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WSoc: #1 Stanford 2 #14 UCLA 0 - Printable Version

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WSoc: #1 Stanford 2 #14 UCLA 0 - Viking_Guy - 10-10-2010

Stanford\'s women\'s soccer team won their toughest road match of the season yesterday, beating perennial power UCLA in Los Angeles to complete their first road sweep of LA in 8 years.  With the win, they move to 11-0-2 on the year, with the only two blemishes being road ties against top-4 opponents BC and North Carolina.

Stanford rode first half pressure to this win, generating a PK converted by Christen Press for her nation-leading 16th goal in the 23rd minute, then Mariah Noguiera punched in a loose ball off a corner kick in the 34th.  Stanford played a bit more defensively following the second goal, and UCLA pushed, generating a more even game after halftime.  But the Bruins could never get it in the back of the net.

UW and WSU at home next weekend, then at the Arizonas, then the toughest remaining regular season game at Kal on Saturday Oct. 30.

Makes up a bit for the 5-set loss for volleyball at UCLA last night.

VG


Re: WSoc: #1 Stanford 2 #14 UCLA 0 - washingtonismoney - 10-10-2010

Any sense of how Press\'s goals total is inflated by PKs relative to other leaders? Or, alternatively, any sense of why she hasn\'t been called up to play for the US team\'s? A few UCLA players have, no?

Re: WSoc: #1 Stanford 2 #14 UCLA 0 - Viking_Guy - 10-10-2010

WiM-

Press has two PK conversions this year, and (at last check) was tied atop the scoring leaders with a player from Charleston Southern (um, yeah.  Their schedule, which includes such women\'s athletics powerhouses as the Virginia Military Institute, may have something to do with that).  So I don\'t think she\'s getting any real boost from being the designated PK taker.

As for the national team - don\'t get any women\'s soccer fan started on how the national team gets picked.  It\'s a convoluted world of "Who was their coach at age 14, and did they have the right connections to get their players in the national team pools, training camps, etc." leading into "Are they playing for \'the right\' college team?" leading into "how do their physical abilities fit in with our preferred strategies?"

Basically, kids are fast-tracked onto national sides fairly early, and then they have the "starter" advantage.  Unless someone else becomes dramatically better, or injury intervenes, that inside track is a brobdingnagian advantage.

With Press, I think it\'s a combination of factors, but the preeminent one is probably the WNT preferred style - having a big target player like Abby Wambach up front playing a lot of back to goal. Combine that with her (relatively) slight frame in the rugged world of international soccer, and you can see why she\'s not getting much of a look as yet.

But it also brings to mind two former Cardinal players that I\'ve thought were shafted by the system - Callie Withers and, until recently, Nicole Barnhart.  In both cases, a player who was not a fixture on the youth national teams became an absolute force in college.  With Withers, she always lost out to Aly Wagner, who never made much of an impact on the WNT, but who had been at the heart of the system for her whole career.  Withers, who blossomed at Stanford into a crunching physical midfielder, never really had a shot at displacing her, despite outplaying her every time I saw them on the field together.

With Nicole Barnhart, it was Hope Solo who had the "incumbency advantage." That may be starting to change, but as a keeper, I\'ve always loved Barnhart as a big shot-stopping goalie.  Now she seems to be getting more of the starter minutes, especially coming off a WPS season where she was keeper of the year.

More than you wanted to know, ain\'t it?

VG


Re: WSoc: #1 Stanford 2 #14 UCLA 0 - washingtonismoney - 10-10-2010

Your critique of the women\'s soccer team...sounds really similar to critiques of the men\'s soccer team. Hmm....

Re: WSoc: #1 Stanford 2 #14 UCLA 0 - Viking_Guy - 10-10-2010

At least with the men\'s side, there\'s a lot of opportunities to play at a variety of professional levels, which means there are ways for people to succeed outside the national team system.  The women\'s national side, with really only the WPS as a feeder system, doesn\'t have that.  While there are other women\'s professional leagues, there isn\'t nearly enough high-level competition for an outside to distinguish herself.

VG