Beavers-UCLA

Any way to follow the Beaver - Bruin game from Merlo? Can we count on the PA announcer to keep us updated?

Beavers win 3-0 today; Ducks draw 1-1. The power has shifted from southern California to the northland!

MY daughter and I went down to the OSU-UCLA game yesterday. It was a good game with both teams playing aggressive and getting opportunities to score. UCLA has a number of speedy players with much of the forward action originating from their center back pushing passes forward. Sydney Leroux showed some good moves, but the Beavers defense deserves credit for shutting her and the other Bruins downdown. The Beavers first goal came on a miscue between the UCLA left fullback (Lauren Barnes?) and there keeper, when the drop didn't have enough pace to get to the keeper and an OSU forward beat the keeper to the ball. The second goal for the Beavers was a beautiful blast from the top of the box (20-25 yards out) into the upper left corner. The third goal came on a great run by the right forward.

Overall, UCLA looked good but not great. They definitely miss the players that graduated last year in controlling the midfield. The Beavers look like a tough team that could give teams troubles in the NCAAs. They have good speed on their wings and did a good job of getting back on defense. Their keeper is a 6 footer and did a great job handling crosses from outside. She also did a good job of coming out to stop a point blank shot from Leroux when she got free and had a great opportunity. Defensively, the Beavers pack the defense into the defensive third, which gave UCLA a lot of room in the center to push the ball forward. Similar to what the Pilots have seen from a lot of teams this year.

Lastly, a Charney update: Charney came in the game in the second half for about 10-15 minutes. Her touches were somewhat limited. She had one good run, where she beat a defender only to have it poked away from her at the last minute before she could get the shot off. I was a little surprised not to see her play a little more. Someone told me she played the full 90 against U of O. On the run, she looked faster that the Charney of last year. We saw her after the game meeting up with some UP friends, but didn't get a chance to talk to her. Hope it works out well for her.

One additional comment. The field at OSU is very nice. I think the stadium holds about 1900 and the cost was FREE. It kind of had the feel of Pilot games ~10 or so years ago with about 1000 people attending.

Defnitely a step up from when soccer was a club sport at OSU and we played games at Parker Stadium on the OLD astro turf.

Thanks for the update, it sounds like the Beavers are really progressing under Linus' guidance. That is great to see as both a Beaver alum and a soccer fan. It will be interesting to see how they do against Stanford.

That old astro turf at Parker was brutal.

Nice article on Linus Rhode and the OSU women's team on the Oregonian Web site. It goes into a lot of detail about Clive's influence on Linus's coaching philosophy:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindbeaversbeat/2010/10/the_best_defense_being_played.html

Kudos to OSU for knocking off UCLA and building a name in the soccer world. Not to get TOO far ahead of ourselves, but what Linus says about his Beavers this year may be true for the Pilots next year: "...we lost a lot of seniors and when you’re filling in that many spots on the field, it takes awhile for players to get used to each other and to really understand each other."