It looks like the Heels will be contenders for years to come. In other breaking news, scientists have concluded that 'water is wet'. Trying to be funny, not snarky! It doesn't seem right if UNC is not competing for a CC. It rarely happens and with the stacked classes coming in, I don't think that will be a problem. Good luck!
Oh boy....Recruit too good to be true... 16 year old midfielder Jaedyn Shaw, the top 2023 recruit for UNC has been invited to the preseason training camp for the Washington Spirit. The Spirit's announcement mentions that such invitations lead to a professional contract for the preseason NWSL games. For those of you in the know, what does this mean? If she signs a contract does that mean that she can no longer play college?
Right now, she is considered a non-roster invitee, but it does open up the possibility of going the Moultrie route and forgoing college. That said, there are few of these young players across the league that fall into the NRI. I wouldn't worry yet, but the possibility is there.
I’m hoping for Alyssa Thompson to be recruited at young age but she did say she intends to go to college.
Well, since AD always preaches he wants what is best for kids and the game, I'm sure he'll push for her to go pro. Oh wait, but that would effect winning. Behind the scenes, the stuff that sounds good in interviews, podcasts, etc is not being said.
After Trinity Rodman's contract today, I think more young superstars will look at this as a viable option over college. Obviously they need to be exceptional to earn that kind of money though.
I disagree with your comment that Anson puts winning over payers options. If Jaelyn indeed goes pro, she will be the third UNC verbal commitment to do so. In both other cases Anson publicly supported their choice. Here are two excerpts from two different articles from the New York Times showing that Anson, while disappointed, was quite supportive of Horan and Moultrie which directly contradict your snarky comment. On Lindsay Horan: “We were terrified about losing her,” Dorrance said. “You can’t replace an athlete of that caliber after national signing day, as good as she was. But she was made a great offer by P.S.G., and I’ve never had an issue with that sort of thing.” Horan and Dorrance remain close, texting each other in the lead-up to the World Cup. Dorrance, too, wonders if things would have turned out differently for Horan had she gone to college rather than going pro overseas. On Olivia Moultrie Anson Dorrance, the longtime coach at North Carolina who had offered Moultrie a scholarship, said in an interview on Monday that he was pleased Moultrie had signed a deal for what he presumed was a significant amount of money, noting that the vast majority of women’s soccer players still struggle to make a steady living as professionals. He said Moultrie’s deal was a good development for the women’s game. “We knew what was in the water, and we have no issue with this,” Dorrance said about Moultrie’s decision. “We lost a great player to the professional ranks, and we totally support that, if the financial incentives are good.”
Alyssa Thompson would be exceptional if she decided to skip college, but from her interviews, most likely not unless she also got Nike sponsor or something thats worth more than college tuition.
Whatever a young woman decides to do re: turning pro out of HS is her business. That said, a contract that is as valuable as the cost of "college tuition", is a poor comparison. A college degree can be worth much more than the cost of tuition. It lasts forever! A Stanford degree carries a lot of weight. A pro career is very tenuous. It could last through 1 contract of a few years. At most, you would think 20 years. What do you do then? Go to college and get your degree paid for. If you are good enough, you will get paid to play pro soccer. You will have the best of both worlds. If not, many careers will pay you better than the average pro soccer player makes. I know there are exceptions, but in today's soccer world, they are few and far between. IMO, even given Trinity Rodman's recent contract, I would still have recommended getting that degree paid for first. Best of both worlds! JMHO.
will be interesting to see how the women's games evolve. the argument use to be there for the guys. do you go pro or do you go to college. early on in MLS they didn't pay much. College paid more when you count how much the degree is worth. Now MLS has partnered with schools and the players can take classes and work towards a degree while playing in the MLS. Real definition of best of both worlds. You are a pro and getting a college education. Will be interesting to see if the women's game eventually develops something like that. My guess is it will but its still probably 10-15 years away
Trinity had no interest in school. This is why UCLA had to drop her commitment. So her path worked well for her.
It is strictly correct. That is why UCLA dropped her. She went to WSU with the intent to play one fall season. She wasn’t doing class work. When Covid hit and pushed fall season to spring, she left school. She wasn’t interested in going to college for the academics. It was a path to pros for one season.
Because she wasn’t going to be admitted to UCLA. My understanding is that she was not even NCAA eligible so she wasn’t even going to be able to play games at Washington State.
Yes, it is easy for a three month college season that starts in the fall of your freshman year. She could have played the fall season and left before the grades were in. Just show up at class now and then for appearances sake. How do you think one and done NBA players do it? In their case they have to pass the fall semester, then they don't have to bother with class in the spring because they are gone before grades roll in.
Hopefully, good sign for UNC - Attendees at last weekend's commit/ID camp included Jayden Shaw and Maycee Bell.
FYI: There is a spring game tomorrow, Friday, 2/18/2022 at 6pm vs WFU. Bryan Park which was for anybody who remembers was the same location for the recent exhibition game against High Point. I'm assuming the same field as well.
Nice to see the team play again, even in the bitter cold. UNC and Wake Forest meet halfway at Bryans Park and the Tar Heels pick up a 3-0 win in a scrimmage that was staggered into 3 x 30 minute periods. The rotation from Carolina was kind of low, only 2 subs at a time rotating into various positions... but I wasn't paying too much attention to the subs or players on the field so I might have missed it if a new or noteworthy player on the field. Noteworthy for example being Sentnor, after the fact thinking about it, I don't remember if she played tonight. Cox was in regular season form, sensational with her 1v1 wins to the endline. You'd normally like to see her on the end of crosses as opposed to creating them, but she's so dominant turning the corner that she sometimes ends up in a breakaway on goal where most players would have to make a cross. This was the case for the third and final goal. What looked like a standard endline drive around the left edge of the defense ends up happening so fast that she had the angle to challenge straight to goal. Bella Sember and Aleigh Gambone were the other forwards most of the time, with the later getting a goal on a really nice ball in. First touch was awesome to take it down and then partially chip over a committed WF keeper. Midfield saw a little rotation Quinlan getting some minutes (in Patterson's kit) in behind the starters of Dominguez, Hansen, and Wrigley. Lauren Wrigley blocked a shot late in the scrimmage and, after trying to give it a go, had to come off. I hope it's nothing serious. Probably saw the most rotation on the back line, with Tolentino, Elgin, Allen, Pierce, and Moxley all getting minutes. It was great to see Elgin back out there. With 16 seconds left in the game, a forward ranging Pierce was involved in a collision with the WF keeper. There seemed to be some serious concern with her so the official ended the game there. After a few minutes of worry, Pierce was up and trooped off the field under her own power. First five minutes was a feverish UNC attack that saw a Wake Forest player have to come out due to injury and Isabel Cox take a knock to the head but ... stay in? Early on the best chance was for Dominguez, who got in behind and had her legs take out from underneath her by the WF keeper after trying to touch the ball around her. I was in a good position to hear the ref say "in a real game that's a red card" as he gave her a yellow. WF built a little confidence in possession and looked to be likely to find a goal towards the end of the first session, to no avail. The second played out similar to the first in reverse, where their momentum in possession continued but started to give way to more concerted Tar Heel attacks going the other way. Cox's incredible step over move to the endline sent the WFU defense scrambling, and Moxley, all the way up from her right back / wing spot, took advantage of the collapsed defense. It was a really nice finish. Gambone found the back of the net a few minutes later, and the Tar Heels took a 2-0 lead into the second intermission. The final stanza saw the wind and bitter cold really grip the field, and it seemed like it really ground the game to a halt. WF did push numbers forward and spent most of the final stanza in the attacking third, but it didn't feel like there were any grade A chances towards Carolina's net. I feel really dumb going the entire game not thinking about who the Carolina keeper was. I mean ... I think it was Emmie Allen, and I don't think Marz Josephson played and I don't think the incoming Nona Reason was even there. Allen had to make a few plays off her line and made one difficult save / blocking play that she ended up forcing a goal kick on.. but otherwise the defense seemed like it a did a reasonable job keeping things in front of. Seemed like the only thing that Dorrance or Nahas might be preturbed about was the Tar Heels struggling a little bit to play out of the back. Emmie Allens best, and I think only actual save, came from when someone put Quinlan in a tricky spot with a difficult pass at the top of the 18, WF knicked the ball away in a prime scoring position but the attacker maybe didn't realize how much time and space she had... also the ball was probably a brick at her feet with the cold. An ACC forward in mid-season form makes the Tar Heels pay there. Didn't see any of the 9 noobies, or at least didn't notice them. Did I mention it was cold?
Great write-up, Babranski. Thanks. I'm looking forward to Sentnor finally taking the field to see how she does against college players. Given that it has only been 6 months since her ACL tear, she might not get a green light to play until the summer. A favor... I haven't been able to get on the UNC goheels.com site for several days now. (Just the UNC dark/light blue page format with no data or text available...) Can you get on? ...or is it my computer?
I'm not aware of any issues or changes to goheels recently. I have the direct link to WoSo section on my toolbar. It took me straight there without issue. https://goheels.com/sports/womens-soccer
I had some trouble seeing UNC's Women's Soccer until I turned off an ad blocker. They seem determined to sell Coca-Cola or whatever it is today.
Thanks cp, Babs, and wrg1 for information the UNC soccer website. I have re confirmed that I have whitelisted goheels.com so no ad blocking there... I've tried re-booting the old computer, and I still can't get past the blue and white back ground page with no text or photos. I'll have t check-out other paths, I have no problems with many other websites (including Big Soccer)