Santa Clara Women's Soccer 2012 Spring Schedule Date Opponent Time Wed., Apr. 4 Cal 7:30 p.m. Sat., Apr. 14 Storm 12: p.m. Sun., Apr. 22 San Jose State 7 p.m. Fri., Apr. 27 Stanford 7 p.m. Sun., Apr 29 Fresno State 4 p.m.
HERE it is! We watched the first spring season game in an icy wind (I thought this was spring)! Sofia Huerta scored the first goal of the spring season. Meleana Shim (I think) scored the second goal on a penalty kick after Huerta was fouled (knocked down) right in front of the box. I missed the third and forth goals while trying to coordinate pick-up of my daughter's friend and while turning around to chit-chat with some other friends. Final score: 4-2 Santa Clara! A great start... We've never attended spring games before so we were pleased to see that parking was free and the game itself was also free. It would have been nice to see a bigger crowd, but it was a school night and I'm sure the forecast low of 39 degrees kept some folks at home. Even though Cal lost, I thought they were looking pretty good. Apparently they lost to San Jose state a few weeks ago so it will be interesting to see how the Spartans stack up against Santa Clara in a few weeks...
Yes, it was Shim who took the penalty kick. It's spring break for our daughter, so that helped - we might not have come to watch except for that (but all the other Spring games are weekends or Friday so that's great!). We had some friends who left just after halftime because of the cold weather. Not us - we're crazy. Yes, I agree. But we were happy to see the aggressiveness of Santa Clara. We thought Julie Johnston was fantastic last night - not unexpected, but ....
Questions from a far away fan ... Who is the goalkeeper? Bianca is done and Andi isn't there yet. Is Morgan Marlborough still en route? She is one fine forward with a good nose for the goal, all she needs is a good team around her.
Marlborough is a fine forward, but we will have to wait a year to see her play in the competition season. http://www.santaclarabroncos.com/sports/w-soccer/2011-12/releases/2012011722mfdt
The goalkeeper last night was Molly Mettler, who we have seen do very well before. I was surprised at the goals she let in last night - I believe both were when she she ran out of the box to go one on one with an attacker. We haven't seen her this far out before so maybe she was trying something new? Mt daughter thinks the third goal was Sarah Jackson and the fourth was Sofia Huerta again, but she wasn't sure about that either as she and her friend were simultaneously trying to watch the game AND study for a quiz the next day...
Tough situation. Do you stay in the net and give them a very short range shot? They score ... Why didn't you come after the attacker? Or do you charge out at the attacker? She gets past and scores ... Why did you come out so far? Then you can always come out and smite the attacker, thus adding to the excitement of the game via a penalty kick, and maybe even earning a Red Certificate of Merit from the referee. But looking at what she did last year ... yeah, she's good. That's not an easy spring schedule she's facing.
That's not an easy spring schedule she's facing.[/QUOTE] True! California Storm and Stanford! Yipes! Even San Jose State is on a roll - they beat Cal 1-0 and creamed St. Mary's 3-0... REALLY curious to see the Spartans...
The two Cal goals were both defensive breakdowns. On the 1st a defender lost the ball in the back, then a quick pass to an unmarked attacker and it is attacker v keeper from 20 yards out. The keeper came out and got dribbled, but it was a defensive lapse, not a keeper mistake. The 2nd goal came on a free ball behind the defense at the top of the box. The keeper came out an attempted a play, but the attacker beat her to the ball and touched it past for an easy look. When a goal results it is easy to say the keeper should have done something different, but I think both times the central defense was lacking. Johnston looked even better than last fall. National team work must agree with her. Huerta looked a little out of shape but her rocket foot appeared to be just fine. I thought it was Speidel who scored the 3rd goal, and she looked fast throughout the match. A senior got substantial minutes in the 1st half. Not sure why that occurred. Play somebody who is going to be here in the fall, right?
Hmmmm .... I just looked at the roster on the website again (which is still the 2011 roster) and only see four seniors - I don't think any of them played on Wednesday. Or am I missing something?
Johnston was fabulous! To me it appeared that Huerta was purposely keeping a more measured pace - possibly to better position her shots? They were certainly great, anyway... the third goal could have been Speidel - my daughter said "it was somebody with a long blonde pony-tail" ... I didn't see any seniors on the field, tho - confused as to who that could be. I thought they weren't allowed to play. I saw two of them in the audience. The other two I didn't see at all.
if seniors haven't used up four complete years of eligibility, of course they can play. Mostly thought, coaches want next years players to fend for themselves.
Long Blonde Pony-tails Which, on some teams, narrows it down to 2/3 of the roster. Re the seniors ... normally they don't play but sometimes if a spring roster is depleted, one or more seniors will come out of retirement. A couple of years ago Denver University used several seniors during spring soccer because otherwise the roster did not amount to a complete team. Colorado had a small roster last spring which had the backup goalkeepers playing on the field (surprisingly well), then there were a couple of injuries which left a roster of 12 so one senior played one weekend to provide a second substitute.
Re: Long Blonde Pony-tails I'm guessing SCUFanatic is referring either to Ambrose(15) who surprisingly started game up front or Parchinski(34)...really don't think any seniors played...it appeared to me that Johnson was a little frustrated having to adjust to teammates unable to keep up the conversation...Huerta has an absolute rocket foot...good to see defense being more aggressive...not sure that I have ever seen a give-and-go in the ten years I've been watching Broncs which to my mind explains some of struggle to score...coach either doesn't believe in it or doesn't coach it which is a shame since it is practically the most difficult move to defend
Give-and-go I wish I knew what all the terms meant... was the give-and-go on the first goal (Huerta) or the last one, which is the one I didn't see. (what exactly is a give and go? Guess I'll see if I can find it on you-tube...)
Re: Give-and-go OK, I found a video Which goal was it? It will be interesting to see if they try it again...
Broncos vs. California/Sacramento Storm... Having never been to a Storm game, we were really looking forward to this... I was especially looking forward to seeing Brandi Chastain playing - in person! But it gets even better... two of the Bronco seniors are in CS uniforms - Bridgett Miller and Margueritte Aozosa. Oh boy! But wait...who's that in the number 17 jersey? - it's Teresa Noyola! Heaven! I tried to locate a roster for CS but was unsuccessful. It seemed that there were a number of college-aged subs. The Broncos were also missing Julie Johnston (at u20 camp) and seemed to be playing a number of this year's freshmen, a few we haven't seen on the field before. The short of it is that Storm was energetic and had some good moves. The Broncos seemed to keep them down with a faster legs and a better defense. Brandi Chastain still has some good feet. Out of the Storm-subbing seniors, we felt Bridgett Miller was creating the most danger. Final score: Broncos 3, Storm 0 And after... another scrimmage using all the Bronc subs who didn't get to play in the game... bonus!
Sissi was on the Storm roster as well - that was a treat as we hadn't seen her play in awhile. I thought Santa Clara played very well, expecially since Coach Smith said before the game that usually when they play semi-pro or pro teams, the Santa Clara squad ends up not looking very good: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loPUdQFeR2U"]Santa Clara Women's Soccer Head Coach Jerry Smith Talks About Playing Sacramento Storm - YouTube[/ame] That was perhaps the best part. A lot of people left after the game and missed the scrimmage, but we were glad we stayed. I think it's the first time we've seen Alexis Rubattino see action in goal. Same for some of the field players.
I should have said that, too - we were in a hurry this morning so I had to post the super short version. I actually thought Santa Clara was fabulous. Some of the usual subs spent considerable time in the game and it was encouraging to see how impressive they were. We thought both goal keepers were great, too! And how about the high jumps of the Storm goal keeper? After watching the coach interview, from my amateur-soccer-mom point of view, I would say that I thought the Broncos mostly did well matching Storm tactically. You could definitely see the tactical operations going on with the core Storm members. I think there was some chemistry starting to happen with Teresa Noyola and Brandi as well. Athletically, the Broncos bested Storm, except for the senior subs who are presumably still in shape and able to train somewhere on campus. I guess that is a predictable outcome when you consider the relative youth and the more frequent training opportunities. We almost missed the scrimmage - we saw that they were still on the field as we were driving away and made a u-turn so we could come back and watch. All in all, it was a very entertaining and interesting match-up on a really beautiful day at Buck Shaw.
Santa Clara vs. San Jose State 6-0! How could that be? I had to root for the Spartans the first half, since SJSU is my Alma Mater (one of them, anyway...), but the second half was for our next-door neighbors, the Broncos! The weird thing was that the Spartans didn't look all that bad. The defense was looking decent at times, and the goal keeper made some pretty saves. However, the Broncos kept knocking and eventually (or should I say, right away) the door opened. Spartan offense was shut down for most of the game. I was watching my three kids in the second half and missed quite a bit, but I really felt that there were lots of creative plays by the Broncos, which led to good chances. Even the subs, who were in and out at the end, appeared to be successfully trying some new things. Clearly, a success, and hopefully a preview of what will happen in the fall... As far as I could tell, at least two goals were by Huerta, one by Johnston, one was either Sarah Jackson or McAuliffe, and maybe somebody who wasn't watching all their kids can fill in the rest... On about the fifth goal, it appeared that there might be an off sides call on the Broncos, which never came. Maybe the ref didn't see it, or maybe it wasn't really off sides, but the SJSU coach clearly thought there should have been a flag and yelled at the ref about it for a few seconds... Both sides actually appeared frustrated about a lack of calls. Maybe somebody else has an opinion about that... I'd like to hear it, whatever it is... Sunday night is always bad for bringing in the spectators, but wouldn't it be nice to get a few more fans in there for Friday? Time to see how the Broncos stack up against Stanford, #1 and all that... didn't the Broncos win against them last spring? Can't wait for Friday...
The most important thing about these spring games for Santa Clara is the emergence of Katie Spiedel, who I believe scored twice against SJSU and also scored the week before. She needs to be a little hungrier around the ball, ala Johnston, but those were three good goals and she definitely gives the Broncos another option. I don't understand Jerry's reluctance to play the subs in these games. 5 - 0 lead and Johnston is still in the game?????? I don't get that at all.
Katie Spiedel DID look great and she isn't the only one. I thought Nikki Ambrose looked really on top of things both last week and last night. I'm sure the coach has reasons for keeping people in, but you're right, it does seem strange that he would keep Julie Johnston in if she is going to be gone the first 5-7 fall games, as he stated on the last video. Now that I'm thinking about the video, they must know she is on the u20 world cup roster already. We didn't see the US soccer roster announcement for the u20 team, but I guess some of the more seasoned vets have probably already been called.