Great writeup. I have seen the club GKs and hope to see a few more of the CU club players join the team. Maybe that is where some of the walk-ons are coming from. Fingers crossed. There is some serious talent in those ranks. In a previous post I mentioned that a rivalry club game between CU and CSU drew a bigger and rowdier crowd than most crowds at Prentup. The talent matched the crowd. If coach Sanchez can capitalize on some of that, it will grow the program for sure!
Soccer, followed by more soccer Nice weather in Grand Junction this weekend, totally sunny, 82 on Saturday, warmer on Sunday although all games are done by the middle of the day on Sunday. The games are being played at Walker Field http://cmumavericks.com/sports/2010/4/22/Facilities_Walker.aspx?tab=walkerfield which is here http://football.isport.com/football...sa-university-walker-field-1515760#directions Games Saturday are Utah State vs. Denver, 9:40am Colorado Mesa vs. Colorado, 11:05am Wyoming vs. Utah, 12:30pm Colorado vs. Utah State, 1:55pm Utah vs. Denver, 3:20pm Southern Utah vs. Wyoming, 4:45pm and Sunday are Colorado vs. Southern Utah, 9:00am Denver vs. Colorado Mesa, 10:30am Some of the teams are only playing two games. I'll be there. Game reports for Saturday probably won't go out until the evening. Last Saturday the scores appeared on the team's Facebook page rather quickly, ahead of me. I have a very long losing streak at road games to which I have bought an airplane ticket. Even flying to a road game from Germany did not appease the soccer gods (next time fly from Germany to games that are not Stanford and Santa Clara). Although it's possible, I am NOT flying to Grand Junction, so we should do well. When we play at USC and UCLA this year I think I'll hitchhike.
A better map Use the "which is here" link above, you'll get a small map, click on the address near the southwest corner of the mini-map and you'll get a way better one.
Two down, and a tough one tomorrow. Colorado 1, Colorado Mesa 0. There is good Division II soccer in Colorado. We scored with one minute left. Colorado 1, Utah State 0. They kind of outplayed us, not by a lot, but they did. More to follow. I am going to go hunt down dinner and a beer or more.
The more that follows Sorry this is long, but we had two games and there were six played. Arrived at the stadium (NICE stadium) way early because I forgot the schedule and also forgot that I had posted it here. Utah State and Denver started to warm up and I have never heard a more chatty team than USU. The chatter was about constant in warmups, but they were just warming that up also for the game. Denver scored in each half and won 2-0, a fair result for how the game was played. Denver had a good crowd. A totally sunny day, and warming rapidly. I found out later that the artificial turf became very hot, increasing the temperature on the field noticeably above what it was in the stands. 70 minute games with five minute halftimes. No timeouts for injuries, the last game was scheduled to end at 6:10 and it did, making room for the high school lacrosse game. Kate Russell was not there, and Carly and Amy are out until August. Thin bench on a warm day. We started out by keeping Colorado Mesa thoroughly bottled up, but 6 or 7 minutes in they began to emerge and what followed was a well-played back and forth game. We had the edge most of the time, and certainly had more and better chances, including two crossbar strikes. They had a defense that could do nothing with Hayley except stay between her and the goal, which they did rather well, but it seemed evident that she was going to do something before the day was done. The game continued, Colorado Mesa bent but did not break and created some good chances of their own. Then with about 2+ minutes left, Hayley got the ball several yards outside of the box and took off for the goal with two defenders about ½ step or less behind her. The quartet (the ball was in front of Hayley) crossed the line and as they did so, the defenders converged on Hayley and down she went, hard. The referee did not hesitate to call the penalty, to the utmost consternation of the large number of Mesa fans. Not my favorite way to end a game, but Hayley WAS fouled, and it took her about a minute to get up. Meanwhile, Darcy was waiting to take the penalty kick, the goalkeeper was at the goal line, everybody else was outside the box, the referee determined that Hayley was OK, then he picked up the ball and placed it one blade of plastic grass outside of the penalty box. Huh? I guess it wasn’t his favorite way to end a game either. Annie then blasted the free kick past the wall, past the goalkeeper, and hard into the upper left corner of the net. So there. Wyoming and Utah were next, a game in which Wyoming had the upper hand. Towards the end of the second half, a Wyoming player was brought down just outside the penalty box, everybody assumed the proper positions including the wall, everything was ready, and the Cowgirl did an Annie. Suddenly the referee announced that he had not blown his whistle. Well, somebody blew a whistle because many people in the stands heard it. Maybe a passing car had a whistle stuck up its tailpipe. The retake was blocked by the wall. So a few minutes later, a Cowgirl and the Utah GK went down together at one far side of the box, and somehow the ball presented itself to another Cowgirl who could have gotten on her hands and knees and rolled the ball in with her nose. The exaggeration is only very slight. She shot wide. 0-0, a woulda coulda shoulda for Wyoming, but the worst was yet to come. We were up next with Utah State, and they noticeably outplayed us in the first quarter. With maybe 15 minutes in the half, we picked up our game, and with 2 minutes left in the half Hayley got the ball maybe 30 yards out and to the right of the right goalpost. Off she went, in a straight line aimed to the left of the left goalpost, with what seemed like half of the Utah State defense in hot pursuit about half a step behind. Seen this before? They did not bring her down, and as she was well into the box and running out of angle, she fired hard past the GK and in, 1-0 Buffs, and the score held although Utah State was the better team in the second half and missed several shots. Denver defeated Utah 2-0 which was a fair result, they were the better team. This left Wyoming and Southern Utah in what turned out to be the aggressive game of the day. By the time the referee unclogged his whistle, the tone of the game was set. No dirty play, but rather hard … I believe the word is “chippy”. Back and forth the two teams went, dishing it out and taking what the other dished out. A very entertaining game, looked like another 0-0, and with a couple of minutes left a Wyoming player went down, no time outs so by the time she was up, maybe 40 seconds left. The ball bounced around midfield, then SUU slowly battled it closer to the goal but couldn’t get anything clear. Outside of the box, a player got the ball and took off towards the right of the right goalpost. Cowgirls were everywhere. People were yelling “shoot”. I looked at the clock as it changed from three seconds to two, I looked back and she was just inside the box, took another couple of steps and I didn’t see the shot because there were way too many soccer players in the way but it went in. Referee signaled goal, Wyoming players argued that the game was over before the goal and it may have been. 1-0 Thunderbirds. Only two games tomorrow so the next report will be mercifully shorter.
Sweep !! Colorado 2, Southern Utah 1. A come-from-behind win. We began the game totally in control and created several good chances. SUU gradually assembled themselves, then kept us bottled up for a while. Then came what looked like a failed off-sides trap except I don’t think it was because they didn’t do one yesterday or any other time today. Off went a Buff (Hayley maybe? I don’t remember) after the ball with a large lead on the defenders and only an onrushing goalkeeper to beat, shot the ball past the GK and it had enough steam to roll in on its own power and out of NOWHERE came Meagan, number 13, a most exceedingly speedy defender (and a very good all-around player) who ran it down and flicked the ball to the side somewhere within the final yard. Bummer. Then SUU got a corner kick, on which they scored, serious bummer, only the second goal scored on us all spring, Buffs down 1-0. Déjà vu all over again, Hayley blew past the defenders with only an onrushing goalkeeper to beat, shot the ball past the GK and it had enough steam to roll in on its own power and WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT NUMBER 13 but this time she didn’t quite get there in time, 1-1 which was the score at halftime. Fouls were not being called. There was one sequence in which four separate Buffs got hammered before SUU got the ball, no whistle. Finally early in the second half, maybe he sneezed with the whistle in his mouth, then realizing everybody thought he’d actually called something, he contemplated the situation for a while, signaled foul on them, then changed the call and signaled it against us. Good thing there wasn’t a third team on the field to call it against. We had the better of play most of the second half, but the winning goal didn’t come and didn’t come and there’s no shame in tying SUU, they are a good team with one very good defender (do I sound impressed by #13?) , but Hayley didn’t like the idea of a tie. With two minutes left she blew past the defenders (do we see a pattern here?), shot (hard enough that #13 couldn’t catch up to it) past the onrushing goalkeeper (patterns repeat themselves), goal, game, weekend sweep, spring season over. And it was a good one. Some thoughts on the seven games after I get home, probably tomorrow. I hope Colorado Mesa repeats this event next year and I hope we attend.
It could be worse ... We have not had an easy time with Division 2 teams, but it could be worse. Trinity University in San Antonio, enrollment 2,600 including graduate students, a Division 3 team, defeated Texas 4-0 last Saturday. Texas, as in the Longhorns. I know, it's only spring soccer. Tell that to the Trinity players. They did go 22-1 last year, 111-8 in scoring, not a bad season.
Re: It could be worse ... Trinity is a D3 powerhouse, Texas is a mid-level D1 with a new coach who hasn't got her recruits in yet. The surprise here escapes me. Same with CU. Danny's already really improved the team, but it's going to take time to get folks in, etc. and as I have said elsewhere, believing that there is some huge gulf in talent between D1/D2/D3 isn't really supported by the evidence.
Re: It could be worse ... I have read what you said elsewhere and I agree. There's no surprise to escape, I mentioned Trinity's record to show that talent was involved in thumping Texas. CU People have already seen how good D2 teams can be, we have several in our neighborhood. I just thought it was interesting to mention that the talent parity can apply to D3 as well.
STUDENT-athletes From the team's Facebook page ... Congrats to all of our players who were honored this morning at the Student-Athlete Academic Recognition Breakfast (a few of them pictured with Jason...who has never received an academic award). Special congrats to Erin Bricker and Hayley Hughes who posted 4.0 GPA's!
Re: Sweep !! Hi Derbarkasmann, As always, enjoy your match commentary. While I did see a number of games last fall (and provided my own commentary) I did not get a chance to see a spring game. So very interested in your thoughts on how the team looked and general overall thoughts on the spring season...which you teased us with at the end of your post on the final games! Was happy to hear that Danny has Hayley played up top and she scored some goals. Also I believe Shaye and Storie each had a couple goals or three. Interested in your observations on who looked particulary good (or playing at a higher level, etc.). Also, did we look dangerous on set pieces (corners in particular)? Thanks.
Better late than never, I hope ... THOUGHTS ON LAST WEEKEND: The Buffs are fit. Started the weekend with three substitute field players, finished with two. Some other teams there were in a similar situation. Denver is as deep as the Mariana Trench, and they were the best team there. They were able to platoon a bunch of players at a time, while for us, two was a platoon. Colorado Mesa played well against us but couldn't handle Denver's starters very well, when the Denver subs came in it was an even game. I expected Utah to look better than they did. Southern Utah has joined the Big Sky conference and will be in Greeley to play UNC on October 12. They have a defender #13 who is exciting to watch. But the highlight of the weekend was the look on the Buffs' faces after the hard fought and come from behind win against a physical and talented Southern Utah team. We were all saying "Good game, good spring" (or great instead of good), and the players knew it. THOUGHTS ON THE SPRING SEASON: You won't recognize the way they play. Alex is back. They say she's only at 70% and that brace on her knee looks pretty serious, but her skill and experience seem to make up for the missing 30%. A couple of times it looked like her acceleration was off a little bit, but the speed is still there. Because of her hard work in rehab and solid play at defender, Hayley plays up front. The significance of that will become evident as the fall season unfolds. She is quick and she is fast, there will be quite a few one on ones with goalkeepers. Last year our leading scorers tallied four, they year before that it was three. Don't look for that to happen in 2012. It seems that Annie Stuller gets double teamed a lot. Whenever she gets the ball there's a swarm of defenders. Perhaps other teams know that she is the rocket launcher, she certainly launched one to defeat Colorado Mesa. Amy missed several games and has a cast that is the brightest green I have ever seen, you can see it on their Facebook page in the picture taken at the awards breakfast. She'll be 100% in the fall and I expect she will provide a ton of leadership for the 14 newcomers. Both goalkeepers played well. One goal came from a way too wide open at close range Oredigger, the other last Sunday on a perfect corner kick that found the head of a Thunderbird who placed the ball at the foot of a teammate a few blades of grass from the goal, there is no way Annie could have anticipated that. It seemed that a lot of times when there was trouble anywhere near our goal, Lizzy was there to take care of it. Maybe I follow her more because my granddaughter is named Lizzy, but I think anybody would have noticed her play this spring. We only had her for about half the games last year, but she looks 100% now. Lauren has improved every year she's been here, and she really got to show it this spring because she was almost always on the field and played well at both defense and midfield. Look for Shaye to set up goals next season as well as score a few herself. I'm leaving some players out, and undeservedly so. With so few of them available, everybody had to play a lot and well and they did. We scored on a corner kick !! This is notable because lately it's been happening about as often as a total eclipse of the sun. And we got shots off on several more, usually a header from Lizzy. While they all had a good spring season in my humble opinion, the star of the show was the team itself. You won't recognize the way they play.
Slightly off-topic (same sport, different teams) It CAN be done. Santa Clara 1, Stanford 0. Both teams played the starters and didn't substitute much. To be fair to Stanford, they missed a lot of shots, Santa Clara played really well (they have been all spring season), and SCU's two backup goalkeepers put on an exhibition. I say backup because the star GK is graduating and the incoming star GK is a high school senior in Colorado Springs. Wish Santa Clara could do that in the playoffs ...
Re: Better late than never, I hope ... Would you venture as to why? Was there a real bad dynamic last year with Hempen... or is it simply a matter of a fresh face as coach? Or is it that a lot of injuries to key players have healed? Or was there conflict among some of the seniors, now departed? What has changed over the winter that has made such a difference?
Slightly more off-topic (same sport, different teams and ages) It is safe to ignore this if you don't live in Colorado or are a distance from Boulder and Fort Collins. The past three years I've attended a few Fairview High School games in Boulder. Two years ago I attended a game to see a player named Annie Stuller, then followed them in the playoffs all the way to the state championship which they won. Last year they had (and still have) a defender named Berkley Gamble, it looked then like we'd get her as a walk-on but the University of Washington offered her a scholarship. I went to a couple of her games, then followed the team in the playoffs where they won three (I think) but fell short of the championship game. They also had and have a midfielder named Nikki Machalek who is one of the 14 newcomers we are welcoming in August, and I have seen three of her games so far this year. I expect there will be some playoff games. Moving a bit north to Fort Collins, there is a high school called Fossil Ridge, and they have a team like you have NEVER seen (unless you've seen them). Tall (I mean really tall), fast, strong, and skilled. If a defender gets the ball, next thing you know it's 40 yards up the field and lands at the feet of an attacking player. Scary good. Ranked #1 in the state and I can't imagine them not winning the state championship. How do I know this? Because I was at Fossil Ridge last Thursday and saw Fairview put on the scrappiest, gutsiest (most gutsy?) athletic performance I have ever seen in my 65 years, most of which have included watching sports, to tie Fossil Ridge 1-1. Berkley Gamble slammed a long free kick off the bottom of the crossbar, straight down, then back up and just barely out. Later she converted a justly awarded penalty kick. Maybe she won't like rain and will come back home to play soccer. My point in all this is to recommend that if you follow women's soccer and live in or near Boulder or Fort Collins, come see one of these teams, I think you'll enjoy it a lot.
Re: Better late than never, I hope ... Individual answers: Yes, pass, big difference, yes, no, Danny Sanchez. More detailed answer: There were no conflicts among the players that I could see or heard about, even though last year was a very difficult season for a number of reasons. Injuries have healed, Alex is back and Annie Brunner is back and we have Lizzy available full time instead of half time. But most of the spring season was without Amy and all of it without Carly. It is not a gentle sport. We did not play Stanford or UCLA, and we did lose to a Division 2 team, albeit a very good one. Two word answer: Danny Sanchez.
Partial Fall Schedule But less partial than last time ... August 19, at Colorado College September 21, at Oregon September 28, Washington (this is a guess on my part) September 30, Washington State October 26, at Arizona (another guess) October 28, at Arizona State November 2, Utah
From CU's official site, a review of the spring. Also it mentions that the schedule won't be announced in June when the Pac 12 network has its schedule complete. (It seems that a lot of CU's games will be televised). http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=3937&SPID=259&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205424789&DB_OEM_ID=600
Schedule tidbit ... at UCLA, Friday October 19 at 7PM. Perhaps also at USC on Sunday October 21? Three UCLA games have a time of TBA, sounds like television. Still only 10 conference games, seems weird. They have their first five conference games on the road, we are the homecoming game. Speaking of, UCLA lost to China's U-20 team 2-1. The new format ... YUK !! My humble opinion.
OOPS !! OK, so I can't count. Or read. There are 11 conference games. UCLA opens at home, then five on the road.
Fossil Ridge won its first playoff game 7-0, but they will not win the Colorado 5A championship. I know, I said they would, but Fairview's reward for winning its first playoff game was a rematch. 1-0 Fairview. I missed it (aaaaargh!) because I was sick last night and didn't feel like driving to Fort Collins this morning. So our incoming Nikki (Nikola) Machalak is three games away from being the second Buff with a Colorado state soccer championship (Annie Stuller, two years ago).
Colorado 5A High School Playoffs Make it two games. Berkley Gamble (that name keeps popping up) launched a long free kick with 15 minutes left that the GK just very barely tipped so it hit the top of the crossbar and went up and over. So with 3+ minutes left, she took a free kick from Albuquerque (I exaggerate, it was only 45 yards), hit the bottom of the crossbar in a corner where the GK couldn't reach it, 1-0, Fairview to the semi-finals against a very good Fort Collins team. The top four seeds are out, Fairview having dispatched #2, #5 is in the other bracket, and Fort Collins is #6. Fairview is #15 ... Cinderella anyone?
The handsome prince has the slipper, and Cinderella ... ... is in the final. 1-0 over Fort Collins in a game that was kept close by stellar goalkeeping, but was otherwise not that close. Her name is Rachel Schaad and Fort Hayes State University in Kansas has an acrobatic goalkeeper en route. Fairview opened the season with a 1-1 tie with Cherry Creek and they meet again, Wednesday at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.