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WSoc: #1 Stanford def. #6 Penn State, 3-2 - Printable Version

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WSoc: #1 Stanford def. #6 Penn State, 3-2 - fullmetal - 08-24-2012

I couldn't get the Gametracker for this match to work, but I did find a live stats site from the PSU web site (albeit after the game): https://www.athletics.psu.edu/livestats/soccer/

Good gals 3, PSU 2.  Woohoo!

P.S.  I bet Viking_Guy is writing up his game debrief, which I am looking forward to reading :)

Re: WSoc: #1 Stanford def. #6 Penn State, 3-2 - Viking_Guy - 08-24-2012

FM--

Your wish etc. etc.

A tough game, exposing some of Stanford's issues this season, was saved by Stanford reserve keeper Aly Gleason, who came up extremely large on several occasions; glad to see my prediction after last game worked out.  The late goal by Mariah covered up a variety of sins.

In the first half, you saw some of the influence of formation on the game.  Stanford's 4-3-3 faced off against Penn State's 3-5-2, with predictable patterns emerging: Stanford had success going over the top, but not as much trying to move the ball through a sea of bodies at midfield.  So trying to connect through the midfield, or possess the ball up the field, wasn't working really well.  The Nittany Lions, meanwhile, had trouble clearing their own half against Stanford's pressure up top.

A caveat: both teams were missing significant pieces due to U-20 play and injury.  For Stanford, Chioma Ubogagu starts at forward for the U-20s, while Emily Oliver again missed tonight's game between the pipes due to an unspecified injury.  But PSU was arguably missing more: forwards Maya Hayes, who has 4 of the U.S. U-20 team's 5 goals thus far in the World Cup, and Taylor Schram.  Between the two, they had I think 42 goals last year.

This is not to say there weren't chances to be had, but most of them were off of mistakes, set plays and deflections, no real build-ups to a classy finish.

One early chance each way got both keepers action; Natalie Griffen got free on the right side and launched a spinning ball to the far post that the Lion keeper smothered, and Costa for PSU returned the favor when no one closed her down at the top of the area, launching a hard left footed shot that Gleason corralled at the near post.  But you could see what was going on: Penn State had more going on outside the box, but trouble penetrating, while Stanford had trouble getting the ball through, but when they did, they ended up with 1 v 1 and 2 v 2 opportunities.

That didn't help when another slow closeout by Noguiera and Garciamendez at the top of the penalty area led to PSU's Christine Nairn's shot ricocheting up into the air, carrying forward toward the penalty spot.  Neither Garciamendez nor Romine recovered, and Liedle was guarding against a far side run that didn't come, allowing Mallory Weber to walk in alone and take a free header from about 8 yards.  Gleason, in one of her only iffy plays of the night, didn't come out full bore, and a driven ball got over her before she could react.  But the goal was much more on loose defending at the edge of the area and slow reaction to the deflected ball.

Only a few minutes later, Stanford responded, actually getting a bit of build up play and possessing the ball out to an open Laura Liedle just past the half line on the left.  Liedle flighted the ball forward, and Courtney Verloo, instead of trapping, flicked it on, taking just enough off the ball to settle it into the path of an onrushing Alex Doll, who beat her mark to the ball and took advantage of a keeper hanging back to slot the ball in at the far post and knot the score. 

The Cardinal actually did play their style for much of the latter part of the second half, getting a couple of good chances and not conceding much.  Griffen got around the outside to draw a foul, and Quon put in a nice free kick from essentially short corner range, but Kate Bettinger, who had another tough game, sprayed a relatively easy 10 yard open volley attempt high over the bar.  One interesting note: for much of the game, both Noguiera and Garciamendez  were making mostly dummy near-post runs, as the Lions put 2 and 3 defenders on them.  They got a couple more chances on through and diagonal balls against the 3 back formation, but more troublingly, the back line started to turn the ball over, especially Garciamendez and Quon.

In all honesty, Quon had one of the worst games I've seen her play in the last couple of seasons.  Defending a two man front line, she constantly drifted wide and forward, offering little support to Romine inside of her and leaving her alone a number of times, and also getting caught upfield on counter-attacks.  Going forward, unless she had a lot of space, she seemed hesitant to either hit the ball over the top or simply dribble at the defense, hitting intermediate balls that put her teammates under immediate pressure from the 5 man midfield, and on several occasions trying to go inside and turning the ball over directly, leaving acres of space behind her on the right.




Re: WSoc: #1 Stanford def. #6 Penn State, 3-2 - Viking_Guy - 08-24-2012

That was readily apparent in the first major save for Gleason, about 4 minutes into the second half.  Noguiera made a rather lazy slide at a ball to try to keep it in the offensive half, and popped it into the air.  A Lion headed forward to attacking MF Nairn, who ended up in a 3 on 3 with the two forwards vs Romine, Garciamendez and Liedle.  Quon?  She had been 20 yards ahead of Nogueira on the right sideline, sort of just hanging out.  Then Garciamendez stepped forward against Nairn just as Weber cut inside against Liedle, leaving a 15 yard gap in the center of the defense and never getting within 5 yards of the ball, with Romine having to split out against the left forward with no help from Quon (who I saw on the replay, as the play developed, slowly walking backwards as the player she had pushed forward to press ran by her up the field).  Weber came in on Gleason 1v1, and Aly came out to close the angle.  Weber struck the ball low and hard, but got no angle on it, and Gleason got down to block it away to a final clearance by Garciamendez.

Another defensive breakdown on a counterattack, as in the succeeding minutes Stanford had a series of corner kicks.  Gradually, the team moved farther and farther upfield, but on the last one, a ball dropped out to the right of the penalty area.  Verloo dropped off and didn't press the Lion who picked it up, giving her a chance to look up, and pick out that 8 out of 10 Cardinal field players were still within 30 yards of her end line.  She hammered the ball to Weber up the middle, splittling Liedle and Doll and getting in alone against Gleason.  Gleason took away her first shot, so Weber dribbled around her to the left, and pushed the ball toward the uncovered post.  Liedle busted back and cleared it off the line, but it fell directly to Weber again.  When she shot high, Gleason, who had picked herself up and gotten back in the play, dove and pushed the ball out over the endline past the post.

Again, going back to formations: Stanford, in their 4-3-3, likes to emphasize ball possession, and often the first few passes of any possession are around the back, looking for a crease.  Against a 3-5-2, that's not a great strategy; it allows the opponent's MF to get in shape, and close down the easy passing lanes.  The Cardinal, when they tried to counterattack directly, often had better chances.  Case in point, the go-ahead goal.  In the 62 minute, a PSU shot was blocked at the edge of Stanford's area, and Nogueira pushed it up and out to Sydney Payne, who was running with Alex Doll against PSU's 3 backs.  Sydney cut right across the middle, then pushed the ball to Doll on the right wing 1v1.  The ball took a deflection, but Doll collected and cut it back to Payne about 25 yards out.  The three backs were in a line, but the MF had yet to recover, when Payne came across the top of the area and unleashed a left-footed rocket into the far side netting.  Just a beautiful shot that gave the keeper little chance.

Stanford appeared comfortable with the lead, possessing the ball fairly well and keeping their shape across the back; PSU's best chances over the next 10 minutes were long-shot direct passes trying to go over the top.

Then Radcliffe made a really bad move, IMO.  He pulled Verloo, our most effective forward in the absence of Ubogagu, and Bettinger for two more midfielders, and the Cardinal almost looked like they were trying to bunker in and protect the lead in the last 15 minutes.  That's NOT Stanford's game, and they completely ceded the momentum to Penn State.  The Lions almost tied the score off one of a series of corner kicks that Stanford conceded in their unaccustomed shell, but Aly Gleason made a gorgeous sprawling save off a header heading to the upper near corner.

Then came another bad defensive set.  Noguiera tackled a ball away and just over the touch line.  The PSU player got the ball to throw in, and Quon initially moved out to guard her, even though Nogueira was right there getting off the ground.  The Lion throw in went right over Quon's head to a player with her back to goal tightly guarded by Romine.  Quon, late to recover, arrived just as the Lion put a spin move on Romine and toed the ball forward, then fell over Rachel's late-arriving leg.  Penalty kick, slotted home to tie the game with under 7 minutes left.  Ugh.

But that made the denouement all the sweeter.  Some back and forth play, with the end result being a corner for Stanford with just under three minutes left.  Nogueira, instead of making a near-post run as a decoy as she had been most of the game, runs from the far post across the penalty spot about 14 yards out, and gets a gorgeous header on the ball.  No Lion was on the far post, and Mariah put it on the post at ground level with some power from 14 yards out.  But the key was no fewer than FIVE PSU defenders were defending the far post, but none of them were on the line, and they all drifted forward as the cross came in.  Mariah's shot went right over their heads before settling in the far side netting.

The last two minutes passed without incident.

Game ball to Gleason.  I may be biased toward a keeper, but she closed down a lot of Penn State chances, and the 81st minute save on the header was absolute nails.

This team is definitely going to be a work in progress.  I think the Cardinal have a fairly solid backline (although after today, I really wonder if Quon is banged up), and Nogueira, but the outside midfield is contributing little to the game, either offensively or defensively.  Verloo is solid and Sydney Payne has some promise up front, but they really need Ubogagu.  And I for one would like to see some playing time for Maiah Theuer, a really good freshman defender though a bit under-sized at 5'6", with the possibility of pushing up Romine into the role played by Zermuhlen last season, as a second defensive mid playing with Nogueira in a 2-person alignment.  Of course, that still leaves us short a central attacking MF in the Noyola role, and I don't see that player on the side right now.

But I'll take the win, on the road, against a team that walloped former #6 Virginia from the "powerful" ACC on the road (the ACC is to women's soccer as the SEC is to football in terms of hype, albeit with UNC's long dominance as background.  But last year, Florida State got a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament with 6 losses for winning the conference tournament.  UCLA, with one loss, on the road to us, was a #2).

Some other good results tonight, from WVB, men's soccer (looks like the new coach might have been a solid hire), and field hockey.  All in all, not a bad evening for Cardinal sports.

VG

Re: WSoc: #1 Stanford def. #6 Penn State, 3-2 - admin - 08-25-2012

http://thecardboard.org/stanford-1-defeats-penn-state-6-3-2/

Re: WSoc: #1 Stanford def. #6 Penn State, 3-2 - Viking_Guy - 08-25-2012

Yvonne -

Just FYI, the reposting to the blog cut out about 5 paragraphs in the middle; I split the post because it was over the 8000-character limit.  Does that apply to blog posts as well?

VG


Re: WSoc: #1 Stanford def. #6 Penn State, 3-2 - yvonne - 08-25-2012

See my email.

Re: WSoc: #1 Stanford def. #6 Penn State, 3-2 - Spiny_Norman - 08-25-2012

Big Ten network has posted a video report.  Too much talking with not enough highlights.  But you can see 2 of Stanford's 3 scoring plays and also the fantastic 2H saves that VG described.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeUZkov6kow