UVA tourney this weekend. Who's going to be there? Unfortunately its just too much time and money for me to make it down from New England, but I'd love to get some match reports on how my URI Rams fare against Maryland and Virginia.
Plan to be there Sun. Not sure I can make Fri. matches as my son has a match Fri. PM. I'm not that good at in depth analysis, but I'll post what I think I see. John
Game Schedule For those planning on attending.... Friday, August 30 5:00 Maryland - Rhode Island 7:00 Virginia - Kentucky Sunday, September 1 12:00 Maryland - Kentucky 2:00 Virginia - Rhode Island
Not too sure about UVA, but I think the Terps are going to win two games by large margins this weekend.
If you can't make it to that...make sure you show up to the St John's tournament the first weekend in September. The Red Storm open up brand new 2,300 seat, $6 mil Belson Stadium. heres the schedule.. Friday 9/6 --William&Mary v Indiana......6 --Florida Int'l v St Johns.......8 Saturday 9/7 --Florida Int'l v William&Mary..6 --St Johns v Indiana.............8 I dont know bout you guys....but I'll be there =)
FYI, the stadium will not be opening the weekend of the 6th. The tournament will be played at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point. A bit of a letdown.
Maryland 8 Rhode Island 0 Virginia 3 Kentucky 2 I saw the Virginia-Kentucky match, and after a very ugly, nervous, shaky start for both teams, it was a decent match. The first half saw a lot of junk soccer as UVA showed that Kenny Arena is no replacement for Kyle Martino. The midfielders only carried the ball through two or three times, and those were the only opps they had in the first half. Kentucky did not have any real nice play either but they managed to take a 2-1 lead. Then the UVA midfield started to take more possession. Alecko started to get some good touches and scored a nice goal to tie it up. He played really poorly up to that point, losing possession nearly every time he touched the ball. He and Gibbs had help only rarely as they tried to receive ball after ball sent from deep in the UVA defense, past the midfielders. Johnathon Cole, who was very unimpressive last year, was solid in the back and made some of the more dangerous runs out of the back for UVA. Kentucky was not bad and I saw their ranking was no fluke. They tied Indiana last weekend. But in the end, they were without a doubt outmatched. Alecko took another streaking run across the top of the arc and shot a trademark bullet into the sidenetting, easily beating an outstretched, but late keeper. 3-2 with about 2,123 fans jumping for joy as their home side starts the season out with a promise of much potential, but with much polishing to do (tons of unforced errors).
Jon Cole unimpressive last year? Pssshaa, he was awesome last year, definately stepping up. I caught the last 20 min or so of MD-Rhode Island, I walked into the stadium when it was 7-0 and was like "ouch!" But the teams were on such completely different levels that I'm waiting to make my predictions about MD for Sunday afternoon. UVA-Kentucky. This game was soooo physical, I thought we were playing Duke (of 2 or 3 years ago) for a second. The ref was awful, but he was at least fairly consistently bad, and wound up handing out 2 reds in the second half, one to Jake Leblanc, the other to Kentucky's #18. Impressive would be Hunter Freeman, UVA's #8 freshman defender. I'm pretty skeptical when it comes to young defenders, but this guy did an amazing job. He's wearing Marshall Leonard's number well, I just hope he can keep up the great work. Go Hunter! Kenny did a pretty good job, I was sort of surprised to see him wearing the captain's armband at first, but then I remembered he was one of the few players in the Seton Hall game last season that seemed to care, so he deserves it I think. Props to Kenny (3 years ago I wasn't saying the same, but the guy's come a loooong way). He's unbeatable in the air too. Overall, it was a good game (if you forget about the bad calls and all the nasty fouls). Kentucky was better than most people expected (my boss was like "they play soccer in Kentucky?") and gave UVA a pretty hard time for their first game. The game winning goal was scored by Alecko Eskandarian (he had one before that, as did Ryan Kelly) in the last couple of minutes I think. So go UVA! I look forward to them playing Rhode Island on Sunday, hopefully it will be a lot less stressfull, and I'm also interested in how Maryland fares against Kentucky.
How good are the TERPS? How good are these Terps? RI was picked to finish first in the Atlantic 10 and they were certainly no match in a 8-0 thumping. Consider that Sumed Ibrahim (2G & 3A) played only the first half and Abe Thompson (2G) player only 40 minutes. With the first team defensive unit of Dello-Russo, Goodson, Stamler and Vitagliano on the field, RI got off only two shots neither of which were on frame. They also appear to have depth as well as evidenced by U-17 national teamer Erwin Diaz coming off the bench and U17 teamate Chris Lancos (in Spain) not having played a minute but will return Sunday. Two players, Chris Gormley (Def) and Ian Rodway (Def) who started nearly every game last year, are now come off the bench. I mention the depth because UMD has been derailed the last two seasons with injuries but this season they appear to have capable backups if necessary. Hopefully yesterday was just the start of bigger things to come, they seem the have the personnel to go pretty far this season. GO TERPS!
UVa v. Kentucky The red card to #18 (and I still have no idea why he got one) was the turning point in the match....because until that point he had been marking Eskie out of the match (save for that one play where he scored off a ridiculous turn after a perfect heading pass from Arena). The shot by Eskie to sin the game was tremendous. With no #18 on his back he was finally able to make a turn and got a little bit of space and it was all over. It was an extremely precise shot off the left boot form outside the box. Anthony Peters (Fr. #15 for KEntucky has some skills but he's also a thug). LeBlanc deserved to go out with his red. He was good for about five minutes while he was in. UVa has NO midfield. There's no build-up. It was like three passes and then boot it long for both sides. Hunter Freeman is a rock on defense but how they managed to give up two goals I'll never know. I don't think Comfort is a very good organizer of Ds. In three matches (2 preseason + 1 reg.) the Hoos have given up 9 goals and scored 8. Crazy stuff...
Anybody know where I can find box scores of the UVA and Maryland games? I couldn't find them on UVA's website. Also....what did I tell you about the Terps winning BIG! Prediction for tomorrow: Maryland 4-1 Kentucky Hey Playable Back...what's the deal with Kentucky's Peters? Is he a major hack/cheap shot artist? Also...did Joe Vide get any PT in this game?
Re: UVa v. Kentucky LeBlanc definately did deserve to go out on his red. In the past years he's been a decent player, but that was just a poor game from him. #15, indeed, was a thug. But a lot of Kentucky's player's were. I think #18 got the red for taking down Freeman at the same point as Leblanc took down the Kentucky kid. He'd been elbowing away at Eskie's back all night though. My mom was like "well, at least they know who to beat up on. He just needs to learn how to roll around on the ground a bit more, like Kyle (Martino) did." What was funny though was at one point towards the end, someone on UVA fouled Kentucky's #4, and he started getting up and the coach yells "GET BACK DOWN! GET ON THE GROUND!" and the player immediately fell to the ground clutching his ankle. I predict MD 2, Kentucky 1 on Sunday, and UVA 5, Rhode Island 1. I'm saying they get one cos it would be kinda sad if they didn't. They probably won't.
Cole was absolutley awesome last year for a Freshman. I fully expect to see him on some post-season All-American lists this year (2nd or 3rd team of course). Sorry I missed this weekend but the bigger tests for these team are next week in Maryland and I wouldn't miss them for the world.
#15 did some blatant elbowing, but he's taller than Arena even and has some good ball skills for such a tall/young player
Cole was hardly a player last year. He got stuck in well but his skills were so poor that he rarely was able to dribble out of danger and instead whacked the ball with little intention. He was just lucky on many occassions to have the speedsters up front latch on to a few. He played very well last night, perhaps UVA's best player. Alecko showed his skill, but as someone mentioned, he was marked out of the game until his shadow got a red card. Gibbs was terrible, but he rarely received any decent balls. Zero Midfield is right. I hope that changes so we can watch some entertaining ball this year. Last year was great nearly every time out. Arena still sucks in my opinion. Great in the air, but so many unforced shitty passes. They have to find someone other than him to play center mid- someone who can hold the ball and distribute gracefully. Will be interested to see today's result between Kentucky and Maryland.
I'm curious to hear how the UVA frosh looked....an earlier post mentioned a good showing by Freeman...how about the other two? Also, was Kentucky a dirty team? Did they even try to play soccer, or, did they just go out there to kick people?
Box score of the MD match is on thier website. Whats more impressive about the win is that Stammler and Vitagliano have been converted to defenders, spending most of their playing time as a striker and midfielder last year respectively. Gormley was pretty damn solid last year as a freshman, and the fact that he's now fighting for a starting spot is a great sign for MD.