UP vs OSU exhibition tonight!

7:00 tonight at Merlo See several National champion PDL u23 players, and get an idea of what the men's team will be like.

They are picked by the coaches to finish 2nd, and topdrawer rated them the top WCC team.

Also, it looks like the banners will be up by game time, so we'll get the full effect in person.

should be good. See you there

Final score: 3-1 Pilots!

great game by the Pilots against the Beavers at Merlo tonight. This men's team is going to be good to watch. they pass to each other, were showing a good first touch and vision more often than not, and frustrated a pretty good Oregon State team into silly fouls and cards.


The first score was a PK on a hand ball in the box of a UP cross, which Clemson transfer Connor Barbaree converted.
The second was on a nice cross from Jared VanSchalk to Ryan Luke, with an assist also from Central Catholic freshman Steven Evans. The third was a great breakaway run by Evans who withstood a couple of challenges in the box and beat the keeper for the best score of the night.


Final score, Pilots 3- Beavers 1.


It wasn't perfect, the Beavers had some really fast forwards, and the Pilots had a bit of trouble dealing with their runs, But Justin Baarts made some great saves and mostly covered for the defense. The one score was on a indirect free kick call on a pass back to the keeper. I figure it was a 50-50 call as to whether it was a pass or deflection, but the call went against UP about 8 yards from the goal. The Beavers converted after a touch.

But with 20 minutes left, the Beavers were beaten and were just going through the motions. One flaw in the the Pilot's game was the drum squad, which pretty much blew the "weemaway" part of The Beavers Loose tonight.

great night. this will be a fun team to watch. they played Pilots soccer. The Men's team is hereby declared back.

The goals from open play were both nicely taken. I can't recall a Pilot celebrating a goal before.

Fun, fun, fun game to watch. All night, the Pilots were putting multiple touch passes together. vanSchaik had a Warner-like game, and was in the middle of everything. Newcomer Evans was also very effective. A number of nice GK plays by Baarts.

I forgot to mention Austin Guerrero played the first half and also played well.

The Pilots have two good keepers this year.

Also the box credits Joe Sleven, not Steve Evans with the second assist on Luke's goal.

I must have misheard.

The men's team succeeded in establishing a possession-oriented style that was fun to watch. A far cry from three or four years ago.

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:I can't recall a Pilot celebrating a goal before.

This bugged me. A pre-season exhibition as a lowly unwashed frosh and you're celebrating? I don't care what you won earlier this summer, if you haven't done squat on Merlo, stow it. This is where the upperclassmen need to step in and educate the newbies on the tradition and character of the program. Preferably without head-shaving and underdressed pushups.

But it was a sweet goal.

That's a tradition that I sure don't remember from the past. I remember some pretty good celebrations from Linus Rhode and Davide Xauza, and I think the men first brought the belly slide dog pile celebration to Merlo ( which Shannon perfected and took to the World Cup)

It was the kid's first college goal, and a pretty spectacular one. This is supposed to be fun.

I don't mind having a little fun. The guy just needs to work on his dance moves a little.

The pace of play and ball distribution has already been commented on and was truly enjoyable to watch, even by a relative newcomer to soccer.

Two offbeat moments I noted: later in the match, an OSU defender punched a Pilot forward after he actually grabbed our forward and to some degree pulled the forward down in the box, though momentum had something to do with it too. The ref noticed and issued a yellow card--well good the ref noticed, but a yellow for punching? Red anyone?

The second moment was a directive from the OSU coach, clearly audible from my seat, for his player to "go down." The tact enabled the Beavers to get aother player into the game, as the ref ultimately stopped time and checked out the player. It was when one of our own players was also down though. I am troubled by a coach telling his player to go down and then watching the player go down immediately for tractical purposes. Course, in the era of perfomance enhancing drugs, that seems a slight transgression . . .but not so good a lesson integrity wise.

Enjoyed the game and was impressed by our freshmen from Central, Evans and the Clemson transfer among others.

Go Pilots!

Well, if he was hurt he should go down. It's how you signal injury so the ref will stop the game and your teammates know you can't respond to a challenge.
Perhaps the coach thought he was injured but didn't have the presence to show it so the ref would notice.

Ordinarily, a ref won't interrupt a scoring chance unless it looks like a head or other dire injury.

If he wasn't hurt, then I see your point.

From my perspective the OSU player was not hurt. He quite easily jogged off the field once he rose from going down--it is possible, though I doubt it, that he was hurt when he went down.

One other thing, how about those OSU uniforms--hard to believe there would be uglier soccer uniforms out there? Don't they have a school of fashion design--maybe they let a freshman design that ensemble . . .that small white stripe in the back might be useful if one of the players gets lost in the dark, otherwise . . .it should go.

The Pilots wear that template too. It would be all right if the stripe wasn't on there.