[Viking_Guy]

#7/5 (TDS/NSCAA rankings) Stanford made fewer mistakes, and came away with a deserved if hard-fought victory over the #13/14 Portland Pilots in women's soccer tonight.

I still haven't found out why, but Maddie Bauer, one of the rocks at central defense who won national player of the week honors from Top Drawer for last week's victories, did not play tonight; I hadn't heard anything about her being injured, so I hope it's nothing serious.  Liedle slid inside to pair with Kendall Romine, and Hannah Farr took her place at right back.  Amack at left back.

It felt a bit like Radcliffe went back to a 4-3-3, with both outside forwards pushed up, rather than the 4-2-3-1 they played against North Carolina, but it was difficult to tell; the live stream from Portland was a relatively low mounted camera that never gave a very wide perspective of the field, so it was difficult to capture multiple lines and off the ball movement.  But Sullivan and Doll were the holding mids, and LaBonta attacking, with Rosen, Chi and Walker-Hartshorn up front.

Cardinal for the most part had their way of it, maintaining by far the lions' share of the possession, and denying the Pilots any consistent offense.  The only real exceptions were two horrendous back passes by Farr that hung Liedle out to dry, one of which led to an endline shot that got through Campbell only to be cleared from the crease by Romine.

Other than that, it was a game predominantly contested in the middle of the pitch.  The only exception was really the last 15 minutes of the first half, and that really came out of a mistake by Portland; their center back let a ball run a little far away from her on a crossing pass, and Chi jumped on it, breaking away down the left side before calmly slotting the ball to the far post.  Uhl then came in and had two wonderful chances, a punch by Portland's keeper that went right to her feet, and a header off a corner kick.  Both times she sent the ball high, but the Pilots were definitely on the back foot heading into halftime.  There was also a ball that fell to Walker-Hartshorn with the keeper out of net, but she couldn't beat a field defender on the line.  Really should have been 2-0; all three chances were there for the taking.

The second half began with Portland's keeper coming out to clear a ball, and it looked like when she jumped to punch she landed on someone else's foot and heavily turned her ankle.  So she had to be replaced 2 minutes into the second half.  But the Cardinal couldn't take advantage.  They seemed content to contest the midfield, not commit heavily forward, and absorb pressure.  It worked, but it surely wasn't pretty.  They even went to a delay game in the corner with more than 3 full minutes left.

What to say?  The video quality wasn't great, but it looked like a lot of what we did against North Carolina; moving the ball well around the back, but making the incisive pass forward, if it wasn't up the sideline, just didn't seem to be happening - again, there seemed to be a disjunction between the forward line and the midfielders, unless the ball was in a tight space wide.  Liedle or Campbell as woman of the match - Campbell, with Bauer missing, was playing a LOT of "sweeper keeper", with the wide backs constantly playing balls back for her to switch or launch long.  Sullivan composed again, but with a couple of bad giveaways.

I don't really like the 4-3-3; what seems to end up happening is that Stanford forwards don't track back very well, and if the midfield is at all out of position, they have no help.

But it's a quality third win, and a fairly dominant one - Portland had two shots on goal.

Contrast that with the men's team, who lost a 2-0 decision at Creighton on Friday only giving up two shots.  Both of them on breakaways, both because a midfielder didn't pick up the ball and let one of the Blue Jays have loads of time to hit a nicely weighted through ball that sprang a player forward.  Stanford had some chances, but didn't convert them.  We'll see if they can improve against Nebraska-Omaha tomorrow.

VG

[Viking_Guy]

#7/5 (TDS/NSCAA rankings) Stanford made fewer mistakes, and came away with a deserved if hard-fought victory over the #13/14 Portland Pilots in women's soccer tonight.

I still haven't found out why, but Maddie Bauer, one of the rocks at central defense who won national player of the week honors from Top Drawer for last week's victories, did not play tonight; I hadn't heard anything about her being injured, so I hope it's nothing serious.  Liedle slid inside to pair with Kendall Romine, and Hannah Farr took her place at right back.  Amack at left back.

It felt a bit like Radcliffe went back to a 4-3-3, with both outside forwards pushed up, rather than the 4-2-3-1 they played against North Carolina, but it was difficult to tell; the live stream from Portland was a relatively low mounted camera that never gave a very wide perspective of the field, so it was difficult to capture multiple lines and off the ball movement.  But Sullivan and Doll were the holding mids, and LaBonta attacking, with Rosen, Chi and Walker-Hartshorn up front.

Cardinal for the most part had their way of it, maintaining by far the lions' share of the possession, and denying the Pilots any consistent offense.  The only real exceptions were two horrendous back passes by Farr that hung Liedle out to dry, one of which led to an endline shot that got through Campbell only to be cleared from the crease by Romine.

Other than that, it was a game predominantly contested in the middle of the pitch.  The only exception was really the last 15 minutes of the first half, and that really came out of a mistake by Portland; their center back let a ball run a little far away from her on a crossing pass, and Chi jumped on it, breaking away down the left side before calmly slotting the ball to the far post.  Uhl then came in and had two wonderful chances, a punch by Portland's keeper that went right to her feet, and a header off a corner kick.  Both times she sent the ball high, but the Pilots were definitely on the back foot heading into halftime.  There was also a ball that fell to Walker-Hartshorn with the keeper out of net, but she couldn't beat a field defender on the line.  Really should have been 2-0; all three chances were there for the taking.

The second half began with Portland's keeper coming out to clear a ball, and it looked like when she jumped to punch she landed on someone else's foot and heavily turned her ankle.  So she had to be replaced 2 minutes into the second half.  But the Cardinal couldn't take advantage.  They seemed content to contest the midfield, not commit heavily forward, and absorb pressure.  It worked, but it surely wasn't pretty.  They even went to a delay game in the corner with more than 3 full minutes left.

What to say?  The video quality wasn't great, but it looked like a lot of what we did against North Carolina; moving the ball well around the back, but making the incisive pass forward, if it wasn't up the sideline, just didn't seem to be happening - again, there seemed to be a disjunction between the forward line and the midfielders, unless the ball was in a tight space wide.  Liedle or Campbell as woman of the match - Campbell, with Bauer missing, was playing a LOT of "sweeper keeper", with the wide backs constantly playing balls back for her to switch or launch long.  Sullivan composed again, but with a couple of bad giveaways.

I don't really like the 4-3-3; what seems to end up happening is that Stanford forwards don't track back very well, and if the midfield is at all out of position, they have no help.

But it's a quality third win, and a fairly dominant one - Portland had two shots on goal.

Contrast that with the men's team, who lost a 2-0 decision at Creighton on Friday only giving up two shots.  Both of them on breakaways, both because a midfielder didn't pick up the ball and let one of the Blue Jays have loads of time to hit a nicely weighted through ball that sprang a player forward.  Stanford had some chances, but didn't convert them.  We'll see if they can improve against Nebraska-Omaha tomorrow.

VG

[Viking_Guy]

Couple more points.

The difference from the UNC game - in this game, the ball went to the forwards, but almost always, they were playing back to goal and laid the ball off straight back again.  In the UNC game, as the Tar Heels play a 3-4-3, the passes being attempted were from the backline or a deep holding midfielder straight forward 30 yards or so (Doll was guilty of this a lot), leading to easy pick offs by the Tar Heels and the ball heading the other way.

2 out of 3 games won because of capitalizing on an opponent's mistake - the keeper error in Chapel Hill and the misplayed pass in central defense today.  It's what good teams do, but I really wish I could've seen the 2 goals in the Duke match, to feel like they can build a successful attack.  To be fair, they did do it in OT vs UNC, with the two balls to the far post before the winner.  But they're both not creating the number of chances that they used to (in terms of shots on goal) and haven't been converting them at too high of a rate.

Left Amack out of my woman of the match pondering, which is an oversight.  She gave the Pilots a lot of trouble down the left flank, but worked back well in support of the makeshift central defense.

[Viking_Guy]

Couple more points.

The difference from the UNC game - in this game, the ball went to the forwards, but almost always, they were playing back to goal and laid the ball off straight back again.  In the UNC game, as the Tar Heels play a 3-4-3, the passes being attempted were from the backline or a deep holding midfielder straight forward 30 yards or so (Doll was guilty of this a lot), leading to easy pick offs by the Tar Heels and the ball heading the other way.

2 out of 3 games won because of capitalizing on an opponent's mistake - the keeper error in Chapel Hill and the misplayed pass in central defense today.  It's what good teams do, but I really wish I could've seen the 2 goals in the Duke match, to feel like they can build a successful attack.  To be fair, they did do it in OT vs UNC, with the two balls to the far post before the winner.  But they're both not creating the number of chances that they used to (in terms of shots on goal) and haven't been converting them at too high of a rate.

Left Amack out of my woman of the match pondering, which is an oversight.  She gave the Pilots a lot of trouble down the left flank, but worked back well in support of the makeshift central defense.

[oldalum]

thanks for the analysis as always.
I saw most of the first half. I am always plagued by having the high-possession teams of 2-4 years ago in my mind, but I thought we had an inordinate number of unforced turnovers in which an errant or intentional pass went right to a Portland player. Seems like that's the kind of sloppy loss of possession that should get cleaned up over time.

[oldalum]

thanks for the analysis as always.
I saw most of the first half. I am always plagued by having the high-possession teams of 2-4 years ago in my mind, but I thought we had an inordinate number of unforced turnovers in which an errant or intentional pass went right to a Portland player. Seems like that's the kind of sloppy loss of possession that should get cleaned up over time.