Miami Exhibition

It's Soccer Night in America! Well... Portland really.

Should be a good preview game tonight, although I don't expect much after only one week of practice with the team. Looking forward to seeing who plays, what positions, line-ups, who is in goal, blah, blah, blah... Let's go Pilots! It's almost soccer season!

I'm particularly eager to see what the new players have to offer. Tonight is the best chance for them to get a taste of D1 with no consequences.

Hope they are all healthy.

Is Kelsey Davis back as an assistant coach as our website says?

If anyone in attendance please send updates.

5 minutes in... 1-0

foxhoven from Kurle cross ( header)

Couple other chances.

Starters:

Dowling

Cruz , Emma, Kassi, Bridges

MO

Kurle, DaFox, Parker

Amanda, Micaela.

Sipple in for Kurle
Taylor in for Ellen
DeYoung in for Dowling. About 12 left.

It remains 1-0 at the half. I'll report the second half roster when they come out.

kreminski and Cameli in for Amanda and cappelle

Goal Miami. 1-1

Defense not well coordinated. Player ( Sweeney? #24) Walked in on goal.

Just realized the central defender is Lorielle, not Kassi. No orange shoes.

Dees on. Third keeper of the day. 30 left.

Amanda and Kaila in Sipple and Bridges out. 17:55 left.

Parker on, Fox off 22:56 left.

Kurle has been playing left defender.

Lorielle challenged in the box. Both players went down. No call. Another challenge a minute later. Same result.

13 left. Bridges in at central defender for Emma.

1-1 is the final.

Pretty disjointed game with all the players playing odd places.

The good news is there will be teaching points.

At least everyone got some playing time. Good to see that. Minus that one goal, the Pilots looked solid defensively until later in the second half. One week of practice shows in some of the players though. Like Geez said: "many teaching points."

Purplegeezer wrote:1-1 is the final.

Pretty disjointed game with all the players playing odd places.

The good news is there will be teaching points.

Oh yes there will be.

First lesson: It may be open seating, but if you take Geezer's seat in the fur-lined section he'll make Tano Pasman sound like a priest. It will never happen again, I promise.

First thing that comes to mind is passing. Too hard, too soft, not to anyone in particular. They got forward in the second half but had trouble with the final pass. Some of it is probably down to players in unfamiliar positions and people in their first season with the team.

The new players looked all right tonight. Kurle made some good runs and of course she put in the cross on the goal. Cameli had a few chances. Good energy from Sippel and Lorielle did okay in her first college game in defense.

Anybody keep tabs of who Did not make it on the field?

I have Cloee, Molloy, and Kendall.

I think the rest of the team got some good minutes.

I think those are the only ones who didn't play.

What would you say the formation was? At the start of the game it looked like the Pilots' usual 4-4-2 with the diamond. Other times it looked like it could have been 4-3-3 with Foxhoven in the middle behind the other two forwards. Or was she just playing CAM the whole time?

Pilots played 4-4-2.

Going in we knew there were lots of questions to answer this season. You don't lose four multi-year starters of the caliber of Tsao, Reed, Schmidt and Winters without some challenges. Then Johnson gets hurt - out fopr the season I think, and you have five big holes to fill.

Incoming recruits may all be fine players in time but we don't have any national team players charging in as obvious starters. No offence to any of them.

Pilots started well - scored a very nice goal (Fox-in-the-Box on a header) and could have been uip 3-0 after 20 minutes. Then they faded for the rest of the half. In the second half they were, frankly, pretty dire. I don't think I've ever seen a Pilots team give the ball away so many times in 45 minutes.

All three GK played for 30 minutes each. All were fine.

Cruz, Nelson, McCluskie sr, Bridges was starting back four. McCluskie jr played second half and Kurle got some time at left d. One problem for Pilots was that passing out of defence was not great yesterday. So offence did not have a great platform. Second problem was that outside backs did not get forward as much as we're used too.

Olivier played holding mid and had a good game. I like her ability to make space for her team with one touch passes. Foxhoven played most of the game at center mid. Also a good game. Also good one touch ability. Parker and Kurle started wide right and left. Replaced by Brooke and Sipple. Change in control of the game roughly coincided witht at change - not sure if it can be laid at feet of the two replacements. Frisbie played some wide mid second half.

Frisbie and Capelle started up front. Kreminski and Camelli played second half. Frisbie showed good touch too.

Cruz overall looked like she may be the answer at right defence. Olivier is up to speed but may be back in defence if Colohan is fit to play. Foxhoven is ready to go and Frisbie earned another start.

In every other position it's still up for grabs in my opinion.

Miami has a report on the game.

PORTLAND, Ore. – In its first game action of the season, the University of Miami women’s soccer team played the No. 7 Portland Pilots to a 1-1 draw Friday evening at Merlo Field. The match was the first of two exhibitions for the Canes this weekend.

"We are pleased with the result, but more importantly very happy with the character and hard work we showed tonight,” said the Hurricanes first-year head coach Tom Anagnost. “After going down a goal, we showed resolve and resiliency.”

The home team scored on its first shot of the match just 3:40 after the opening kick. Danielle Foxhoven’s header off the foot of Rebekah Kurle beat UM keeper Vikki Alonzo to the far post.

However, the Miami defense only allowed two shots on goal the remainder of the game and just 2:55 into the second half sophomore Tara Schwitter received a through ball from junior Kate Howarth and finished into the upper right side.

“As coaches we are also happy because much of what we trained in the past week was displayed,” said Anagnost. “As the game wore on, we limited their chances and I thought we did a good job of keeping the ball against an excellent soccer program."

Freshman Ashley Flinn led Miami with four shots, while Howarth recorded three of her own. Alonzo was only counted on to make two saves on the night. In all, the Canes out-shot the host team 10-7.

Miami has an off day on Saturday before facing Portland State at PT and Hillsboro Stadium at 7 p.m. EST.

The Canes will open their regular season at home on Aug. 19 at Cobb Stadium against the ninth-ranked University of Florida at 7 p.m.

I was very impressed with Kurle, who played the left wing in the first half and left fullback in the second. She has a lot of speed and strength and seemed to make good decisions quite consistently. As for the rest of the side, well, either they are going to improve a lot or it's going to be a long season, or maybe both...

Did anyone else notice that for most of the second half we had Lori, Kurle, and MO playing in the same quadrant of the field? Perhaps a few miscues were inevitable...

Of the freshmen, I thought that Kurle stood out. Good speed, lots of poise. Played well at left mid and especially at left back. At least once chased down (blew by?) a Miami forward to stop a chance.

Lorielle was a bit slow to react a couple times, but recovered well. Kaila had a couple of chances; I overheard something after the game about her being a bit nicked up. Sippel played decently for a first college game.

The passing/possession game during the first 15 minutes was better than I expected after just a week of practice, but for most of the rest of the game it largely fell apart.

The defense was pretty disorganized for much of the game--again, not much practice time, and lots of subs.

Taylor had a very good game.