Spring Schedule

I don't think so. Emma Nelson came back on in relief of Taylor who had come on for MCruz, I think.

Looked to me that they put ice on her thigh and wrapped it. I suspect they'll take it easy getting her back into competition.

Did DeYoung graduate even though she red shirted on year?

No, Hailee has her Senior season of eligibility left. She Redshirted in 2009.

UP has three keepers. They were all at practice yesterday.

My guess is that she is about 2 courses shy of graduating

All three GKs were in uniform last weekend but NicholeD played first half and ErinD the second. Both were fine. UP appears to be very deep in that position right now.

Purplegeezer wrote:My guess is that she is about 2 courses shy of graduating

Ahhh you gotta love the mysterious "post-graduate" degree...

Women vs. Washington State, 11 a.m.
Men vs. Oregon State, 1 p.m. Both at Merlo.

And Real-Barça at 1:00 ( replayed at 4:00 on goltv)
Previous tv listings had the game at 11:00AM . Apparently there are 2 hrs of pre game.

Is this an important game or something?

Bring your rain gear.

Here's a question to chew on:

So far, we've seen the Pilots in a more or less 1-4-1-2-3 formation, in each and every game this Spring. Apart from being based on the personnel the Pilots have and learning from last year, is it possible that there is a connection to something going on with the Women's National Team program? Part of the effort of the USSF, so far as women is concerned, is to try to get some sort of continuity throughout women's/girls' soccer. Irwin is coach of the U23 WNT and, in being so, must have some pretty good ties to the WNT itself.

i highly doubt that the formation G has chosen to play has anything to do with the WNT.

also...going out on a very sturdy limb here and saying that the girls are going to struggle this coming season. this will be the first season in which there will be no player to carry the load when the team needs it. there will be no sinclair. there will be no rapinoe. there will be no enyeart, no keelin, no sophie. in years past you could clearly see the development of a younger player or two who came in and showed their freshman year that they would be truly special. i foresee goals being very hard to come by, lack of possession/control in the central midfield, and a shaky backline.

hope i'm wrong, but haven't seen anything that suggests that i will be wrong. this is a very, very big season for the future of this program.

golaso wrote:i highly doubt that the formation G has chosen to play has anything to do with the WNT.

also...going out on a very sturdy limb here and saying that the girls are going to struggle this coming season. this will be the first season in which there will be no player to carry the load when the team needs it. there will be no sinclair. there will be no rapinoe. there will be no enyeart, no keelin, no sophie. in years past you could clearly see the development of a younger player or two who came in and showed their freshman year that they would be truly special. i foresee goals being very hard to come by, lack of possession/control in the central midfield, and a shaky backline.

hope i'm wrong, but haven't seen anything that suggests that i will be wrong. this is a very, very big season for the future of this program.

Really? You see a back line of Cruz, Kassi or Leahy and MO and Johnson with Cloee in front of them as shaky? Three of those five players are national team players, potemtially four Of the six if you include Leahy. The other two are the same as last year, maybe with better help and better health.



The offense will not be an issue of talent, but how well the team meshes. There are some very good players there, and it is the same bunch( reconfigured a bit and without Sophie, which was a big part of the 4-4-2, but with the new formation roles are different) as last year. This year they will be more experienced and there are some good additions. This is not the first time we had to replace players. Every time in the past the younger players have done it. We have some players here who are steadily improving ( Frisbie, for example) and we potentially have players coming in that could be game changers.

In 2007 we essentially started over with the injuries to both Rapinoes and Chandhoke a couple others, too. That group became the players you say can't be replaced this time around.

Goals were hard to come by last year, and relatively easy to come by the year before with almost the exact same roster. The difference was one speedster to break the defense down in Enyeart. From reports, we have three speedster coming in. One might just do the trick.

I think this years team will no doubt have issues, but so has every recent team. We have, for example, lost our best threat at some point during the year almost every one of the last five years. The schedule looks brutal, but that just makes a loss or two less crucial.


I think this will be a fun year to watch. We will still win the conference, I think. Even if we don't, we will still be in the tournament. The goal is the same as always. There are no rebuilding years here.

It's a matter of perception. Most people felt that last year's team wasn't on the same level as the past several years, but they still went 19-1-2, beat 7 or 8 teams that made the tournament, and the only loss came on the road to Stanford, the #1 team in the country. (The hearbreaking loss to UW in the playoffs counts as a tie in the record books.)

I'll take another "down" year like that.

I suppose we could go 19-4-3 like that awful 2002 year...

Purplegeezer wrote:

I think this will be a fun year to watch. We will still win the conference, I think. Even if we don't, we will still be in the tournament. The goal is the same as always. There are no rebuilding years here.

What were we saying about the basketball team last fall? Now who can say they didn't have fun this season? Young players will surprise us. We'll get some nice wins and maybe drop points when we shouldn't. It's the same thing in every sport.

The difference was one speedster to break the defense down in Enyeart. From reports, we have three speedster coming in. One might just do the trick.

Yes. I very much agree. The threat of having a speedster like Sinclair and Enyeart opens up more space for the one-touch possession game (aka Sodom and Gomorrah offense ) to take affect so beautifully!

One thing though that I think is also very essential and not often or rarely mentioned is dribbling skills. Angie Woznuk quarterbacked the 2005 team. Her creativity and ability to free herself from her defenders one-on-one was fantastic to watch. She could go around folks at will. Make them look like cones. Defenders had to keep her in front of them....somehow? Same as they would try with a speedster.

Mix in a player with extraordinary ball at feet skills....and a speedster...to the Pilot's one touch possession game, hey...the perfect storm! We all saw what happens when that combination is run to perfection! UO's Coach Erickson described it best...simply and silently..."OMG"!

Speaking of Charney...I remembered she was recruited as a player with Woznuk-like skills. I liked her. She was good for the Pilots. But, Angie's maturity, field vision and instinctive acuity of where everyone was... stood out. She often controlled the team's match pace. Knew when to settle the team. Knew when to open it up and push them.

GO PILOTS!!!

Losing Keelin and Sophie from midfield, and Jessica and Elli from outside d leaves a some large holes to fill. The fun thing about college sports is seeing if anyone steps up to fill the gaps.

Based on three spring games, which is limited evidence, Cloee and Dani could be the backbone in midfield, and MichelleC and Kendall on outside d. Time will tell whether they are the ones called upon in those roles, and then whether they can rise to the challenge.

I think Kendall is very likely to play on the left. The questions are who plays alongside Michelle O (if Cloee is in midfield) and who is on the right. And how shaky does that make the defence.

Cloee and Dani have the skills to provide control and possession in midfield. Maybe not a lot of pace but neither Keelin nor Sophie were that fast either. EllenP is not playing in spring and could make a difference in her sophomore season.

Upfront is the biggest question for me. I think Dani could score goals from midfield, but the JC transfer and returnees and freshan will all have the chance to stake a claim to time.

halley and capelle need to be up top. in those two you have a post up forward who can hold the ball for the team, distribute, and finish her chances as she has proven. in the other you have a speedster who can make runs off of the other, get behind the defense, and finish her chances. i know we saw it at the beginning of the season last year and not much after that, but i think the team needs to work on the relationship between those two. if they can base an attack on playing through dani to halley and have capelle, along with the wingers, work off of halley, that is the best way i see for this team to consistently score goals.

I was concerned, going into the Spring games, but am feeling more confident now having seen the games. I think Dani will have a very big year. But, I think the surprise may be Cameli. A pretty knowledgeable person on the national recruiting front has characterized her as a possible "game changer."

I agree with UPSF that Cameli could be very important. It will be interesting to see if she can make the switch to D1 quickly.

Golaso - what you say makes sense too but it's not clear if Garrett will have the Pilots playing in the same formation as in prior years. In spring they haven't really had wingers and have played with three up front. And the three have been more fluid in terms of who is in the center. If Kendall is back on defence, which seems increasingly likely, I'm not sure who would be the wide players in the diamond if they stayed with that... Taylor Brooke and Sarah Bridges, maybe. I'm sure that however they line up they will be looking to outside defenders to get forward and provide some attacking width - Kendall and Michelle Cruz (if she plays there) could certainly do that.

I agree with you that Halley provides a target and is one of the few who can hold the ball up and lay off to supporting runners - a really useful attribute. Dani has gotten much better at doing that but seems like a real possibility of her playing deeper next season.

Lots to watch for as the fall approaches and unfolds.

Lots of interesting stuff on this thread. I have coached strictly the 4-4-2 all my coaching years, and I know much less about how a 3-attacker formation works. Having said that, I think coaches might well be looking at the roster and, especially with Kendall playing outside D, are seeing extra strength at attacker and central D and less at outside mid, hence the change. They may also be looking at the precipitous drop in goals scored from the year before and are looking at ways to get an extra attacker into the game. Or, as someone said earlier, the 3-attacker formation may just be to accommodate the limited number of players available in the spring. It should be fascinating to watch unfold.

Golaso - I also disagree strongly with your "shaky defense" statement. That should be the strength of the team, especially with a more mature goalie group. I also disagree with Geezer about having the same bunch on offense as last year, minus Sophie. We will be missing Elli and Jessica with their overlap runs as well as Sophie. Those three, plus Keelin, were integral parts of the offense and really can't be replaced. I would not be surprised to see another year with goals hard to come by.

Players in new positions is always interesting in the spring. I expected Kendall's move to outside D, and I love the idea of Cloee at holding mid, especially with the talent still left behind her in the middle. I actually thought that might have happened when Sophie was with the Canadians last year. On the other hand, M Cruz at outside D was completely unexpected, by me. I thought she was a very talented player last year looking for her place, and I thought she had found it at attacking mid later in the year. This is part of what makes this so much fun to watch develop.

Having been to all three spring games so far, the 4-3-3 seems like a good fit for the Pilots. That being said I wouldn't be surprised to see them switch to the 4-4-2 when the opposition warrants it.

Micaela and Amanda have both improved noticeably and teamed with Halley make a potentially formidable offensive line. Both the freshman have gotten past the first year player tendency to hold the ball too much and try to make the play themselves. They have grown in confidence and are putting their considerable skills to good use this spring. They are going to be fun to watch this fall.

One consideration for M. Cruz is that she looked noticeably stronger on her right foot than on her left. This handicapped her at times last year when she was playing midfield because teams would play her to cross if she was on the right and to cut inside if she was on the left. Right fullback seems like a more comfortable position for a strongly right-footed player.

UPPilots wrote:
April 23rd, vs. OSU Time TBD but I would assume it to be around 1

anybody do better than "probably"?

From UP website:

Saturday, April 23 (updated 4/18/11)
Men vs. USA Under-18 National Team, 11 a.m.
Women vs. Oregon State, 1 p.m.
Washington Men vs. USA Under-18 National Team, 3 p.m.

No raincoats necessary.