2016 schedule

Teams are starting to publish their schedules.

First up: Saint John's red Storm at UP on September 11.

@Southern Utah, September 9

Geezaldinho wrote:@Southern Utah, September 9

On checking the Southern Utah website, they say the game is at Portland and they play UW at Portland on 9/11. I think this is the Nike Tournament weekend and it looks like the two "guest" teams are St. Johns and Southern Utah, with UW being the other team each of them will play.

Well that makes more sense.


Two conference games revealed:

Loyola Marymount @ UP oct 2

Saint Mary's @ UP oct 23

Here is the Pilots schedule for 2016:

2016 schedule:

Cecilia Pedersen is no longer on the roster for 2016?

tamservo wrote:Cecilia Pedersen is no longer on the roster for 2016?

                           

New addition to the "noise level" of the fans this coming season. No, it's not more cowbells...there will be a "junior" drum squad. Vuvuzela is not acceptable, but kids on drums is OK...comments from any Villans?

purple passion wrote:New addition to the "noise level" of the fans this coming season.  No, it's not more cowbells...there will be a "junior" drum squad.  Vuvuzela is not acceptable, but kids on drums is OK...comments from any Villans?

What does "'junior' drum squad" mean? Something with children? In the student section?

At the time I wrote the post, it was on the Pilot webpage...it no longer is. Maybe the logistics couldn't be worked out.

From Coach Smith regarding this upcoming season, “This is going to be a contribution by committee.”

http://portlandtribune.com/pt/12-sports/317791-197186-pilots-women-need-committee-to-produce

WCC Preseason Poll

1. BYU (8 first place votes), 80
2. Santa Clara (2), 71
3. Pepperdine, 56
4. LMU, 52
5. USF, 50
6. USD, 44
6. UP, 44
8. St. Mary's, 24
9. Gonzaga, 19
10. Pacific, 10

Ugh, how the mighty have fallen....

If you're looking for a little live action after all these delayed telecasts of the Rio Olympics, you can come out to Merlo Field tomorrow (Friday) night at 7 to watch the women take on a UP Alumni group.

Here's what Chris Henderson wrote in his WCC preview in HERO Sports on the Pilots:

Considering Portland won a league title just a few years ago in 2013, it’s probably not time to panic yet. But after a second straight underwhelming season, Pilots supporters have to be gnashing their teeth a bit. Hopes that 2014 was just a one-off, faded quickly in 2015, as Portland began the season with a loss to Oregon State and then looked feeble in defeats to Notre Dame and Michigan. There were rare glimpses of potential such as in the win against Washington State, but the Pilots’ season petered out in the league, where they finished fifth. The real story was less that fifth place finish and more that they were a whopping eight points behind fourth place Santa Clara.

The Pilots come into a critical season in 2016, as a third straight year out of the NCAA Tournament would likely have many questioning Smith’s job status at one of women’s college soccer’s great programs.

There are promising signs as well as potentially scary ones for Portland heading into this season. Getting eight starters back from last season’s side should help, but my projections on the club’s returning talent tells a mixed story. While the Pilots do have some talented players coming back, that talent has also underperformed in the last few seasons, with Allison Wetherington and Ellie Boon having not developed as expected. Portland does get a nice infusion of talent from newcomers Lucy Davidson and Rylee Seekins, but they still have a ton of ground to gain on their title rivals in the WCC. The Pilots probably have as wide a ceiling and floor for 2016 as any major team in the nation. If their veteran talent plays to potential, Portland should return to the NCAA Tournament. If they continue to struggle, Portland has the looks of a team that could finish in the bottom half of the WCC.

Here's what a simulation I've run, using "within Conference" rankings from Chris Henderson at HERO Sports, says the Pilots' record will be this season: 13-4-2.  Henderson's "within conference" rankings are based on a mathematical model he has developed; and I've taken those rankings, used my own system to assign ratings to teams using those rankings, and produced game results for all games for all teams during the upcoming season taking into consideration game locations and historic data about  wins/losses/ties in relation to the closeness of opposing teams' ratings.  My system assumes there will be no real upsets, although in real life upsets appear to occur in about 15% of games.  Here's what the Pilots' individual games look like:

8/19/16 PortlandU WashingtonU tie
8/26/16 PortlandU PortlandState win
8/28/16 PortlandU CaliforniaU        loss
9/2/16 PortlandU Seattle        tie
9/4/16 PortlandU CalPoly        win
9/9/16 PortlandU SouthernUtah win
9/11/16 PortlandU StJohns              win
9/16/16 PortlandU OregonState win
9/19/16 PortlandU OregonU        win
9/25/16 PortlandU UCIrvine        win
9/30/16 PortlandU Pepperdine        loss
10/2/16 PortlandU LoyolaMarymount win
10/8/16 PortlandU Gonzaga        win
10/15/16 PortlandU BYU                loss
10/21/16 PortlandU Pacific        win
10/23/16 PortlandU StMarys        win
10/28/16 PortlandU SanFrancisco win
10/30/16 PortlandU SantaClara        loss
11/4/16 PortlandU SanDiegoU        win

I've also run these results (for all teams) through another system I use for simulating an NCAA Tournament bracket, based on the Women's Soccer Committee's tournament seeding and at large selection decisions over the last 9 years.  Unfortunately, this system indicates the 13-4-2 record will not be sufficient for the Pilots to get a tournament at large selection.

What this suggests is that to get into the tournament, the Pilots need to win all the games indicated above as wins, at least get ties in the two games indicated as ties, and win at least 1 but more likely 2 of the games indicated as wins or ties.  It sort of provides a context for this coming Friday night's game against UW.

Every year since BYU joined we have lost to them, I believe. I would like for that to end sometime soon.

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:Every year since BYU joined we have lost to them, I believe. I would like for that to end sometime soon.

I can't remember exactly when BYU joined the conference, but I believe the Pilots' difficulties with BYU precede their joining:

Brigham Young (4-6-0)
2000 2-1 (ot) W H
2001 2-1 W N
2002 1-2 L A
2004 2-0 W N
2006 2-1 W N
2011 1-2 (ot) L A
2012 1-2 L H
2013 0-1 L H
2014 0-3 L A
2015 1-2 L H

It would be really good for the Pilots to beat them this year, as they are projected to be a very highly ranked team.

I wonder if they do end up at 13-4-2 and still don't make the tournament, will it be enough for job security?

Ellie Boone not living up to her potential? He must be watching a different player then I have the last 3 years.

I wish I could be in Berkeley on Sunday. GO PILOTS!

Rather strange that Cal has no streaming option for the game.

A fellow Pilot fan who is a Cal graduate explained that Cal is an academic school and that we could probably stream a Physics lecture from them in lieu of the game.

Can anyone explain why the Pilots would schedule 11 away games and only 8 home? In fact, of the final dozen, eight are away. Kind of difficult for a rather young team to spend so much time on the road. Not real fan friendly either.

This isn't quite right. For 2016, it's:

Home 8
Away 9
Neutral (UW Tournament) 2

For 2015, it was:

Home 9
Away 8
Neutral (UW Tournament) 2

For 2014, it was:

Home 8
Away 9
Neutral (UW Tournament) 2

This looks like a pretty consistent pattern. There are 10 teams in the WCC, meaning 9 opponents, so one year it's 5 home and 4 away and the next it's 4 home and 5 away. That appears to be the difference from year to year.

Pilots defeat Southern Utah tonight 6-0. Lots of playing time for everyone able to play.

The game was entertaining at times though the Pilots tried to play down to their competition at times. These gals are fun to watch as they play a high energy game.

One mystery for us is the use of sprinklers before the games this year, sometimes even at halftime. When we had high temps it made some sense but tonight was not really hot and they soaked the Southern Utah players and staff on the sideline. It made the field pretty slick for much of the first half. I have never seen this before this year at Merlo. Anyone know why the change?