Sabrina Flores is away with USA u20 along with Natalie Jacobs, while Monica Flores is away with Mexico u20. Jen Westendorf has chosen not to miss any of ND's season and so has postponed her training with the Brazilian u20 team.
So what happened to Notre Dame today? I may be wrong but I don't remember Chris Petrucelli or Randy Waldrum ever being eliminated from the get-go.
Today? Nothing. (Or was there fallout?) Yesterday? Soccer happened. In November, timber shivers us -- 21-3 shots, 11-1 corners, 0 goals. We've been there.
Oh, that's right. It was that windy cold day at Illinois. I remember that. I was sitting next to Sammy Scofield's mom and dad. An unenthused ND team that game, IMO. They had a bad year by Notre Dame standards after winning the NCAA the previous year and even Melissa Henderson couldn't get a shot on goal. For Illinois, current Chicago Red Stars midfielder Vanessa Dibernardo played her heart out. But that was Illinois in Champaign, Illinois on a crappy, windy day, not Southern Illinois at home on a nice evening.
It's soccer so anything can happen. It feels like Notre Dame has lost its elite status and is in danger of not getting it back under the current regime. She has been there 3 years with nothing of note to show for it in postseason. She'll have some players back next year.
What is TR's best tournament performance so far? 2nd round or round of 16? I hope ND goes back to the drawing board this off-season. The defense looks to be in great shape again next year, but ND will once again struggle to score unless major changes are made. This problem goes back to the Waldrum years, but it's up to the current staff to fix it.
I'm not an ND fan, but I think you Irish fans need to relax. I actually think this team overachieved this year! With the loss of Jacobs and the Flores sisters (to under 20 wc duties), I had this team pegged for a 7th/8th place finish. They WON the acc regular season! That's a huge accomplishment in my eyes, considering their player personnel. Yes, they struggled to score this year, which was ultimately their downfall, but they defended like champions the whole season. In the NCAA tourney, if you can't score, it's gonna be tough to advance, as most teams defend hard come tourney time. In regards to next season, y'all will be quite good tbh. Jacobs will be back and will prob be paired up front with Westendorf. The Flores twins can both play the wing and should, as to create more opportunities, with their versatility. I think you also get a big time forward/mid recruit, (can't remember her name), and she will be a huge boost to the offense. So add to that you're stout defense returning, and ND should be a top 5 acc team next year. So relax , you'll be just fine
The finish was very misleading. This is the worst the ACC has been in the modern era. Plus they had a very favorable ACC schedule. She didn't play FSU and Duke and got Clemson, UNC and UVA at home. FSU, UVA, UNC and co are all way down from their lofty standards. I watched Notre Dame play and just didn't think they were very good. If you look at their classes they are not Final 4 classes. CTR will always have an organized team and be good defensively, but IMHO they will not get back to elite status under her. Her ceiling is sweet 16. That is when she doesn't get shutout by SIUE. ND scored 26 goals. Take our Wright St and Pitt and they scored 19 goals in 19 games.
I agree with mpr2477. Notre Dame had a great season this year given their loss of talent to the U20s, and should be very respectable next year. Yes, it is true that parity has pretty much arrived for D-I women's college soccer and this means that the small group which used used to dominate the ACC (UNC, Notre Dame, Virginia, FSU) going forward may not have the same talent compared to more of the top 30 teams in the country. I agree that there was a fall off in top team performance this year. Add to the ACC such previously dominant programs such as Texas A&M, Portland, and Santa Clara, and you will see that it's not only the ACC. (I must admit that Stanford and UCLA are still raking the top recruits in, but that may not last forever.) It's a new WOSO soccer world. As I have been arguing for quite a while now, I do not believe that is fair to finally judge a college coach until 5 years when he or she finally has her own talent on the field. The 2018 class is a strong one for Notre Dame and will be a real test of what is to come. Have heart!
Oh how I love these little charts I've developed for seeing teams' ARPI trends, including in relation to when they've made coaching changes: The dotted orange line is a trend line, using a straight line, showing Notre Dame's direction over the last 10 years. Year 1 on the left is 2007 and Year 10 on the right is 2016. Since Romagnolo has been at Notre Dame for three years, the dotted blue line is a trend line using a three-year moving ARPI average. To me, the chart shows Romagnolo is doing a very good job. She is resurrecting what had been a declining program. The program's not back to where it once was, but if the program continues in the direction she seems to have it going, it may get back there.
Well. all I know is I'm finally able to go to a game since my weekend is free now and there is not one within my driving distance. ND is out and Northwestern is playing in Durham.
Well, it depends how the fan looks at it. When Waldrum was in charge, you had a feeling every year that he was going to take the Irish to the Final Four. I don't have that feeling now. Hopefully it will change. So in your gathering of statistics, how many years did Waldrum take the Irish to the Final Four in his 14 years as Head Coach? I agree, in the last 2 years maybe Waldrum's mind was elsewhere...maybe returning to state of Texas, I don't know. But man did he have a nice run. Second in the nation only to Dorrance. And just to say, I am not a parent of a player, so my fandom(for lack of better word) isn't just for four years. I have seen this program since 1995 and you just get the feel for where it's going, no statistics. Oh, I'll still be patient with the new coach, but if she gets all her players next season and the next and the next and doesn't get into the Final Four, fans who have followed this program religiously for a while have a right to be concerned. But let's wait for next year when players return, young players get more seasoned and hopefully a goalscorer comes along. We'll see.
The nice thing about the numbers is they tell what peoples' feelings don't. I know well the Irish history, but the downward trajectory actually ran for the last five years of Waldrum's time there. It's not out of the question that things had changed, but he wasn't able to adapt. My point, however, was that what's happened over the last three years speaks well of Romagnolo. This, of course, may change, but there's nothing in the numbers to merit criticism. If anything for Irish fans, they should be encouraging.
Her young players--her recruits have done well and they are young--they lost 2-1 in an unfortunate last minute goal to UNC in the ACC's.....which happens and then they couldn't score against a GK who was on fire--despite outplaying and solidly outshooting them. That is what makes soccer so great--the game of soccer is FULL of upsets... If you're going to find every excuse in the book for the 2011 loss (which was an actual loss) you should be willing to cut this team a break on a TIE against a hot keeper....
I agree, they are doing ok. No reason to panick. However, in the ACC tourney the UNC clearly outplayed them.
How do you get a downward trajectory for last 5 years under Waldrum? He won the whole darn thing in 2010, with a thorough ass-whipping of North Carolina to reach the Quarter Finals. A UNC team that had, get this... Crystal Dunn, Kealia Ohai, Meghan Klingenberg. That's not what I call a downward trajectory. Granted the last two years of his tenure were not one of historically Irish best. And I don't think it had anything to do with adapt. I feel his mind was a thousand miles away (Is that how far Texas is from South Bend, IN?). I just think he was ready to go back home where his family was and becoming a grandpa, etc. Just a guess. I'll answer the question for you cp. Randy Waldrum took the Irish to 8 Final Four College Cups in his 14 years of Coaching at Notre Dame. That's half of his coaching years for the Irish, he was in a College Cup, so yes, we as Irish women's soccer fans were always, every year, ready to go to the Final Four with confidence. He also won 12 Big East Championships out of 14 years. Granted ACC is a much tougher Conference. The biggest thing Randy could do, in my opinion was recruit. That 2010 team was outstanding talent-wise and so were many teams before them. There is a difference in coaching styles between Coach T and Randy W in what I could see in that Randy, like Anson Dorrance, played a lot of players during a game. He recruited a lot and played a lot. Romagnolo, from what I could see, subs few players. Hey I like Coach T. Very nice person and wish her big success. I'm just used to going to Final Fours and seeing the Irish in it. Not trying to be mean or anything, just a conversation among fans.
Here were the approximate drops (-) or gains (+) in Notre Dame's RPIs over the last 5 years of Waldrum's time there: 2008 to 2009: -.0250 2009 to 2010: -.0200 (but still good enough to with the College Cup, which was a great accomplishment) 2010 to 2011: -.0500 2011 to 2012: +.0250 2012 to 2013: -.0200 The net drop was -.0900. This is a big drop, and most of it occurred before his last two years. To give a sense of how big, the Notre Dame team of 2008, with an ARPI .0900 better than the Notre Dame team of 2013, statistically would be expected to win a game between the two of them 87% of the time, to tie 7 %, and to lose 6%. This doesn't mean that Notre Dame wasn't still a very good team, just that the period from 2008 to 2013 represented a descent from the year-in-and-year-out super elite Notre Dame teams you were used to seeing, the 2010 National Championship notwithstanding. My point continues to be that those who are anxious about Romagnolo are comparing her program to a program that hasn't existed for quite a while, in relation to the program's direction. The program was in a downward trend well before Waldrum left. One might say the downward trend started when Notre Dame's strength was well above what was needed to be contending for a national championship, that part way through the downswing it still was strong enough to win a national championship, and that by the end of the down period its strength has dipped below enough to win a national championship. And that, if 2010 is a benchmark, the program now is back at the level it can compete for a national championship (the PK game with SIUE notwithstanding). None of this blames Waldrum for anything, nor does it necessarily credit Romagnolo. It does suggest, however, that those with doubts about Romagnolo might want to take it a little easy as the program appears to be on an upward trend from where it had dropped to.
I also feel Notre Dame could have won the 2009 College Cup with a healthy Brittany Bock. But she got hurt earlier, if I remember correctly against Connecticut. Kerri Hanks scores early in the Final against UNC and the Tarheels are on their heels. But with a hurt Brittany Bock and the Tarheels having Tobin Heath and Casey Nogueira, who I used to call the ND destroyer because she could score at will against the Irish, it went down to those two players for UNC taking the game over. I was never so gutted as an Irish fan as when after that game. The Irish were the clear favorite and took the lead. The day before, I went to Myrtle Beach to play some golf and returned Sunday morning to Cary, NC for the Final with high expectations. I even talked to Brittany Bock about that game a few weeks ago. Ah, those were the days. Couldn't wait for Sunday to come so I could head to South Bend and watch the Irish. I met so many parents, players and friends. Even parents and players from UNC. But, moving forward.
Yes indeed, those were the days. Now, I think it's a different DI Women's Soccer world out there, for everyone.
Yes my friend, you are right. And BTW, that's how you and I met, at a ND vs. U of Portland game in Portland. I'll never forget the atmosphere.