That's not entirely true. A of players in the U-17 and U-20 WC missed club matches due to their participation with the WC. The English, Danish, French, German, Canadian players missed matches for sure. Pretty sure the Japanese players did as well.
In addition to Naeher and Nairn (two BIG losses), U-20 duty also deprived PSU of incoming frosh D Lexi Marton, who played for Canada. So, technically, PSU was down 3 players.
No college athletes can be paid otherwise they lose their amatuer status and their college eligibility. I guess USSF pays for hotels, transportation and food and that's it.
What's going on? Penn State is stacking on Nat. player or what? for 2009 and 2010 So many new player with Nat. team experience. That should help them make a good run for the NCAA championship next year. http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=poknaL_RaORDOMcyz_riBDA&gid=5 4 players in the top 50 from topdrawer + Nairn and Marton + 1 top canadian. Costa, Thompson, Evans, Molinda, Nairn, Marton and Lamarre add to that Naeher in goal. You would have more than half the team with Nat. team experience and all Feshmans I think Penn State will be scary for a few years. They may have one of the the best recruiting class in the nation and more to come in 2010 with: Brock, Hayes and Hovington all of them with nat. team experience. http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/component/option,com_topdrawer/Itemid,289/gender,f/year,2009/ Erica Walsh and her staff did a good job. Now it will be the players job to make it work on the field. With those 2 classes I would like to see how many times they would make it to the college cup in the next few years. What do you think? 1,2,3 or 4 times?
Things do look exciting for Penn State. However, Turbo, do you really think the coaches' job is done and the rest is up to the players? I would think Walsh and staff have a huge job on their hands for the next few years.
NO, I mean the coaches did the first part in recruiting top players. Now they have to work together to make it work on the field. The coaches are responsible for the usual players conditionning, positions, team tactics, playing time and more. But at the end of the day the players have to deliver the goods. I think it's one of the first time that Penn State will have the enough talent to compete with the top teams NC-StanU-UCLA-FSU-ND-UP. Maybe what will separate them will be the coaching, look at USC last year. Yes, I agree with you now the work begin.
turbo -- Agreed, there is a nice influx of high-level talent coming on board, and they should have depth in all areas. The challenge will be to instill that intangible team chemistry that melds all that talent into something effective. But great additions at D, M, F coming to Jeffrey Field this year. It should make for an entertaining season.
Penn State has added another 2009 commitment in Meghan McCarty, M/F, of Oceanside, NY. Meghan was named to the ESPN Rise Fall Soccer AA 2nd team. Congratulations Meghan and welcome to PSU. Emily Hurd, a 2010 commit to PSU, was named an ESPN Rise 1st team AA.
Penn State announces 2009 spring schedule: http://gopsusports.cstv.com/sports/w-soccer/spec-rel/011409aaa.html BTW, who is Messiah?
Messiah is a perennial contender for the Div III national championship, which they won this year on both the men's and women's sides. They're located near Harrisburg about 100 miles from PSU.
It looks like after delaying her enrollment, Christine Nairn will be missing a little school this winter and perhaps even this spring. She was called up to the full national team. http://www.ussoccer.com/articles/viewArticle.jsp_12320774.html
You should know the school if you are a a fan of soccer in Pennsylvania. One of the best D3 schools in the sport in history, they could give all but the top D1 schools a run for their money. Over the last few years, they have won in both Men's and Women's soccer several times. At least twice they have won both D3 titles the same year. I notice the Men's coaching job is being advertised, BTW.
From other posts elsewhere on Bigsoccer... https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=893462&highlight=brandt
If i'm not mistaken I think Alyssa Neher's twin sister went to school at Messiah! She was D3 player of the year.
Good TopDrawer article on future Lion Tani Costa. Will be great to be in the Blue and White. http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/component/option,com_topdrawer/Itemid,251/nid,7670/
4 seniors leaving and 4 freshmans starting with the team this spring! http://gopsusports.cstv.com/sports/w-soccer/spec-rel/012809aaa.html Is that a new strategy to be ready in the fall?
Lexi and Christine were 2008 recruits who stayed out of school to play for the Canadian and U.S. U-20 teams respectively. The other two are 2009 early enrollees. See NewEngland Nellies post above on Christine training with the National Team. Also, Tani Costa, a 2009 recruit, is currently training with the U-19/U-20 team. Tani is just recovering from a stress fracture which caused her to miss the New Zealand world tournament. A question for anyone. Does the time a player trains with a national team not count against their eligibility. I know Christine's time with the U-20 team didn't count as a loss of eligibility, but how about from here forward?
A summary of PSU signings from this morning's paper: http://www.centredaily.com/sports/story/1101203.html
Normally, a player has five years during which to play four seasons of competition. A player is eligible for an exception to the 5 year clock for the time spent on National or Olympic teams. The clock starts when a player enrolls in her first class. A player is also released from academic requirements during this period BUT- a player can only use this exception once and for a maximum period of one year. If she took her exception for the National team, she still has a redshirt year, presumably, but it does count towards her five year clock, and a player can only get four years of financial aid. If she didn't enroll in classes and gone to her first class, her five year clock hasn't started, and she didn't have to take her National team exception. NCAA D1 Manual
Since Alexa Thompson and Rachel Lamarre started classes already are they not counted as new signees for 2009? I noticed they were not mentioned in Walsh's information on 2009 signees. They should be counted when 2009 signee classes are ranked by Soccerbuzz and other web sites.
Yeah, they should be counted, but at the end of the proverbial day, what does it matter? You can rank recruiting classes, etc., but what matters more? In the end, it's the team's record. The Lions have recruited well, and it should be an interesting couple of seasons ahead.
They should be included in the 2009 class because they are not from the 2008 class. Nair and Marton decided to delay their 2008 entrance. Lamarre and Thompson decided to have their 2009 early entrance. I have seen others school mention that their 2009 recruits were already on campus. The press realease mention that Penn State has 5 new recruits coming in(freshman), but it should be 7 freshmans. How will that affect the recruiting class rank? We will see. The class rank affect directly the polls and ultimately the NCAA result. Check it out! All the schools that won an NCAA championships were rank in the top five or six soccer buzz recruiting class 2 years earlier.