Another BS crash... Last year, the Bay Area won the MLS Cup (Earthquakes), the WUSA Founders Cup (CyberRays), and the NCAA Womens Cup (Santa Clara). The only title eluding us was the NCAA Mens Cup. Well, this year we couldn't retain any of the above, but Stanford beat Creighton 2-1 in double overtime to advance to the NCAA Mens Final. In an all-Pac 10 final, they'll face UCLA. Let's hope they can repeat last year's Quakes victory for Northern California over the bastion of smog. This match will be broadcast on espn2 at 4:30 pm PST tomorrow. Stanford really deserved the semi-final win over Creighton. The number of scoring chances that barely missed was astounding. Creighton defenders cleared at least three balls off the line, and their lone goal came after a very dodgy PK call. Outstanding performances from U.S. U-20 defender Chad Marshall and MLS-prospect forward Roger Levesque. By the way, it seems UCLA benefitted from some favorable officiating as well. A clear penalty kick for Maryland was not awarded, and a questionable one went in UCLA's favor (for the winner) late in the match. Should be a very good final!
Sorry, wrong information about the time of the final tomorrow. It's at 4:30 pm EST which is 1:30 pm PST.
I have to agree with RB here. However, one thing I did not like, and I consider it to be the nadir of sportsmanship--when a player behaves close to celebration at being awarded a PK. That stunk.
Maryland v UCLA: Maryland deserved that game. Crap officiating (Bobby Martinez?) gave UCLA the 2nd goal on a PK. I thought Maryland was much more dangerous. It was a pretty ugly game for some points. The play was isolated, kicking the ball to isolated players who dribbled nowhere and had no outlet passes. When Maryland wanted to, they could string passes together and become dangerous. I admit I was half-paying attention to the game, but Maryland looked like the (much) better team. Go Creighton Bluejays!!!
that was a pretty well fought match. Sucked for stanford about the last minute shot.Still a very good match, either team could have won it.
When it comes to soccer, I hate anything and everything LA. So needless to say I'm not happy. And that little premature celebration on the pitch - classless. Stanford had a throw in and there was LA partying on the pitch. Classless.
The game was over, there was 6 seconds left on the clock, I wouldn't say it was classless. I thought it was a really ugly, ugly game. I saw the Maryland/UCLA game and thought Maryland was the better team. Stanford gave it away by being too timid. Just dumping the ball to your 2 forwards and hoping they'll have a miracle against 4 UCLA defenders is going to get you no championship.