Ummmm...Jessie Fleming scored in the 89th minute to send it to OT. That's a bit harsh to drop that on an 18yr old
I don't feel sorry for the kid in terms of criticism. These kids, well, their parents, have the choice of whether to play high visibility/high stress P5 soccer. Well, "visibility" in terms of women's soccer, but nonetheless. Cake, eat it.
Fleming wasn't the only one to miss a PK and they wouldn't have been in PK's without her...it's a team game.
For those who are still amazed at huge upsets and have difficulty reconciling them with the natural order of things, here's another story that again proves the normalcy of the unexpected. Women's soccer does not have a monopoly on such shocking, amazing, (or surreal as shown in the details of Stanford's loss to SCU) huge upsets. Consider on the men's side, the prospects of Maryland entering the NCAA tournament undefeated and top ranked playing on their home field against un-seeded (six losses) Providence last night. With 20 minutes to go all was going as might be expected with Maryland in the driver's seat with the score 4-1 (which is not a bad position for a team that averaged just under one goal per game for the season as they cruised through the Big 10 and assorted west and east coast non conference teams.) With 20 minutes to close out this game it should have been the nearest thing to a done deal as any. But then Providence came alive and scored 4 goals in a 12 minute span and won the game and the #1 seed went down in their opening tournament game. Go figure. Would the teams on the women's side who were shockingly defeated have sympathy? The under dog always has a chance. (And that's why we actually play the game rather than just award the trophy to the prohibitive statistical favorite!)
But....she sets the tone of pks with her bad miss! My issue is this. She should have blasted it hard, waist high to the left or right, just like Lawrence/Pierre Louis/Buchanan. They took their pks like everyone should. Enough of these on the ground rollers. The goalie was their 2nd string goalie. Make her work for it. Had Flemming made it, most likely the 3rd taker would have also. Instead she got even more nervous and put putted her shot.
Reading all the arguments, I think I agree with CP, with the qualifier that once you get to this stage of the tournament, almost any team left after AQ teams are weeded out, is good enough to pull an upset of a top seeded team. In the case of Santa Clara, I really thought they had a chance against Stanford this year. Even with no superstars, they beat USC (the only team to beat Stanford this year), and managed a tie at BYU (a hard thing to do). Other losses against tough teams were close. The signs were there in spite of some bad luck and a string of mistakes in the middle stretch. The other thing that occurs to me is that the dark horses that make it to this stage have coaches who know how to coach the players they have, rather than the players they want. It might not just be luck.
Ok but I didn't see you calling out any Duke players for missed PKs in important games during the season and so I guess I don't think it is fair to do it to a player like Fleming.
Oh trust me, I would have......but I was too mad, so I thought it best to "step away from the computer"! lol. I agree, Gibbons missed WAY TOO MANY gimme pks this year. Her run up is terrible, as she stands like inches away from the ball and basically "punts" it left or right. Take a couple steps at least! Sheesh.
Agreed. I want to point out that there are several schools in the tournament, like Santa Clara, that have great soccer programs, although this year's team was not the strongest. A great program breeds a winning (i.e., no quit) mentality in their players and the coaches know how to game plan. So you can never count them out. I was trying to put together a short list of dark horses this year, before the tournament began. I think Santa Clara is one of those teams/programs.
Coach Smidt is one of the best coaches in D1. IMO SCU is much better coached than Stanford. It is difficult for them to compete with big schools in California for blue chip players. But with their relatively limited supply they play very good soccer.
I'm not sure that I would agree with them being not the strongest, in the sense that the team isn't strong. I actually think the team might be stronger than I've seen in a few years, but without that obvious leading force such as Johnston, Huerta, Henninger, etc., that they've had in the past. Since everyone has to carry their own weight, perhaps they'll do better in the end. Anyway, it looks like Melissa Lowder might be thinking about wearing the superstar pants from now on...
Much better coached?? Really? So you clearly didn't watch the game. Smith is a good coach no doubt, but how is he better than Ratcliffe? Ratcliffe used to beat Santa Clara when he was at St. Mary's. I suppose St. Mary's used to operate like Stanford and stopped once he left?
Why? Because Stanford has been underperforming for long time. They have fantastic player pool and facilities. Considering what SCU has available, Smith is the better coach IMO.
No one attacked Morgan Brian when she blew her PK in the UVa semifinal shootout with UCLA when the Bruins won their title in 2013. Please stop the mindless nonsense.
Before you pretend to be stating facts, do some research. Ratcliffe was at St. Mary's for five years, 1998-2002. During his time there, St. Mary's record against Santa Clara was 1 win and 4 losses. He did not "used to beat Santa Clara when he was at St. Mary's."
Fair enough. I guess the point I was trying to make is that winning at St. Mary's seems extremely difficult considering he's the only coach who's had any consistent success there. Both are great coaches obviously, but to say Smith is better than Ratcliffe, I don't see that at all.
May be not. But Stanford was out in the 2nd round. SCU is in the elite 8. No extra point for lopsided game. Just saying.... Disclosure: I'm not a SCU fan.
I remember when the US beat Spain in the confederations cup...it was memorable...but...it was just a result. After Santa Clara's last game this year, Stanford will still be Stanford, and SCU will still be SCU. There is nothing about that game that indicates that things will change one bit.
LOL I'm sure a lot of people cheered! I'm just pointing out that reaching grandiose conclusions after one game is probably not a wise move, although I realize people will do just that.
And she more than made up for it by how she plugged in and played in the knockout round at the 2015 WWC. If she didn't step up and play great, who knows whether or not they win that trophy (for the first time in 16 years). She was the unsung hero. And let's not forget, there was a poster on here by the name of WPS something that promoted her game big time well before she ever played on the national team, and even before she played at the U-20 WWC in 2012. http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/names-you-want-to-see-in-this-league-in-2014.1980268/
I remember when US lost 4-0 to Costa Rica. It was only just a result too. BTW the original question was which coach managing better the available resources.
09 Stanford 6-2 09 Stanford 1-0 (NCAA) 10 Stanford 2-0 10 Stanford 2-1 11 Stanford 2-0 12 Stanford 6-1 12 Stanford 2-1 (NCAA) 13 Stanford 3-2 14 Stanford 3-0 15 SCU 1-0 16 Stanford 2-1 16 SCU 1-0 (NCAA) The US has never won a WC qualifier in CR.