Haven't posted in awhile, but thought I'd update and give a midseason report. For the most part, Duke is looking pretty good. The defense can usually hold, even when the offense can't score. After some blunders/bad attempted long kicks by gk Heinsohn, she's been steady, and quite good. Saved a pk against Miami the other night. The defense in front of her has become a solid unit (Mitchell, Paschall, Burns and the speedy Graham) Paschall has been great lately, with 2 goals and 2 assists. She is the long ball/service specialist. The midfield is vastly improved from the debacle against Illinois. They seems to know what they're doing now, and have become more adept to the pace of college. A lot of freshmen/underclassmen are manning this area for the Blue Devils this year. (Sydney Simmons at HM, Lily Nabet, Tess Boade and Mackenzie Pluck are all young) Kat McDonald is the glue in the midfield and has done an admirable job, despite my feelings that she's somewhat slow footed. Simmons looks much more comfortable on the ball, and making quit passing decisions to change the field or rescue the team out of trouble. Her and McDonald are making a strong holding mid tandem. Pluck and Boade a cagey and speedsters. They can really get passed defenders with great little move and speed. They just need to work on setting things up in the final 3rd a bit better. Our forwards have been really good as of late. McCoy and Racioppi in particular. Racioppi leads the team with 5 goals (she scored 5 ALL of last year) and McCoy is the team leader in pts with 11. Stevens hasn't been present on the stat sheet much of late, but she does lead the team with 5 assists, and her saavy and soccer IQ are hard to ignore. She'll show up one way or another. Big big game on Sunday versus UVA. This is actually are toughest conference game of the year, as we don't play UNC or FSU. I'm hoping the home field confines will be a bit of an advantage, although in looking at the series that doesn't seem to matter. Both teams are strong defensively, but struggle to score versus elite competition. So I expect this to be another 1-0 score....maybe 1-1. The last 3 games in this series have been 1-0 wins for Duke. Hoping to make it four. Hoping the defense shows up and Heinsohn has a little fire in her, for being looked over for the under 20 national team in favor of UVA's Laurel Ivory. I think the rest of the ACC late is tough and dangerous, but if we keep playing the way we have been as of late, Duke can win the rest of their games. BC, L'ville and NCSU are the toughest games to come. This team is actually still a work in progess. They will continue to gel together and only get better, which makes for a promising outlook for the rest of the season.
UVA struggle to score vs elite competition? How do you arrive at that conclusion this year? I guess we wil see tomorrow, but both are teams in transition. Duke from a big senior Class, UVA trying to integrate some impact Freshmen. I think UVA will be very good next year.
That's pretty much what I've read posters saying for several years about Virginia. It appears to work well for them.
Because you're making the assumption they can't score against top talent when Penn State is the only competitive team they've played so far. How would we know if they can or cannot score against top talent?
Strange post by you. We could not assume what they could or could not do , thats what I implied. 2 vs PSU, 2 vs Duke - both on the road. I think UVA are perfectly capable of scoring vs anyone.
Duke's schedule is primed for success. 15 home games out of 21, not playing FSU or UNC. Sometimes success isn't about how many ODP or national team recruits a team has, but team dynamics, team chemistry, leadership.
UVA are perennially disrespected. I guess its because they are a relatively low key team. Dont have a large social media footprint or army of forum active fans. They are a very solid team. FSU look a lot weaker in person that some projected them on paper.
I thought you were making an argument that UVA is less talented than Duke, but has better chemistry? My point is that both teams are very talented.
Duke need a fast penetrating forward to complement McCoy and Stevens. MP is not that and MKM is similar to McCoy. Makes it hard vs good teams to threaten them in behind and allows them to compress the game a lot. That makes technical veterans like Stevens and Racioppi have to get it done in tight spaces. Thats not easy to do game in game out. Bot players looked frustrated to me in the UVA game.
Pretty much literally never. They may not get hyped up quite as much as some, but that's not close to the same thing as being disrespected.
Wow. What a ********in embarrassing performance. Unreal how crappy this team can be especially defensively. Enjoy ur 2nd rd NCAA exit and underachieving year
except for a few players their athleticism is below UNC, Stanford, UCLA and FSU.. committing to many 9th graders IMHO