7/2 San Jose-San Diego post-match thread [R]
 

Christine Latham scores twice in the 43rd and 90th minutes to give her San Diego Spirit a 2-2 draw with the San Jose CyberRays.

If games were 80 minutes, the CyberRays would be atop the league. :rolleyes:

Here's the summary from WUSA's matchtracker:





San Diego Spirit (5-3-5) vs. San Jose CyberRays (5-7-2)
July 02, 2003 -- Spartan Stadium



Goals by Period 1 2 Tot
San Diego Spirit 1 1 2
San Jose CyberRays 0 2 2

Scoring Summary:
SD -- Christine Latham 2 (Julie Fleeting 3) 43
SJC -- Katia 2 (Mandy Clemens 3) 49
SJC -- Sissi 3 (unassisted) 78
SD -- Christine Latham 3 (Allie Sullivan 2) 90

San Diego Spirit -- Jenni Branam, Kim Pickup, Lisa Krzykowski, Kerry Connors, Jennifer Nielsen (Ronnie Fair 55), Susan Bush (Allie Sullivan 64), Julie Foudy, Aly Wagner, Zhang Ouying (Daniela 81), Christine Latham, Julie Fleeting.

TOTAL SHOTS: 15 (Christine Latham 5); SHOTS ON GOAL: 7 (Christine Latham 2, Zhang Ouying 2); FOULS: 14 (Zhang Ouying 4); OFFSIDES: 2 (Christine Latham 2); CORNER KICKS: 6 (Julie Foudy 6); SAVES: 5 (Jenni Branam 5)

San Jose CyberRays -- LaKeysia Beene, Kelly Lindsey, Amanda Cromwell, Thori Bryan, Brandi Chastain (Mandy Clemens 19), Keri Sanchez, Michelle French, Sissi (Ann Cook 82), Betsy Barr, Katia, Tisha Venturini-Hoch (Katie Antongiovanni 46).

TOTAL SHOTS: 17 (Katia 5); SHOTS ON GOAL: 7 (Mandy Clemens 2, Keri Sanchez 2); FOULS: 9 (Kelly Lindsey 2); OFFSIDES: 6 (Mandy Clemens 4); CORNER KICKS: 6 (Michelle French 5); SAVES: 5 (LaKeysia Beene 4)



Misconduct Summary:

Referee: Mark Arblaster
Referee's Assistants: -Sandra Serafini; Said Ravanfar
4th Official: Romy Kozak
Attendance: 5,547
Time of Game: 1:51
Weather: Clear-and-74-degrees

All Statistics contained in this boxscore are unofficial


Discuss. Or puke, your choice.

bittersweet AP photo of sissi scoring her goal:

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com...ys_cajt102.jpg

elaine

I am so bummed - Sissi looks like she is in pain....I am glad she is taking the free kicks instead of Brandi....she is 2 for 2!

I am just sick about this tie....

7/2 San Jose-San Diego post-match thread [R]
 

i'll puke.... http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/sick.gif how many late goals are they going to give up?? i haven't seen the game and that's my reaction based solely on the stats that were posted and BOOF STARTED!!! lol that's always a good thing for me :D

ETA: any reason why Brandi was pulled so early? was she injured?

Re: 7/2 San Jose-San Diego post-match thread [R]
 

It looked like she kind of tripped as she was taking the ball upfield...there was no contact. She was down for a little bit and the medical staff came on the pitch but then she went back and played for awhile. I think she was limping a little bit. Hopefully nothing too serious, since she was able to get up and play.

This was not as lopsided as the recent SJ-Carolina game, but the Rays still had the majority of the possession and should have won. Both SD goals came on counter-attacks.

Sissi's goal was not a free kick. She blasted a free kick into the area but it was cleared right back to her by a Spirit defender. No one closed her down so she took her time and chipped the keeper from 40 yards with a perfectly placed shot high into the far corner. Beautiful.

The Rays came out in the same shape (4-2-3-1) as usual, but there were some bodies in different positions.

Beene

Boof Bryan Cromwell French

Barr Sissi

Sanchez Tisha Chastain

Katia

Brandi hurt herself trying to cut with the ball -- there was no contact with any defender or anything. She played on for a while, but gave up after a few minutes. Not sure how serious the injury is.

At halftime Sawyers really threw caution to the wind and switched to an ultra-aggressive 3-4-3:

Beene

Bryan Cromwell Boof

Antongiovanni Barr(d-mid) Sissi(o-mid) French

Sanchez Katia Clemens

It paid off with some good possession and two nice goals, but ultimately the back was left too exposed. I would have liked to have seen them switch to four in the back after they took the lead, but hindsight is 20/20.

I do think the 3-4-3 is a viable formation for the Rays (just not while protecting a lead in the last 5 minutes, please), especially if they can add Brandi and Pretinha to the mix. With Cromwell and Boof back there the entire left side of the Rays defense is too slow. (Both Spirit goals resulted from plays where the ball came up the Spirit's right -- the Rays' left -- flank and was crossed to the center and finished from close range.) But if you put Brandi on the left side of the back three, that injects a lot of speed into the mix. Pretinha would also be a big improvement over Clemens up front. (Yes, at this point I'd start both Sanchez and Antongiovanni over Clemens.)

So who was supposed to be marking the Canadian??? Or was she just running free?

Me, too. Can't really post anything right now--too bummed for the team. Such a great game up until that last minute. UGH.

I think Pretinha was a little missed in this game. I thought they started off a little slow. I didn't really see what happened to Brandi since I was at the other end of the side. The article on the WUSA site says it's a minor hip injury.

So we're tied with NY and Washington and Washington needs to lose in order for us to get ahead since we play the Power on Saturday on PAX (gee golly wow! TV!). The CyberRays need this win to stay in it.

even over the other side of the world i was cheering when they were 2-1 up but when i saw it was 2-2 (after the amtch tracker decided to fail in the final minutes) i sooooooo could not believe it!
in the end, we finally got a point!! and hopefully the goal katia scored will help her get her confidence back up and use it well in the game against NY.

and i see from the photo that sissi was captain when brandi went off..thats cool...or did tisha become captain, then when she got subbed sissi did?

just one more thing...happy boof played a full game...NOW ITS TIME FOR DI TO DO SO!!! :)

GO CRAYS!!! (ny/sj games are always so hard for me!)