Past and Future Pilots Lead Lincoln

How is UP alumna Michelle Scifo doing as rookie head coach at Portland's Lincoln High? Very well, thank you. Lincoln, with future Pilot Kendall Johnson, took out local powerhouse Jesuit on PKs (10 rounds!) to advance to the Oregon 6A semifinals vs.Tualatin. That game is set for Tuesday at Lincoln, per the Oregonian.
url=http://highschoolsports.oregonlive.com/news/article/-1281337554/

That's incredible they took out Jesuit.

Congrats Lincoln and especially Michele and Kendall.

Oh, and don't forget, Jesuit's Sarah Bridges is a Pilots 2010 recruit. (Kendall's class is 2009.)

I was at that game!!! ....but had to leave to take my kids to Madagascar (the movie)! I stayed through the 2 OT periods...but had to leave before the PKs started! I specifically went there to watch Kendall and Sara play! I enjoyed the preview of the future Pilots!

As the score and PKs indicate....Jesuit and Lincoln were very evenly matched! It was a defensive battle all the way through. There were very few chances or threats offensively....from either squad.

I must say though....I hate soccer on artifical turf. I don't care how much the technology has advanced! It just not the same as a real grass pitch. The whole flow and pace of the game is different on artificial turf. I don't think it gives players a chance to showcase their skills when they have to adjust to the weird nuances that artifical turf brings to their games. Its more bouncy and slippery....Yuk! I'm okay with it for practice...especially because of our wonderful NW weather...but...that's my Sunday rant! Love Merlo for sure!!

GO PILOTS!!!

AGREED on the turf sentiment!!! It's rough especially since most HS stadiums where playoffs are played are turf... It kills teams that are used to grass and it jarrs the heck out of the body... Not that I'm still bitter from HS or anything

Blame the turf on that other kind of football. A few years back I spoke with one of the people who was involved in putting turf in at Jesuit. They really wanted grass and conferred with specialists from OSU among other places asking if there is any way to keep a grass field playable into November in Oregon. Apparently the answer was "not if your football team makes the playoffs."

Our kind of football is a different game on turf--agreed. It's certainly best played on a terrific grass field like Merlo or the beautiful field at Catlin Gabel. But that's not the choice that most of our high schools have. Unless they don't have a pointy-ball team (Catlin) or have the space and money to maintain separate varsity venues (LaSalle, Canby), it's either artificial turf or a torn up, heavily crowned and pot-holed mud-pit. I've been on enough of both to know that the latter can be far worse.

I was at the Lincoln-Jesuit match also, and for the same reason: to watch Kendall and Sarah. In addition, as part of an uncharacteristically laid back Saturday, I attended the Montana-PSU football game, the last half of the 2nd half and both OTs of the Westview-South Medford match, the entire Lincoln-Jesuit match, and then checked out GameTracker for all but the 1st 30 minutes of the UP game.

It is unfortuate that the #1 & #2 rated teams in the state had to meet in the quarterfinals rather than the finals. Either of these teams would be a worthy state champ.

Lincoln and Jesuit were relatively evenly matched. Both undefeated. Jesuit had outscored its opponents 64-1 during the season, Lincoln beat its opponents 63-4. Lincoln is the defending 6A champion. For opponents, Jesuit has had the tougher path playing in the Metro league (Westview & Sunset, the 2nd & 3rd place teams from that league, with play in the state semi-finals on Tuesday).

It looked to me that Jesuit players were a bit faster and more aggressive. To counter that, Lincoln’s players made better use of passing and ball control, ala the Pilots. Stands to reason after having 2 UP alums, Brandon McNeil last year and Michelle Scifo this year, as coaches.

The penalty kicks, which decided the match, looked a bit tame compared to what we see at Merlo. It’s unfortunate that games have to be decided via PKs and players’ seasons and careers end based on them.

But don’t feel too bad for Jesuit. Sarah and most of her teammates will be back next year. There were only 3 seniors on the team, and I would expect they will be dominating again next year.

And I agree about the artificial turf. The ball takes some very big bounces, sometimes over players heads. And when the field is wet, the ball takes off when it skips off the ground.

GUPhantom wrote:I was at that game!!! ....but had to leave to take my kids to Madagascar (the movie)! I stayed through the 2 OT periods...but had to leave before the PKs started! I specifically went there to watch Kendall and Sara play! I enjoyed the preview of the future Pilots!

As the score and PKs indicate....Jesuit and Lincoln were very evenly matched! It was a defensive battle all the way through. There were very few chances or threats offensively....from either squad.

I must say though....I hate soccer on artifical turf. I don't care how much the technology has advanced! It just not the same as a real grass pitch. The whole flow and pace of the game is different on artificial turf. I don't think it gives players a chance to showcase their skills when they have to adjust to the weird nuances that artifical turf brings to their games. Its more bouncy and slippery....Yuk! I'm okay with it for practice...especially because of our wonderful NW weather...but...that's my Sunday rant! Love Merlo for sure!!

GO PILOTS!!!

Part of why I love to play and watch soccer is the venue that it is played on -- grass. While there are a couple saturated days a year that I am glad that my game at Delta park got scheduled for the Strasser turf field, I love playing on grass. I played a summer season on the Gresham High turf field and hated it. I love the organic feel of grass under my feet and on my skin. The air quality seems cleaner and more refreshing in my lungs on grass.

On plastic turf the ball just skips past the players. At younger ages none of the players can stay wide enough to keep the ball inbounds. Plenty of game time is lost to chasing down the ball out of bounds. And anyone who takes a knee to the turf suffers scrapes at best.

SoreKnees: Thanks for praising the Catlin Gabel field, my alma mater. CG gave up American football in the 1960s, discovered soccer and never looked back. Great coaches, strong teams for a school of its size, always a great spirit at the pitch.

Belated thanks to all who added eyewitness accounts of Lincoln vs. Jesuit. Girl athletes need and deserve support at the high school level too. (I'm sure I am preaching to the choir here on that point.) After all, that's where future Pilots come from. Anyone who's able to see Lincoln vs. Tualatin tomorroew should feel empowered to start a thread for that one.

I watched the whole game, and have a different viewpoint, but I'm not all that knowledgeable about soccer so I'd appreciate being told if my view is way off base.

I agree that it was very close and Jesuit was more aggressive while Lincoln had more finesse. Lincoln also seemed quicker to the ball. However, Lincoln (or both teams?) were way off their passing game, and it turned into a pretty ugly kickball match (not at all like the Pilots).

To me it looked like Lincoln's percentage of passes connecting was low because the passer was usually being shoved from behind and the intended recipient was often getting body-slammed or tackled from behind. Four Lincoln players left the field injured. There are rules against these practices, and when my daughter plays in U14 classic soccer those rules are often enforced, but this ref was not enforcing them. Near the end of the game he decided to start asserting some control, so he called (and yellow-carded) some of the dangerous tackles—about equally on both sides, curiously. However, as I remember it he was allergic to awarding a free kick within striking distance of a goal; and I don't recall him ever calling a foul for shoving from behind, which was clearly Jesuit's chosen style of play.

In short, I thought that the ref allowed "physical" play to turn the beautiful game ugly, with plenty of physical injuries and nowhere near enough effective passing. And of course with accurate passing there might have been goals scored, avoiding the shootout, which nobody likes.

My 13-yo daughter believes in "aggressive" play, and gets called for her share of fouls, but she thinks that means aggressively going after the ball, not the player. I'm not sure what to tell her about a game like this.