2018 Season

SCPilot update: made it to the game. There are at least six Pilot fans!

I hope we get an update from you.

In the meantime,



WHOOOP! 2-1 Pilot win.

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:SCPilot update: made it to the game. There are at least six Pilot fans!

And the box scores says that the total attendance was 75!

It looks like a good win, in what was remarkably the Pilots' FIRST road match (not counting the friendly at Seattle). Having almost all of their non-conference schedule at home will certainly improve their record, but I wonder if it might be a disadvantage in conference away trips.

SoreKnees wrote:

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:SCPilot update: made it to the game. There are at least six Pilot fans!

And the box scores says that the total attendance was 75!

Having 8% of the crowd rooting for you in a road match is pretty good!

Nice to get a road win, so far from home!

Long Report Incoming

Short version: we won. It was amazing to go. I'm happy!

Sorry for the delay. I had to race back home from Charleston after the match and prepare a lecture. But, I am so glad that I made it down there! It was an amazing moment for me as a UP alumnus and Pilot fan.

Arriving at the match, it was a pretty bare bones operation, which is understandable for a last minute match at a neutral venue. I quite literally just walked into the gate and found a seat without running into anyone.

When I said that there were at least six Pilot fans, that is because I found a small collection of people wearing purple to sit next to -- parents of players and students, mostly. There was a large contingent of spectators with no obvious affiliation in the section next to me. I realized by the end of the match that they were all supporting UP! I cannot really recall what the connection was with that group too well, but there were a lot of youth soccer players in attendance just to watch some college soccer. If there were 75 people in attendance, then it was overwhelmingly Pilot fans (much better than 8%). That became obvious when we scored and there was a lot of cheering but when Coastal scored it was fairly silent. I will say there was one or two "let's go Coastal" yells from one individual, but it was a Pilot crowd.



I got to my seat just in time for the National Anthem and then we were off and playing! It has been a while since I have been to a sporting event where it was so quiet. With so few fans in the stands, it was actually quite interesting to really just hear and appreciate the sound of the game: the coaching from the sidelines, the communication between players, the referee explaining decisions to coaches and players, the sound of cleats on grass, the sound of a cleat to a ball, or the sound of two bodies colliding while going for a lose ball. It was that quietness where you almost do not want to disturb it by yelling and chanting. I had the thought: "maybe the coaches like it quiet so they can communicate with their players better and my yelling would interrupt that?" Regardless, we had a good amount of cheering interspersed from the Pilot faithful present.

(Disclaimer: I have never played soccer and would not qualify myself as an expert on understanding the game itself, so excuse any mistakes here)

The match itself was pretty physical. The referee was inclined to let them play, but had a quick whistle for dissent. The first half was fairly even. Possession was even, but I might have that lean in our favor. Coastal Carolina had more shots, but none that really threatened us (except for the goal obviously). Eventually, Michel gave a nice crossing pass to Stretch who put the ball in the back of the net. All of us Pilot fans leapt out of our seats to celebrate. That joy was short-lived. The Chanticleers (pronounced: Shon-ti-cleers) got a corner a few minutes later that was served into a crowd in the box. The ball bounced around and eventually somehow found its way off of the left cross post and bounced in the goal away from Weekes and everyone else. It wasn't beautiful, but it was a goal nonetheless, we were tied again at the half.

It started to drizzle just in time for the half, so everyone went under the seats to get jackets and umbrellas. I made conversation with the other Pilot fans during that time. It was fun to just swap stories and know that we have this amazing little university that brought us all together.

The first part of the second half was more of the same from the first. It was even. CCU had one good shot that went right to Weekes, and that was the most major threat. After about 15 minutes or so, the whole game changed. We definitely started to dominate possession more. In the 72nd minute, we scored our second goal! I honestly couldn't tell you what happened. There were so many people crowded in the box in front of CCU's goal and at some point the Pilots started celebrating, so us fans in the stands did too! I see on the box score that the goal was credited to Michel.

From then on out, you would imagine that we would sit back on defense and that CCU would attack. This was true. But, our offense actually started to look more deadly in these moments. There was never any real threat from CCU, but almost every time we would clear the ball out, Michel and our other forwards were in a foot race against the Chanticleers last defenders. At one point, Michel was one-on-one with the CCU keeper, but the keeper slid in and took the ball away. It looked like we were a MORE dominant and offensive-minded team after we took the lead.

In the 84th minute, the referee game a yellow card to Coach Carlin-Voigt, I believe. Our coaches were complaining about calls, which is not unusual. I would not categorize their complaints or complaining as excessive or inappropriate, but the referee did. Initially, the referee gave a warning to our bench and told our coaches to sit down. That did not last long, because the yellow card came out very quickly afterwards. As well, the referee told one of our assistant coaches that he was on the verge of being kicked out. It was honestly a little strange.

I was so happy the match did not go to overtime since I had a long drive back, but I am even more happy that we won! Afterwards, Coach Carlin-Voigt invited the Pilot fans down on to the field into the team huddle to introduce ourselves. That was really cool and special. It made my whole night even more than the victory.



Takeaways:

This was my first time watching the men's team live since the coaching change. I am really impressed with the team and the coaching staff! We made a good hire!

Benji Michel is fast. Really fast. Wow.

CCU had a very tall team. Many of their players were several inches taller than us, but we still gutted out the win!

One last thing I want to mention... Coastal Carolina University has not been open since Hurricane Florence and remains closed through this week. Flood waters are still rising in some parts of South Carolina as a result of the storm. We were able to play this match, but these CCU athletes have not been home in Conway for maybe three weeks. True nomads right now. I will be rooting for the best for them and for the region from here on out.

I think it got it all out. Thanks for bearing with me.

Wonderful writeup, both for the game and the environment!! Huge thanks for the detailed report.

Ortiz suspension?

According to the box scores, Ortiz was awarded his 5th caution of the year (off the bench) in the Oregon State match. According to the NCAA law book, 5 cautions = a one-game suspension, which he presumably served at Coastal Carolina. That means that he is now in the clear as long as he doesn't accumulate three more.

Was this a clever ploy to get the suspension out of the way while he was still injured?

SoreKnees wrote:Ortiz suspension?

According to the box scores, Ortiz was awarded his 5th caution of the year (off the bench) in the Oregon State match. According to the NCAA law book, 5 cautions = a one-game suspension, which he presumably served at Coastal Carolina. That means that he is now in the clear as long as he doesn't accumulate three more.

Was this a clever ploy to get the suspension out of the way while he was still injured?

That would explain why he was not playing at the Coastal match. I don't really recall him even being on the bench.

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:

SoreKnees wrote:Ortiz suspension?

According to the box scores, Ortiz was awarded his 5th caution of the year (off the bench) in the Oregon State match. According to the NCAA law book, 5 cautions = a one-game suspension, which he presumably served at Coastal Carolina. That means that he is now in the clear as long as he doesn't accumulate three more.

Was this a clever ploy to get the suspension out of the way while he was still injured?

That would explain why he was not playing at the Coastal match. I don't really recall him even being on the bench.

I think he is also dealing with an injury.

Geezaldinho wrote:

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:

SoreKnees wrote:Ortiz suspension?

According to the box scores, Ortiz was awarded his 5th caution of the year (off the bench) in the Oregon State match. According to the NCAA law book, 5 cautions = a one-game suspension, which he presumably served at Coastal Carolina. That means that he is now in the clear as long as he doesn't accumulate three more.

Was this a clever ploy to get the suspension out of the way while he was still injured?

That would explain why he was not playing at the Coastal match. I don't really recall him even being on the bench.

I think he is also dealing with an injury.

That's exactly my point. The 5th caution was for dissent when he was not even in the game. If he wasn't going to be fit enough to play in Carolina, it would make sense to say something to pick up #5 and serve the suspension in a match in which he was not going to play anyway. There have been accusations of doing this (in a different context) in Champions League and World Cup group stages, where the final group game is meaningless and serving a suspension there would not cost the team anything, but where a later suspension would force a meaningful missed match.

More generally, I find it frustrating that Rey seems to pick up cards due to poor decisions. I think all but one (and maybe all?) of his yellow cards this year have been for delaying restart, failure to respect distance, or dissent---not things that help the Pilots win games!

Purposely getting a fifth caution is a risky ploy.

If the ref decides the dissent was a send off, you can´t play the next game AND the yellow  card accumulation isn’t erased.

Geezaldinho wrote:Purposely getting a fifthcaution is a risky ploy.

If the ref decides the dissent was a send off, you ant play the next game AND the accumulation isn’t erased.

Very true. I don't know the exact wording of the college rule. In high school the difference is pretty clear on this. A general complaint or incidental foul language (especially with decisive gestures) is a yellow. A "directed" complaint that insults a referee or opponent is a red.

I don't think we would have predicted this at the beginning of the season, but tonight's match between UP and Northern Illinois could be considered a matchup between two powerhouse teams with tournament implications for both.

The Huskies (7-2-0) are on a five game winning streak, and come in with a #13 RPI ranking and are ranked #24 nationally by Top Drawer.

The Pilots (7-0-2) have won two straight after the ugly draw against American, and are one notch better in the RPI at #12, and are ranked #13 by Top Drawer.

A sluggish offense forced Rey into action against American and he aggravated his injury, let's hope 12 days of rest will bring him back to close to full speed tonight. NIU has allowed only 3 goals in their last five games, and the Pilots are going to need him to keep the offensive pressure on.

Rey had a comfy field level seat for this one. Pilot fans got to see some wonderful goals and a good team effort to outclass the huskies ( i love saying that).


Up is now the only team to beat 5 top 25 teams  of the teams currently in the top 25. Even number one Wake has only beaten 3.


It’s always a good year  when you can beat 2 Husky teams.

The level of performance last night was truly excellent. Best of the season in my opinion and maybe the best I've ever seen from a Pilots men's team. They didn't just beat the Huskies, they dominated them.

The movement off the ball combined with the vision and decision-making on the ball led to lots of possession for the Pilots and lots of frustration for the opponent. I remember in particular one first-half sequence when the Pilots appeared to be stuck deep in their own corner by the entrance plaza. The Huskies were pushing up and really challenging to regain the ball. The Pilots' defenders and tracking-back midfielders pinged about ten one-touch passes around an ever-changing polygon until finally a midfielder had some space and dribbled to the halfway line. Typical of the outstanding ball movement all night. The Pilots must have had ~85% pass completions. NIU got no shots on target and really no good chances. And hey, the Pilots finally beat a team playing with 10 men!

I"m starting to get optimistic about this squad. They have pace, power, discipline (mostly), and a lot of depth. Remember that yesterday came without perhaps their best overall player (Ortiz). The conference away schedule looks daunting, but if they play like they did yesterday it's going to take an awfully good performance to beat them.

SoreKnees wrote:The level of performance last night was truly excellent. Best of the season in my opinion and maybe the best I've ever seen from a Pilots men's team. They didn't just beat the Huskies, they dominated them.

The movement off the ball combined with the vision and decision-making on the ball led to lots of possession for the Pilots and lots of frustration for the opponent. I remember in particular one first-half sequence when the Pilots appeared to be stuck deep in their own corner by the entrance plaza. The Huskies were pushing up and really challenging to regain the ball. The Pilots' defenders and tracking-back midfielders pinged about ten one-touch passes around an ever-changing polygon until finally a midfielder had some space and dribbled to the halfway line. Typical of the outstanding ball movement all night. The Pilots must have had ~85% pass completions. NIU got no shots on target and really no good chances. And hey, the Pilots finally beat a team playing with 10 men!

I"m starting to get optimistic about this squad. They have pace, power, discipline (mostly), and a lot of depth. Remember that yesterday came without perhaps their best overall player (Ortiz). The conference away schedule looks daunting, but if they play like they did yesterday it's going to take an awfully good performance to beat them.

The coach for NIU largely agrees with your sense of the Pilots outplaying the Huskies. As quoted in the NIU article, he said:

"Portland was better (than us) in the first half," said NIU head coach Ryan Swan. "We were timid, maybe a little nervous, especially in the attacking half, things weren't really coming together for us. The start of the second half we were excellent right up until the red card and after that it was always going to be difficult."

Go Pilots.

DoubleDipper wrote:I don't think we would have predicted this at the beginning of the season, but tonight's match between UP and Northern Illinois could be considered a matchup between two powerhouse teams with tournament implications for both.

It hardly seemed "two powerhouse teams" were competing last evening....either UP is really, really good, or NIU just didn't show up!

What is it with these Pilots we love so much? They struggle against less skilled, but physical teams (#132 Sacramento St. and #170 American), while beating the really good skilled teams (#12 NIU, #14 Coastal Carolina, #15 Washington, #20 UC Santa Barbara, and #11 Syracuse).

Although WCC play does not begin until next Friday, the postseason is certainly in sight for these Pilots if they can run the table over the next six matches before facing St. Mary's in the regular season finale on November 10 at Merlo Field.

WCC Men's Soccer RPI:
#9 UP
#13 SMC
#66 UOP
#98 USF
#118 SCU
#131 USD
#143 GU
#150 LMU

NCAA Men's Soccer RPI:
#1 Wake Forest
#2 Indiana
#3 Louisville
#4 Kentucky
#5 Notre Dame
#6 North Carolina
#7 Virginia
#8 Virginia Tech
#9 Portland
#10 Purdue Fort Wayne

DoubleDipper wrote:
NCAA Men's Soccer RPI:
#1 Wake Forest
#2 Indiana
#3 Louisville
#4 Kentucky
#5 Notre Dame
#6 North Carolina
#7 Virginia
#8 Virginia Tech
#9 Portland
#10 Purdue Fort Wayne

I don't know why I find this amusing:
The North Carolina contingent: #1 Wake Forest and #5 North Carolina
The Indiana contingent: #2 Indiana, #5 Notre Dame, #10 Purdue Fort Wayne
The Kentucky contingent: #3 Louisville and #4 Kentucky
The Virginia contingent: #7 Virginia and #7 Virginia Tech
And, then there's us.

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:

DoubleDipper wrote:
NCAA Men's Soccer RPI:
#1 Wake Forest
#2 Indiana
#3 Louisville
#4 Kentucky
#5 Notre Dame
#6 North Carolina
#7 Virginia
#8 Virginia Tech
#9 Portland
#10 Purdue Fort Wayne

I don't know why I find this amusing:
The North Carolina contingent: #1 Wake Forest and #5 North Carolina
The Indiana contingent: #2 Indiana, #5 Notre Dame, #10 Purdue Fort Wayne
The Kentucky contingent: #3 Louisville and #4 Kentucky
The Virginia contingent: #7 Virginia and #7 Virginia Tech
And, then there's us.

Maybe because all those schools are within 600 or less air miles of each other, while Portland is 1800 miles west of So. Bend. A lonely outpost.

Undefeated Pilots find their rhythm by Paul Danzer

Meanwhile the Pilots move up from 13th to 11th and St. Mary's from 10th to 9th in the nation according the United College Soccer Coaches poll that came out today.

There were a couple of interesting resuls this week.

Syracuse, who the Pilots beat 2-1 earlier this year, defeated Wake Forest, to knock them off the top RPI slot. Earlier this week Kentucky beat #2 Ιllinois ( who now just went into first place in the RPI.) Syracuse is now ranked 7th.

UP is now ranked 9th and St Mary’s is #10. The conference RPI just jumped to #4.

And the two WCC schools are two of only four teams to remain undefeated, the others being Kentucky and Denver.

St. Mary’s is the only D1 team with a perfect record.

Nice come-from-behind win in Spokane tonight over GU. The Pilots fell behind 0-2 early in the first half, but were able to pull one back before half (Benji Michel PK), and then 2 goals in the second half (Hendel, Dixon).

UP looked shaky early on, allowing the 2 goals, but pulled together to dominate possession after to earn the 3 goals to win it.

2 red cards were issued in the match: 1 against the GU keeper for a bad take down outside the box in the 66th minute, and then a second yellow for UP's Jake Artega (I never saw the play...?)

I watched this one on the rather poor feed from Gonzaga (we are spoiled). The camera was near ground level, so it was hard to get much of an overview of the pitch. And the cameraman insisted on focusing in on the player with the ball ... even when he was taking a goal kick, so we never got to see what was happening in the landing zone until the ball arrived. Similarly, the camera totally missed Arteaga's second caution.

I recall that early in the season the Pilots had a tendency to conceded early goals. Three in the exhibition at Seattle and then one in one of the early draws at home (Sacramento State?). They seemed to have cleaned that up lately, but it popped up again last night. That said, both Gonzaga strikes were first-class efforts.

I didn't feel like the Pilots were really playing very well last night, but as the match wore on, they dominated more and more. Michel affects the game in so many ways. He didn't score from open play last night, but drew a penalty (which he converted) for the first goal, which was crucial coming just a minute or so after falling 2-0 behind. Then he created the second with an incisive through ball. And he put us a man up by drawing the send-off to the Gonzaga keeper.

One of the huge elements in a successful record is winning on the nights when you don't play especially well. Store the three points securely on the bus (or plane) and get yourselves home!

Geezaldinho wrote:UP is now ranked 9th and St Mary’s is #10. The conference RPI just jumped to #4.

St. Mary’s is the only D1 team with a perfect record.

SMC is still perfect, allowing UOP only 3 shots (none on frame), while committing 23 fouls and beating the Tigers 4-0 in Stockton this evening.

Could be quite a showdown at Merlo on November 10th!

I watched the first half of the St. Mary’s match and the 3-0 score at the half wasn’t that close.

If UP comes out like we did against the Zags, we have no chance.