2020 recruiting class article. https://gopsusports.com/news/2020/3/25/womens-soccer-women-soccer-announces-recruiting-class.aspx I hope there will be a season!
2020/21 Record 8-1-1 Big Ten regular season winners February 19, 2021 at Rutgers L, 2-3 February 25, 2021 at Northwestern W, 4-1 February 28, 2021 at Illinois W, 2-0 March 4, 2021 vs Indiana W, 2-1 March 7, 2021 vs Michigan St. W, 3-1 March 13, 2021 at Ohio St. T, 2-2 March 18, 2021 vs Minnesota W, 3-0 March 21, 2021 vs Michigan W, 4-1 March 25, 2021 at Iowa W, 1-0 March 28, 2021 at Nebraska W, 3-0 Final Match of season: April 3, 2021 (Saturday) 12:00 p.m. ET vs Maryland at Home B1G tournament: April 8, 2021 (Thursday) - April 11, 2021 (Sunday)
Women's soccer is one sport where PSU suffers from being in the Big10. If I were Coach Dambach, I would schedule some heavy OOC teams or some NWSL teams for exhibitions. JMHO. Of course having to do the B10 schedule in the spring probably limits those options.
Agree 100%. The Big Ten is a relatively weak conference. I would love if PSU played in the ACC; steel sharpens steel. She usually schedules a competitive pre-conference schedule. Unfortunately, Covid threw a wrench in this year's scheduling. Are you at all concerned that the top teams in the ACC may be negatively affected by the long break between the Fall and Spring games? I don't like the long break between the end of the Spring schedule (regular season) and the NCAA final four; way too long.
Somewhat concerned. Each team has taken a different approach. UNC has played a combination of NWSL and college teams in real matches. FSU has not played real matches against college. We played an exhibition against UF. We are or have played 2 matches each against the Orlando Pride and the new NWSL team in Louisville. I don't know what Mark has planned for April before the tourney. It seems like a long time, so I'm sure he has something up his sleeve. NCState didn't play in the fall and have cobbled together a rather weak schedule. I would rather be playing our west coast teams, but Mark knows a tad or two more than I do;-) Time will tell. I am glad we've gotten some strong competition thus far. In our first match against the Pride at FSU, they won 2-1, but played their best 11, so we got a real good look and hopefully gave them a good look.
As a UNC/ACC fan, I cannot wait to see (hopefully) PSU play a team like UNC. Outside of UNC, PSU is my favorite team and my observations of them this spring (Big10 network!) is that they have improved tremendously over their spring season. Great offense.
Big 10 weak relative to whom? Rutgers Michigan PSU Ohio State all recruit from areas with powerful clubs. Their rosters contain highly regarded players from full and youth national teams including the US.
Relatively weak compared to the PAC 12, the ACC and even the SEC. Penn State is their lone star as far as I can tell.
Rutgers beat PSU this year and have been competitive with them results wise for a while now. Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan are usually very competitive. I dont think any of those teams including PSU would win the ACC Regular season title, but they would all be competitive with the ACC teams.
Here are the results of the last 3 years' tournament (for all conferences). The Big Ten is always in the middle, and I would wager if I could find graphic results for earlier tournaments, they would be similar. 2017 2018 2019
Rutgers and Penn State have been the most consistent teams over the last 5-6 years. Most of the highly ranked recruits are going to the ACC or PAC12. Fortunately, for PSU, coach Erica Dambach is a good recruiter. It helps that she's coached US youth national teams and is currently coaching on the full national team under Vlatko Andonovski. I think @Tom81 's posts were spot on. I put together a 10-year breakdown of Big Ten teams getting tournament seeds versus how many make it to the College Cup. Only 4 teams have made College Cup appearances in the past decade (twice by PSU). Only PSU has been in the finals (twice) and won it (once). Top 16 Big Ten Seeds 2010 - 2 2011 - 1 2012 - 3 2013 - 3 2014 - 2 2015 - 2 2016 - 1 2017 - 2 2018 - 0 2019 - 3 Semis/Finals Big Ten appearances 2010 - 1/0 OSU 2011 - 0/0 2012 - 1/1 PSU (finals loss) 2013 - 0/0 2014 - 0/0 2015 - 2/1 Rutgers & PSU (finals win) 2016 - 0/0 2017 - 0/0 2018 - 0/0 2019 - 0/0
LOL! Sorry, my posts helped satisfy my own curiosity and I like to have the data for future reference. Yes, definitely weaker than the ACC and PAC, and on any given year is usually the 4th ranked conference.
The Nittany Lions will play the winner of Michigan/Indiana on April 11 in the Big Ten Regional Weekend. Penn State receives a bye on April 8 as the Big Ten regular season champion. Big Ten Tournament will consist of the winners of the 4 regional sites. pic.twitter.com/JH2zlJSZh2— Penn State Women’s Soccer (@PennStateWSOC) April 4, 2021 Big Ten Tournament's Round 1 begins April 8th, Round 2 will be on April 11, Round 3 on April 15, and the final will be on April 18. The top seeded teams in the East (Penn St.) and West (Wisconsin) each get a bye in Round 1.
Anyone have any comments on that PSU - MD game? Stats look pretty comprehensive. Was it more MD poor or PSU good? UMD clearly not a plus for the Big10 in Women's Soccer since joining.
I think it was a little of both, but mostly high-powered offense by PSU. Of all matches in the Big Ten, it was the most lopsided victory this season. The Lions have several players who are very efficient in scoring. Their only issue is that their defense will be exploited by good, offensive teams.
I would say it is hard to rank non-conference opponents in relation to teams from a conference that has not played any non-conference games. This applies to teams from any other conference in relation to Big 10 teams. It likewise applies to teams from other conferences in relation to teams from the Pac 12 and West Coast -- the two together have played a grand total of 1 game against the ACC, SEC, Big 10, and Big 12 combined (a BYU win over Missouri).
I think Rutgers has been in the top 25 all this season, I believe. I don't know what they will be ranked tomorrow, but last week we ranked # 24. They ended their season 6-2-3; their last match was a tie. But, yeah, other than that I agree, it will not be easy to rank teams without any inter-conference matches.
The D1 women's volleyball tournament bracket was released yesterday. It was clear that the selection committee chose a set number of At-Large teams from each conference based off previous years' precedence. Also, it seems that the selection committee used a certain amount of subjectivity and bias in their selections. Certain conferences and schools were given 'preferential treatment' in their seedings. I don't know if this will hold true for the D1 women's soccer bracket, but I suspect they will do something similar.
Good info. For at large selections, I have suggested the Commitee should allocate numbers of positions to conferences based on past history since 2013. I also have suggested they do the same for the pods of #1, #2, #3, and #4 seeds, and for the next 11 teams. I also have suggested they use past history in assigning seeds for positions #27 through #48. I wonder, if you used the method I have proposed, if it would explain at least some of what they did for volleyball that might seem objectionable. My experience with the Soccer Committee is that they are very rigorous and consistent and, in general, do a good job based on the data and the factors they are supposed to consider. Once the bracket is out, I will do a detailed analysis to see if all the Committee decisions are justifiable. PS - Welcome to the NCAA Women forum.
Depends which rankings you believe, but lets say Rutgers were 20th. Im not sure they were, they beat PSU.
Yep, first match of the season, at Rutgers. This season, PSU has a converted MF playing CB (Kerry Abello) and a freshman from Spain playing the other CB position (Eva Alonso). It takes time for a CB pairing to gel. PSU's roster is extremely thin on defenders. To make things worse, Abello got hurt 2 weeks ago and our # 6 DM, Cori Dyke, has been filling in at CB. I posted earlier that I think a strong offensive team will exploit this weakness.