Milwaukee broke out of its early season offensive slump by raining six goals in less than 26 minutes of the 2nd half on two different Wolverine GK's in front of a rowdy and boisterous 577 fans. This after failing to score a goal in their first 2 matches of the season, and for a total of 5 halves to open the year. Five different Milwaukee players had goals including Sarah Hagen who also racked up two assists. The result moves Milwaukee to 6-1-4 vs the Big ten in the their last 11 tries. Box and recap: http://uwmpanthers.cstv.com/sports/w-soccer/stats/2009-2010/uwm03.html
Re: Milwaukee 6, Michigan 0 Sarah Hagen of Milwaukee was listed in Sports Illustrated's Faces in the Crowd column this week. Still lighting up the Horizon League as a sophomore.
Re: Milwaukee 6, Michigan 0 Yes, but it's the Horizon League. She didn't score too many goals in non conference play. They will probably win the Horizon league then go out of the NCAA's at the first hurdle like last year.
Re: Milwaukee 6, Michigan 0 I'm not a UWM fan, but a look at their website says that this year Hagen had goals against Michigan, Minnesota, Purdue and Illinois (one goal each) and four against Valpo. So that's eight against non-conference teams, four in four games against the Big Ten. Pretty decent. I was happy that Notre Dame shut out Milwaukee this year.
Re: Milwaukee 6, Michigan 0 I agree with those sentiments. Hagen would score plenty in just about any conference in the country. She's an outstanding player.
Re: Milwaukee 6, Michigan 0 bmoline..you seem like a knowledgeable, aagg, what is up with michigan? Does he not have the players? Are his incoming classes good? Whats the word out there?
Re: Milwaukee 6, Michigan 0 Ryan brought in a good freshman class this year, with several of them playing right away. Early rankings I've seen (including the 2010 recruiting thread here at Big Soccer) indicate the 2010 class should be very good. They have also had some injuries that set back an already thin squad. I hope that once he has some more players that he'll get away from the style he's using right now, which is to play ten behind the ball and rarely push numbers forward. He got them to buy into that style this season, which meant they fought tooth and nail and were able to get five ties in conference play (plus the win at Illinois, which I don't wish to revisit right now). They were really lacking dangerous weapons up top this season. I do think he'll have them back in the NCAA Tournament soon. Perhaps as early as next year, depending on how big an impact next year's freshman can make.
Re: Milwaukee 6, Michigan 0 Michigan is a work in process. Ryan had to clean house when he got there and is in the midst of major rebuilding. He is a great game coach as evidenced by the result at Illinois. As for SH she appears to be a nice player but she has benefitted immensely from a weak conference and a coaching staff intent on promoting her. In the game that spawned this thread she remained on the field until the last minutes firing away even though her side had a 5-6 goal lead. Ryan had emptied his bench at halftime in that game. UWM was either trying to embarrass Michigan or pad the stat sheet of their star player. Can't wait to see how they do in the NCAA.
Re: Milwaukee 6, Michigan 0 I was at the Michigan game and from my recollection, all six goals came in the first 25 minutes of the second half. It wasn't until the score was 6-0 that GR cleared his bench and that was around the same time that Hagen came out. She played less than 70 minutes in a game that was 0-0 at half so I don't think the coaches were trying to pad her stats, it just all happended very quickly. Hagen may have snuck up on people last season but you don't have back-to-back 20 goal years if you aren't a true goal scorer no matter who you play. Goals against Purdue, Minn, Illinois, & Mich should be worth something more but even scoring four on Valpo (who is in the Horizon League championship game today) is pretty impressive. She is a fun player to watch and I wish the Panthers luck today in the championship and hope they and Hagen get a chance to put some goals away in the NCAA tourney.
Cheeks22 is right on all accounts. the only starters who played the whole game were the goalie and two defenders... also: hagen had her second 4 goal performance against Valparaiso yesterday in the HL championship
My Bad, looking back at the Michigan boxscore it shows that SH was on the field until the 85th minute in a game that was 4-0 from the 70th minute on. Why? As for Valpo, Michigan beat them after the Milwaukee debacle. I stand by my previous opinion. SH is a nice player but her numbers are inflated by a weak conference and some obvious stat padding . Have fun in Madison!
Could you elaborate and provide some hard numbers to back up this opinion? You keep referring to the Michigan game as some sort of proof...how many goals did she score in that game?
She scored one...and it came in the 50th minute to make it 2-0. She assisted on another in the 70th minute to make it 4-0. He is correct that she stayed on the field until the 85th minute. That was probably unnecessary, but I don't see how she padded her stats.
The point is - why are you keeping your top scorer (2009 MAC Herman Trophy watch List) on the field when it's 6 to 0, ecspecially when you have freshman forwards/midfielders sitting on the bench. SH is a very good player, but her stats can not be compared to others that are from tougher conferences. Out of conference (including exhibition) she scored about 5 goals in 13 games, in conference she scored like 20 goals in 9 games (including the tourney). She is a very good goal scorer, but her stats would not be what the are if she was in a tougher conference (ACC, SEC, Big East etc). Maybe they might be trying to pad her stats to make up for the weak conference they play in.
And it's stat padding for sure? It couldn't possibly be anything else at all? Not to mention it's very difficult to make the argument that they just kept her on to pad her stats when in actuality she didn't pad them. Who exactly was comparing her stats with anyone else. It wasn't even an issue in the thread until Wolvereagle's rant. Actually 4 goals (against Purdue, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota) in 10 matches non-conference games. As for conference, she averaged 68 minutes per game and only played 90 minutes twice and 85 another time. Fair enough, that makes your argument that its a weaker conference (I really don't think anyone has argued that so bringing it up is rather moot), however it really doesn't help the stat padding argument much as they likely could have left her in the game longer. It also doesn't help the padding argument that she didn't play a single minute in the last regular season match against Wisconsin-Green Bay, a game UWM won 4-1--surely a stat padders game if there was one.
why does this thread even have legs???? why don't all those involved just exchange emails and save the rest of us from having to see this thread continually popping up....what's the point to this discussion???
This whole thing is ridiculous. SH is a fantastic player who any program would love to have. The conference is what it is and uwm has to play those teams. I think they have proven that they are in another world compared to the other teams in the HL and are one of the top mid-majors in the country. They are consistently competing with the Big 10 and Big East for the top recruits in the region and are now getting them. To say the coaches promote her and try to pad her stats is asinine. Why should she be punished for being good? In 2008 SH scored in 9 out of 10 nonconference games and had 11 goals before the conference season started. She had goals against Wisconsin (2), Ohio State, Samford (2), Marquette (game winner), Western Michigan, Illinois St, New Mexico, Boston U, Brown, and Northwestern. And last time I checked, 4 goals against 4 Big 10 teams is pretty darn good This season she has been getting looks for the u23 national team and will be called into a camp when the season is over. oh by the way, this is coming from dean duerst whos an assistant with Michigan and on the u23 staff...the kid is a natural goalscorer, plain and simple
I re-started this thread last week by pointing out that Sarah Hagen was mentioned in Sports Illustrated's Faces in the Crowd column recently. Since then the thread has covered some ground about Hagen, the Horizon League, and even (Notre Dame fan rolls eyes) the University of Michigan, mea culpa. Here's a question for any Sports Illustrated readers out there - is it unusual for Faces in the Crowd to mention a Division I college athlete? Or is this another sign that women's college soccer is ... obscure? I guess I wouldn't expect to see a D-I football or basketball player mentioned there, but I don't read the column enough.
Besides, are coaches not supposed to promote their players? Is there something wrong with giving a player a chance to score goals? All the coaches can do is leave her in the game. She has to score the goals and more power to her if she can. This is the day of Women's Professional Soccer. Coming from a mid-major, she probably has a higher hurdle to jump over than a lot of players who come from the majors, when it comes to getting a WPS job. Good for the coaches if they are helping her by giving her a lot of opportunities to show she can score goals.
Good question. I've seen several athletes from the so-called non-revenue sports featured in "Faces in the Crowd," including men's and women's soccer, softball, hockey, etc. You're correct that you won't see a football or basketball player in that space, as SI assumes their faces are already more well-known to sports fans.