First week of WCC

Not exactly the greatest conference start. I doubt if anyone anticipated a loss to San Diego, coming in with a 2-7-2 record. The Pilots had lotsa shots, but as mentioned in another post -- the side with the most goals wins. UP has to use that pent up frustration to their advantage against BYU Saturday. If not, it'll be one tough grind the rest of the way.

BYU struggled Thursday to get a 1-0 win over a Gonzaga team that, to date, has only beaten CSU Bakersfield. If UP is a good team, they'll come away with a win tonight.

Tough loss tonight. I thought the Pilots played their best game of the year.

Pilots may have played their best half of several years.
By the second they were gassed.
I think 1 is the better goalie. (To answer my earlier question.)

BYU was fast, very fast.
UP repeatedly crossed (often to on one) rather than take open shots.

It was great to see so many fans, too bad 1/3 of them were rooting for BYU.

Thursday’s match against San Diego:  UP did control the ball most of the time.  But as the fellow next to me in the stands said, it looks like they (UP) are trying to avoid making a mistake rather than trying to make something positive happen.  Controlling the ball in the midfield against a defense that is content to hang back by the goal is nothing worthy.  Overall I felt there was a lack of aggressive play.  Players were often waiting for the ball to come to them rather than charging the ball, which is pretty much the way the play has looked all season.

But Saturday against BYU, for the first time in a long time, UP looked hungry, attacked with passes, seemed to be playing with heart.  Yes, BYU was the better team and beat us both on the field and statistically.  But we looked the best we have this season.

Noelle made some nice runs and was impressive with her headers, getting very good height.  In fact, I think the team overall was good with headers, winning many and controlling the direction of the ball.

Allison continued with her good ball handling.  Her 1-touch passes keep defenders at bay, and she does so well at maneuvering the ball out of trouble.

While the team as a whole looked much better, I think Ellie was our leader both defensively and offensively.  She looked good on defense, and her slide tackles to either deflect the ball or take it away impressed me.  And she made numerous runs with the ball on the offensive end.  It’s a shame she can play both deep defender and forward or attacking mid.

Yes BYU was fast, and we were getting beat consistently on the left side.  I was surprised Taylor did not come in sooner.

I was skeptical of Lusby at the beginning of the season, but I have been impressed with her play so far.  She has lost the ball a few times when diving for the ball, but overall, I think we are OK with either Hanna or Rachel in goal.  We need to do a better job of protecting the area in front of our goalie, regardless of who is in the net.

I don’t understand why Cecelia doesn’t play more.  Yes, she needs to work on her ball handling (as do many players), but she makes things happen for the short times she is in there.  An earlier post mentioned that she was a bit beaten up when she arrived.  Is she injured, does she get winded, does she make too many mistakes?  Bottom line, she manages to get the ball and get shots when others can not.

I hope we see more of the aggressive, attacking style of play that UP exhibited on Sat.

Pederson started on Thursday.
She showed fatigue early and was less impressive than when she comes in for the final 10.
I expect big things from her in the future.
She is our most aggressive shooter.

I saw the games the same as you UPWSR. Except I thought Saturday's great 1st half play was replaced by pretty good 2nd half play.

I suspect that BYU sat back more in the first half and allowed UP to run themselves ragged. Knowing we did not have subs to keep up that kind of play. Then in the second half they played far more aggressively.

Now we're 4-8 with 7 matches left. I always thought if we ran the table and ended up at 11-8 that we'd at least be on the bubble. But Chris Henderson seemed to indicate on his HERO Sports week 2 bubble watch that we have zero chance of getting into the tournament by giving us no mention. Is that true?

no.

Okay. Does UPSoccerFanatic concur?

Corrado Kid wrote:Okay. Does UPSoccerFanatic concur?

From an historic perspective (last eight years), the Pilots currently are outside the range of teams that have gotten at large selections to the NCAA tournament. But, they still can with the WCC title. From the looks of things, there's a lot of parity in the conference. The question probably is whether BYU can be upended.

Theoretically possible. Realistically highly unlikely.

The Pilots are WCC champs after winning all their remaining games and BYU loses 3 of their final 7. So, nothing short of a perfect storm gets UP into the tournament.

Susie Que wrote:The Pilots are WCC champs after winning all their remaining games and BYU loses 3 of their final 7. So, nothing short of a perfect storm gets UP into the tournament.

The pilots are WCC co-champs if everybody else loses 2.

But the tournament slot, yeah.

My hope is for a cohesive team that can play 90 minutes by the end of the year, and a large and strong freshman class in 2016 and 2017 and the NCAA Championship in 2018.

Not only is that more realistic, I think it is highly probable.





Or back to the second round any way.

OK, good start to the weekend with a 1-0 win at St. Mary's on Friday. Pacific is beatable and the Pilots should be in good spirits for that game. Coming home 2-0 on this road trip would be great. Go Pilots!

I was pretty encouraged by how dominant the UP possession game was. The Gaels got their first shot on goal in the 89th minute when they were sending everybody forward. Thank goodness Hannah came through on the stop.

We still have to figure out the scoring side. Decent number of chances without success.

It's been a few years since we had a finisher like the fox in the box!

Harry Redknapp wrote:It's been a few years since we had a finisher like the fox in the box!

Yeah, although as a senior midfielder she scored 8 goals. Amanda Frisbie scored 12 as a junior attacker and 8 as a Senior central defender.

As an aside, Lorielle coached the FC Portland team my granddaughter's NEU team played today out at Liberty HS. Cassie is the head coach, Lo is the assistant. (Cassie wasn't there. My GD's team won 3-1.) Great to see Lo coaching.

Final Por 3 pac 0.

When was the last time hte pilots scored 4 goals in one game.

There were some quality goals in this game. Great 1v1 by pederson, one penalty and two give and goes. No audio on the broadcast.