance and Availability Insights

Lots of big words in this article...

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/university-of-portland-and-sparta-science-forge-innovative-partnership-to-introduce-multisource-data-driven-performance-and-availability-insights-301924944.html

Brown 0
UP 0

ESPN+ does a good job of streaming these games...significantly better than previous years.

Again, much of the game was in front of Bre, and although UP had a number of corner kicks, I don't recall even one shot on goal for the Pilots.

DoubleDipper wrote:Brown 0
UP 0

ESPN+ does a good job of streaming these games...significantly better than previous years.

Again, much of the game was in front of Bre, and although UP had a number of corner kicks, I don't recall even one shot on goal for the Pilots.

Except for the repeated interruptions on my feed. And the fact that the men v. WVU disappeared from the roster of games just at kickoff. I'm very unhappy with the feed!

DoubleDipper wrote:

University of Portland and Sparta Science Forge Innovative Partnership to Introduce Multisource Data-Driven Performance and Availability Insights

Lots of big words in this article...

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/university-of-portland-and-sparta-science-forge-innovative-partnership-to-introduce-multisource-data-driven-performance-and-availability-insights-301924944.html

Where is the English translation?

SoreKnees wrote:

Except for the repeated interruptions on my feed. And the fact that the men v. WVU disappeared from the roster of games just at kickoff. I'm very unhappy with the feed!

I don’t think that’s ESPN. Brown just didn’t have enough Bandwidth..

As to WVU, have you ever been to Morgantown? Most of that county didn’t have electricity until the 1960’s.
They can thank Senator Harry Byrd they have it now.

I think the Pilots played a good game against Brown   Brown has had very good teams in recent years, at or near the top of the Ivy League.  Although they had no shots on goal, that is only because shots off the post don’t count as SOGs.

It has looked to me like they are doing something different this year, with a Total Team Defense approach.  Everyone defends, which pretty much of necessity is going to mean scoring fewer goals.

If they win against Stonehill, which they should, they will be 5-1-2 with 5 and maybe 6 clean sheets, which will be pretty good.

Anyone want to hazard a guess why the Pilots are playing Stonehill?

I agree that the defending and the team play looked great. But there is really not much attacking threat. There doesn't seem to be a lot of creativity in the opponent' third. No good runs that drag defenders around. When we score goals, which hasn't happened very often, it's usually a mistake by the opponents' defense or an individual moment of magic.

Having already had one game (ostensibly) cancelled by a hurricane, it appears Hurricane Lee and its heavy rain will be out of the Boston area by game time against Stonehill...let's hope all the downed trees and lost power don't have much affect on the folks in the New England and the game can be played.

DoubleDipper wrote:Having already had one game (ostensibly) cancelled by a hurricane, it appears Hurricane Lee and its heavy rain will be out of the Boston area by game time against Stonehill...let's hope all the downed trees and lost power don't have much affect on the folks in the New England and the game can be played.

And that it doesn't rain so much that the pitch is unplayable. Or is it plastic?

SoreKnees wrote:

And that it doesn't rain so much that the pitch is unplayable. Or is it plastic?

Skyhawks Stadium looks to be a grass pitch, somewhere in Quality between the old practice field by the front entrance at UP and the new grass field down on the Franz campus. Looks like bleachers for maybe 200.

They have a new stadium ( W.B. Mason stadium) that has a FieldTurf pitch that is reserved and marked out for Football and women’s Lacrosse (maybe field hockey) and includes a nice running track around it that has more seating. I don’t see men’s Lacrosse lines on it.

Looking at Google Maps, there are markings on that pitch  for soccer, so maybe a match could be played on it, but it would be hard picking out the soccer lines. They are in at least two colors and some places blend into the football lines.

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:

Anyone want to hazard a guess why the Pilots are playing Stonehill?

That’s easy. All you have to do is see the Blessed Basil Moreau drive weaving through the campus on Google.
It’s a Holy Cross school that started the transition from D2 to D1 in 2022 , joining UP and Notre Dame as the only Holy Cross schools in D1. They won’t be eligible for ncaa tournament championships until 2025-26.

Pilots win 4-0 dropping Stonehill to 0-8-1 for the season.
They ended up playing on the Turf field with the football markings, which made for hard viewing, not only because of the mishmash of lines, but because the Turf was a rock hard type football and field hockey teams prefer, not a proper soccer pitch. The ball bounced everywhere.

I guess they had to decide in advance which field to use and they probably didn’t line the grass soccer pitch. The hurricane threat was baseless and it was a lovely day.

The announcers lost interest in the game at the 4-0 mark and we learned why Easton is known as shoveltown, all about President fr. Denning’s long bus ride down to DC to watch the football team beat Georgetown, and the naming of Ames Iowa.