The coach clearly feels certain players need to gain confidence from early success. Spaanstra got off to a slowisj start last year and it became obvious tha the coach was going to leave her in , even in one sided games to try and get goals. I feel Ordonez is already getting similar treatment. I do not like McCool and Ordonez on the fiel at the same time. I slightly disagree with Val in that it creates at 352 attacking shape. 2 #9s . Spaanstra at the #10 with something of a free role to drift wide left if Petersen is not pushing on. Jarrets role is to play very wide as the RM. Her speed forces the LCB to cheat a little to protect the LB and this creates huge amounts of space central. the system is set up for 3 players. the 10, the LB and one of the 9s. It may look like 433 at times , but 352 is the main attacking shape. UVA have become a VERY left dominant team in attack. i think this is going to be a problem all year unless they change personnel or attacking shape. Petersen is often going to get forward unmarked because she starts from deep. Jarret is going to be level with the last defender but so wide that its going to take a great crossfield switch to get her in behind. She is also not going to benefit from the overlapping runner outside as the nominal RB, constant , is really playing as a 3rd CB. Essentially she is a decoy/space creator most of the time or asked to create her own offense. McCool is not suited to this formation at all imo. If they return to a more traditional 433, then one of Ordonez or McCool has to sit. It also pushes Spanstraa wide and makes her more reliant on others for touches. something they clearly wnat to get her more of. The midfield is going to be interesting. Torres Sumpter and Zandi are the only true midfielders on team with experience. I would have tried Morse at CDM myself and probably gone 433. Its early, but i think this is going to be a year where the coach has to make some experienced players unhappy to get beyond the sweet 16. Im not sure he will do it. UVA are a very slow team and unless they use the speed they have efficiently, good teams will just keep everything tight and physically dominate in the middle where UVA have concentrated the bodies. This weekend should provide more clues ...Over and out
So East Carolina got the first shot of the game yesterday. By the time they got their second shot, they were down 2-0 and one poorly-taken PK away from having been down by 3. They were better, obviously, than Liberty or UC Irvine, and they actually made keeper Laurel Ivory make a save, and she had one other highlight for the game, but still a comfortable 4-0 win for the Cavs. Like 007, I don't like McCool and Ordonez playing up top together, because I don't see anything like a 3-5-2 shape that 007 describes. McCool is playing very wide, like the winger. Petersen is getting forward less this year than she did a year ago, so certainly not a wingback, just her usual technically gifted offensive work from LB. Spaanstra, however, has clearly taken on the 10 role, starting from the left, a la Mesut Özil, and while she's growing into the role, the team is very unbalanced. Ordonez has continued her stellar play. In a rough analogy to baseball, she's scored for the cycle the past three games, with a hattrick, a brace last night, and a single goal game. If Swanson wants to keep McCool and Ordonez up top together, I would think maybe the 4-4-2 would be better. McCool and Ordonez as strikers, Spaanstra as the 10, Constant could be a true D-Mid, and Torres could move back to left mid to give us a true wide presence, and Jarrett's the sub for McCool and Ordonez.
HoosPlace writeup: https://hoosplace.com/content.php?inc=2019083103 I'll complete highlights this evening....
I dont think Ordonez has done much more than punish awful teams. Im going to reserve judgement until tomorrow/UVA play some teams who dont set up 541 an drop deep. On current form, if McCool was not a senior captain, no way she starts. Swanson faces some big decisions.
True... She ain't no winger, that's for sure. So, if she weren't a captain, and Spaanstra and Torres are playing in the midfield, who plays in her stead? Gorzak?
Dang! WVU if supposed to be a top 10 to 15 team right? Is this the year UVA breaks through and wins the whole enchilada?
because unless a kid is hyped by the USSF machine or going to your school, its unlikely. She is a solid player in a great situation and making the most of it. UVA will go as far as the back line takes them. They can score with anyone and in multiple ways.
I didn't think that Ordonez was unnoticed. She was a regular on the U17 USYNT all though 2017 and highly regarded. She originally committed to TAMU but changed her mind and went with Virginia in December of 17. I have her highly ranked as about the 15th best prospect in the country, and I believe that she has found the right program for her and is performing beautifully. I have her in the same strata as FSU's Nighswonger, UNC's Bell, and Santa Clara's D'Aquila.. all of whom are doing very well in their freshman debuts.
HoosPlace writeup: https://hoosplace.com/content.php?inc=2019090303 UVa's highlights: My video capture didn't work, so I'm going to have to go with these, which sucks.
Looks more like RF of West Virginia had a really off game. She is way better than that (the Spanstraa goal withstanding)
I would disagree on the strikes. Their keeper RF played decent. A curling ball played from 8-10 Yards might have been the only one she could have saved- she got close but it was just out of her reach. She wasn’t late reacting and sometime you just have to tip your hat off to a better placed shot. The 2nd one was her defenseman not clearing the ball. When the ball is that close, there is no reaction time. The third - too good of a shot. Fourth - no way to react to the own goal. I didn’t see any real mistake from her. So I think saying she had an off day wouldn’t be an accurate statement.
Ordonez scored again. Yawn. This was the game from Jarrett that we've been waiting for. Very engaged on defense, and effective. But mostly, both assists (the last pretty spectacularly) in the Cavaliers' 2 - 0 win over Georgetown.
HoosPlace writeup here: https://hoosplace.com/content.php?inc=2019090503 And for those who don't want to leave this page: Ordonez Scores (Yawn) But Jarrett Delivers the Goods The Hoyas came to Charlottesville presenting something akin to that old physics conundrum about the immovable force versus the unstoppable object. Georgetown has had a Top 10 defense each of the past three years while UVa has scored more goals than anyone else over the past nine years. Becca Jarrett simply gutted this proposition, assisting on both goals and having the game Virginia fans have been longing for. Virginia 2 Georgetown 0 I’ve written a couple of times in this place that Jarrett has been the weak link on the forward line for a Virginia team that presses instantly, and deep, when the Cavaliers lose the ball. Possessing great speed, she’s usually been content to just deploy it when we have the ball, and regardless of her speed, she also, consistently, been too far off the ball to effectively defend. Last Sunday against West Virginia I noticed that her off-ball positioning was better and that when the ball was on her side, she was more engaged as a defender. It was good to see. For this game, she was doubly committed, tracking well back into our defensive third (on at least 3 occasions) and challenging every Hoya on the right side. Every time they had the ball. If we can add Jarrett’s pace to Meg McCool’s and Taryn Torres’ work rates, we’ll continue to force lots of turnovers in the defensive end. We’re going to be racking up even more goals. UVa is currently the second highest scoring team in the country, and the only team ahead of the Cavaliers is Louisiana Tech, who has beat up on six teams with a combined 7 – 16 – 2 record and put 15(!) goals past Alcorn State. I’ve also been critical of Jarrett’s play as a winger, and it’s time for me to eat crow: while her dribbling skills are not great, she has been crossing the ball better, especially the past three games. Our first goal, which we hope is soon to become vintage Jarrett, was wonderfully simple: she started on the wing, blew right by her defender and made an easy pass to Diana Ordonez who scored her ninth goal of the season. Now, Ordonez was wide open, and Georgetown would only make that mistake once, but once was enough. Georgetown is a fine team, with much recent success and a lot of pride: they didn’t lose a single game last season until the Final 4 and they only gave up 10 goals all season. Georgetown didn’t fold up and go away. They played as hard as they could, but they were always on the back foot. The Hoyas started out in a nominal 3 – 5 – 2 but Jarrett and McCool (who I also don’t think of as much of a winger) kept the wingbacks pretty much bottled up all game long and while the announcers were desperately trying to make it seem like Georgetown was close to equalizing, they weren’t. They just weren’t. Yeah, they did win three corners in the second half – and one did bounce crazily inside the six-yard box – and they did attempt three shots in the half, but on their two best through balls, Claire Constant and Phoebe McClernon snuffed them out pretty easily. Late in the second half, two consecutive Georgetown free kicks, from just about the same spot a minute apart, landed at the feet of Jarrett and she almost sprung the one-man counter twice, tantalizing all watching Wahoos with her speed. With 5 minutes left in the game, the third time was the charm with Jarrett breaking out and streaking 70 yards to the top of the Georgetown penalty box. Jarrett’s momentum stalled, the ball stayed on her feet, and just as it appeared she was going to lose the ball, she fed an onrushing McCool, who made as deft a turn as you’ll see in the women’s game, and coolly fired past the Hoya keeper. Game over and the Cavaliers advance to 5 – 0. Our pressure, especially in the first 10 – 15 minutes of the second half, was unrelenting and if it weren’t for that crazily bouncing corner, I would have awarded the team a Cavalanche because this game wasn’t as close as the score indicated. Maybe the women will get a chance to win one on Sunday, when they welcome a Minnesota team that received serious consideration for a Top 25 pre-season ranking, but who have crashed out of the starting gate, going winless in their first five matches. But the weather forecast is for warm, sunny skies and I will back to Klockner for the second time in a week. We should be able to run Minnesota ragged. The Perils of Punditry (The Not-Me Version): I know that it can be a challenge to find things to talk about during a 90-minute soccer game, but announcer Angela Hucles, a UVa legend for those who don’t know, reached new heights of inanity when she said: “I think goalkeeper is one of the most mental positions on the field.” Ya think? Injury news: McClernon has traded in her heavy plaster-of-paris cast for a much more streamlined one. It’s not as nice the one Kihei Clark wore last year as the ACC slate began, but it is smaller, and being freed from the worry about clonking an opponent has to enable Pheobe to be just that much more physical. I am to declare, if Coach Steve Swanson hasn’t already done so, that Sydney Zandi is match fit and is ready for starting duty. I don’t think she’s going to reenter the starting lineup because Anna Sumpter is playing so well, but on a team that has less depth than last year, Zandi’s return is great news.
Saw this game: Virginia looked good, and Jarrett was excellent, especially when making not 1, not 2 but 3 long runs down the field with the ball late in the 2nd half, the 3rd culminating with a nice centering pass and the Cavs 2nd goal. Georgetown spent most of the game playing defense, and played it well, mostly, but how they left Ordonez unmarked on the first UVA goal, I'll never know. Jarrett drove past a defender to the byline, centered the ball--and despite the fact that there were plenty of Georgetown defenders in and around the box, none of them bothered to pick up the center forward, who was literally unmarked and easily put the ball in the net. A bizarre lapse for Georgetown, and a costly one because the Hoyas have very little in attack--not enough speed or talent up top. They lost two /good/ scorers last year, and this year have next to nothing. The Hoyas picked up two or three bad giveaways in the UVA defensive half in the first half but could do nothing, and might have had some counter-attacking opportunities but have only one forward with pace that I noticed. Ordonyez seems a mature player for a freshman, and she runs well for her size, but doesn't have to do a lot with this good UVA team around her.
Jarrett looks improved with the ball At her feet. She always had the speed. Virginia looks to be very dangerous!
It was pretty easily her best game at Virginia. I wanted to make a vid of her defense in this game, but I've just run out of time this week. But her D was good, which I'll take.as an improvement.
I don't think there was much she could do about any of the first three. Even the first from Ordonez. She bent that ball. On. The. Ground. Pretty great shot, actually. But, anyway, I finally got the highlights done -- very long story.