Loved the way Heather Payne played the right back. She was attacking up the pitch most of the night. Passing was crisp and the attacking mindset is clear and appears to have 100% buy-in from the players.
Alright, now I’ve been able to watch first half, Payne standing out to me as well. Expected her there if mark stayed, and glad to see Pensky giving her a look there. Feels like a good fit for her, certainly more than cb. Play advancing fluidly through her side and tenacity and some pace to get back when needed. Onyi looks like quite the addition. Happy to see players getting some cross training at positions too with a small roster (iwai, zipay, onyi moving around the field after substitutions)
Last night IMO was the best whole team passing performance I've ever seen at FSU. Now to be fair, they weren't facing UNC pressure, so who knows how that might play out. I am confident in saying that the passing from the backline to the midfield and from the midfield to the forwards and within all levels was a clinic last night! Flynn last year was very inconsistent with her passes forward. This year, she and the others have been much more precise. I'm trying not to jump to conclusions until we have played against the best! We'll see, but at least I have more hope than I did to start the season.
https://www.tomahawknation.com/flor...boston-college-eagles-florida-state-seminoles Looking very dangerous offensively. Keeping fingers crossed to see how we handle Duke, UNC and UVA. Does our offensive aggressiveness get us beat on counters? Do they bottle us up in the back?
FSU with a big win with a second team midfield. Hopefully nighswonger and nesbeth are back quickly. Robbins is so much better in the advanced midfield. Has always looked uncertain with less crisp passing in defensive roles. See the result at the end giving up the penalty. Awesome to see this effort from the team with key players going down early. Home stretch of the season will be interesting for sure.
We are not the same w/o Jenna in the game. We were sloppy at times. You are right about Clara playing Holding MF. It was similar a couple years ago when Mark played Heather at CB. She wasn't very good there, but she's a stud a full back. Did LeiLani get injured? Gilchrist at times overestimates how much time before the defense gets on her and ends up turning it over. I'm pretty sure she will continue to get better. She is a stout physical defender who has a bright future. HP continues to impress me and the combo up top is difficult to keep under wraps. Go Noles!
The Top Drawer teams of the week are obviously often a mess and put together by folks who don't watch the games. But FSU had a player show up this week (they rarely do)! "M Clara Robbins, Florida State - Brian Pensky has Florida State flowing, and Robbins reaped the rewards in the second full week of SEC play. She scored two and assisted two as the Noles won twice." FSU does not play in the SEC. Clara Robbins did not have two goals last week nor did she have two assists but she did have one of her worst games in an FSU jersey on Sunday. (She was put in a tough spot and everybody has those days... I'm a big Robbins fan). Not even sure who this was intended to be. Jody Brown (2G, 1A against Clemson) or Nighswonger (1G, 3A in less than 90 minutes of game time) seem worthy of recognition tho.
Our starting 11 are comparable in overall strength to any of our natty teams IMO. Not quite as strong in the back, but stronger in the front than most of those teams IMO. CAn't afford injuries to Jenna Nighswonger IMO.
Nighswonger has really grown. She'd be a lot of fun to watch/cheer if I didn't dislike you guys so much.
Nighswonger was out with what I assume was a concussion. She looked like she was in serious pain after the header/injury vs Clemson. She did travel with the team and was stretching in the post game. I'm hoping for a speedy and safe recovery. The recent news on Tua Tagovailoa in the NFL is a reminder that players need to be protected when it comes to head injuries. I noticed that Olivia Garcia was wears head protection. I am not sure if she always does or if this is due to a recent injury. I noticed that Robbins committed a foul vs the opposition, but this time it was outside of the box. Miami felt very comfortable on their home field and put up a good fight. Their keeper Dagenaid played well.
Missing Jenna was huge in a negative way. She is the straw that stirs the drink. A majority of our poor offensive game can certainly be traced to the absence of Jenna, but not all. We simply had our worst passing tonight. Lauren Flynn, who has struggled at times this year with her passing, had her worst passing game IMO. Others too were not connecting passes. I assume that with or without Jenna, we'll rebound and have a better game against UVA on Thursday. Hopefully this is one of those 1 off games that happen occasionally. It seemed to my untrained eye that Heather came closest to replacing JN. JMHO. I'm expecting a much better game next time out.
FSU won 1-0, but it didn't feel like a win! UVA dominated possession in the 2nd half like no team in recent memory. That said, our defense did what they had to do! Gilchrist played really well. Nesbeth did a good job of shadowing Godfrey! Some of these young players have now had a taste of the big time. Hope they can learn and grow from it. Look forward to Payne getting back. I thought Nguyen did a reasonably good job for a true Fr in her place, but Payne's experience and skills make her much more dangerous. Kudos to UVA for taking it to us! They could have easily scored 3 or 4 goals.
How people perceive players would be so much different if the top teams played each other more often. I tend to oly judge players based on games like this one and the sample size is so small t get a good read. Good road win for FSU. UVA will be disappointed in the manner of the first goal and their inability to convert chances. Having to win wide by overloading with OBs puts a ton of pressure on the CMs to gain settled possession. Feels like there are no dominant teams in College soccer right now.
Great win for FSU. Hopefully Pensky saw a lot of room for improvement too. Rare to get a win away against an elite team while getting totally outplayed. Take the points and see where you can improve. The last time I can think of a team dominating possession against fsu like this was against Stanford in 2017 when they were totally outmatched in the post season. I was intrigued that Pensky said at half time he wanted to send a midfielder to pressure the back line more to help Beata in the press. And then seemed to pretty early in the second half retreat the entire midfield line to a few yards in front of the box, ceding 2/3 of the field to uva in possession. Not sure why the change but clearly just looking to play the counter. It seems like the team could use some practice at it, so got that if nothing else. otherwise, I was disappointed how much fsu struggled to establish possession in the second half. There were only a couple sequences where they put together multiple effective passes and didn’t seem to come up with any second balls. Couldn’t even advance the ball past midfield off goal kicks… short or long. I suspect this team could really struggle against unc’s press. Rare to see a team get such a big win and your opinion of them goes down, but the case here for me. Plenty of concerning signs on the pitch today. I’ll be curious to see how they hold up down the stretch against elite teams and what they are able to adjust before post season.
One other note…. way less use of subs for FSU in this game than any other time this season. Pensky really seems to trust the starters much more than the subs.
Regarding the subs you have to keep in mind that FSU was down to only 19 available players in the game last night so Pensky actually used every available sub but one.
Here is what we have to hope. 1. We stay healthy. 2. Heather Payne comes back and balls. 3. All of our players, especially the young ones, learn and grow from playing this and the next few games. 4. Brian Pensky borrows some of Mark's post season magic dust, b/c fair or not, that is how many judge coaches and programs! Before the season I said Sweet 16 should be our floor. Elite 8 would be good. Final 4 would be great considering the losses. A natty would be out of this world. I stick with those assessments based on personnel/coaching losses and our depth or the lack thereof.
Right but remember in the second half the team was mostly defending. They weren't doing much running so he may not have felt the need to substitute as much.
It's been an eventful and revelatory last week+. Roque came up big in an away game win against UVA. UVA particularly dominated the second half, but Roque and the "D" stood tall. An ugly win is better than a pretty loss. On Sunday, again w/o Heather Payne, ND exposed what appeared to be a fatigued back line to the tune of 4-0. No excuses, just mad props to ND and their speed up top. They could make some serious noise in the ACCT and the NCAAT. Last night at home again, we looked like a different team. A rested and focused team and dismantled a Duke team that played much like we did against ND. Heather Payne will be back for UNC next Thursday. No excuses! May the best team win! Can't sleep on either Pitt at Pitt or VT at home to conclude the season. No dominant team in the conference this year. This is one of those years that any of the 6 teams in the ACCT could win it IMO! Maybe this is a West Coast year?^%#@
[QUOTE="Tom81, post: 40858653, member: 120370] No dominant team in the conference this year. This is one of those years that any of the 6 teams in the ACCT could win it IMO! Maybe this is a West Coast year?^%#@[/QUOTE] Agreed. Everyone in the ACC has certainly shown their vulnerabilities this season. I think it’s less about the top teams being a step off their usual pace (which might still be true) but more so that the middle of the pack has upped their game. The ACC should get 10 teams into the NCAA tournament this year (based on current results/standings), and Syracuse and Miami are even being talked about in the bubble mix (but .500 cutoff might doom them). Meanwhile on the West Coast, UCLA looked infallible until last night. Hopefully the particularly grueling ACC season this year has teams well prepared for the post season.