[Spiny_Norman]

I have already deleted the football game from my DVR.  That means I have purged it from my memory. Let's turn our attention to other sports.

While the Corvallis Almost Halloween Nightmare was going on, #1 ranked women's soccer was earning a HU.GE win at #6 UCLA, 1-0.  The team now faces an even tougher foe on Sunday - #5 U.SC.  The Literature's Most Famous Losers are the defending national champs and they are the last Pac 12 team to defeat Stanford.  Stanford has a 14 match winning streak and has not been scored on in 773 minutes.  If Stanford wants to secure a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament, they need to win this match.

#2 ranked WVB is running away with the Pac 12 at the halfway mark of the conference season.  They are 3 games up in the standings with 10 to play.  They are at Arizona and ASU this weekend.

The #5 Stanford men's soccer team has 3 home matches remaining in the regular season, starting with UCLA next Thursday.

The first ranking for swimming has been released.  Unsurprisingly, defending NC Stanford WSwim is #1.  Men are #4.

As the fall golf season comes to a close next week, Stanford women are #5.  And Andrea Lee is the #1 ranked individual in the country.

ADD - earlier today, #5 MXC won the Pac 12 meet for the 1st time since 2010!  They edged #4 Colorado and #8 Oregon.  The West Regional (which determines NCAA qualifiers) is in 2 weeks.

To quote Buck/Cardinal Club board member Tom Wong, Go Stanford - beat everybody!!

[Spiny_Norman]

I have already deleted the football game from my DVR.  That means I have purged it from my memory. Let's turn our attention to other sports.

While the Corvallis Almost Halloween Nightmare was going on, #1 ranked women's soccer was earning a HU.GE win at #6 UCLA, 1-0.  The team now faces an even tougher foe on Sunday - #5 U.SC.  The Literature's Most Famous Losers are the defending national champs and they are the last Pac 12 team to defeat Stanford.  Stanford has a 14 match winning streak and has not been scored on in 773 minutes.  If Stanford wants to secure a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament, they need to win this match.

#2 ranked WVB is running away with the Pac 12 at the halfway mark of the conference season.  They are 3 games up in the standings with 10 to play.  They are at Arizona and ASU this weekend.

The #5 Stanford men's soccer team has 3 home matches remaining in the regular season, starting with UCLA next Thursday.

The first ranking for swimming has been released.  Unsurprisingly, defending NC Stanford WSwim is #1.  Men are #4.

As the fall golf season comes to a close next week, Stanford women are #5.  And Andrea Lee is the #1 ranked individual in the country.

ADD - earlier today, #5 MXC won the Pac 12 meet for the 1st time since 2010!  They edged #4 Colorado and #8 Oregon.  The West Regional (which determines NCAA qualifiers) is in 2 weeks.

To quote Buck/Cardinal Club board member Tom Wong, Go Stanford - beat everybody!!

[JJJ]

Thanks, I needed this.
(And I've deleted the game from my DVR too!)
:P

[JJJ]

Thanks, I needed this.
(And I've deleted the game from my DVR too!)
:P

[CornFed]

I deleted my recording while I was watching the 2nd half.  :-[

[CornFed]

I deleted my recording while I was watching the 2nd half.  :-[

[CTcard]

#1 ranked women's soccer was earning a HU.GE win at #6 UCLA, 1-0. 

Did anyone here watch this game and have comments?

I caught the very end of it after the football game. The announcers seemed to be describing the game as a poor performance by Stanford but one in which they gutted out/fluked out a win.
Outside of a replay that showed a possibly mistaken no-goal call on a ball that caromed off the Stanford crossbar, I am not sure how true that may be.

[CTcard]

#1 ranked women's soccer was earning a HU.GE win at #6 UCLA, 1-0. 

Did anyone here watch this game and have comments?

I caught the very end of it after the football game. The announcers seemed to be describing the game as a poor performance by Stanford but one in which they gutted out/fluked out a win.
Outside of a replay that showed a possibly mistaken no-goal call on a ball that caromed off the Stanford crossbar, I am not sure how true that may be.

[Viking_Guy]

CTC--

DVRed it, and watched after having to sit through that travesty of a football game, hoping for a more satisfying game.

Sort of.

Stanford dominated the opening run of both the game and the second half, but really faltered later on - the last 25 minutes of the first half, and especially the last 15 of the game.  The ball of the crossbar was iffy - I couldn't detect any "green" between the ball and the line on the slowest replay I saw.  Stanford also had a header by Carusa bicycled off the line, but not as close.

Toward the tail end of the initial period of Cardinal on the front foot in the first half, Stanford drew a corner.  Boissiere served it into the box, and Alana Cook headed down a ball that had pinballed a bit, squirting it through right to the odds-defying feet of DiBiasi, who always seems to be in the right spot; she had a headed goal off a Macario shot deflecting off the post on the bounce and right back into Jordan's run.  She poked it home at the near post, and Stanford led 1-0 in the 29th minute.

The Bruins really amped up the pressure for the remainder of the first half, especially in the midfield.  Stanford found no joy in the middle of the park against the Bruins' talented (and slightly bigger) midfielders, and Stanford was forced up the sidelines for a large portion of the latter 2/3rds of the match.

After half, Stanford had another run of good play for the opening 15 minutes, then 15 minutes of free-for-all, then 15 minutes where it really felt like the Cardinal was playing with desperation - lots of long clearances into touch, lots of trying route one over the top of the defense.  The problem is, with the exception of Macario, Stanford is not overly fast - Xiao is quick, and Kiki Pickett is lightning fast, but both of them can be easily bodied off the ball, and Kiki has a tendency to try to use her speed to sprint by defenders, or over-dribbles into them.  But up front, teams don't have to be overly conscientious about covering the ball in behind the defense (to be fair, also because Stanford is normally not a direct-playing team).

UCLA's Hallie Mace is going to be a problem - tall, fast striker who got behind Stanford's defense all of 11 seconds into the match and scuffed a good look.  She was the one who hammered the crossbar and down that could've gone either way.

Beyond the goal/no goal call, the officiating was eh.  There was a yellow card on Madison Haley for a slide where she slid between the other player and the ball to hook it away, got to the ball first, and the Bruin tripped over the leg that was on the ground in contact with the ball.  All in all, the central ref seemed to buy more to the ground calls from the Bruins, and yet, I saw one two-handed shove of Andi Sullivan off the ball late when she was approaching the top of the UCLA area that wasn't deemed a foul.  17 fouls on Stanford to only 8 on the Bruins.  Hmm.

So no, it wasn't a redemptive watching experience following the Coronary in Corvallis.

Player of the match, no doubt - Jahansouz in goal.  Several times the Bruins got in behind the defense after the initial foray.  In the 70th minute, a UCLA corner went to a completely unmarked Gabi Matulich at the far corner of the six-yard box, and she hammered a header just under the bar.  Jahansouz tipped it over. She also stopped another ball when a Bruin got in behind and tried a redirect one-touch, and several times had to fearlessly dive for a loose ball in the box or to tip one away.

All in all, it felt a little more deserved than the win against OSU, but also almost as fortunate a result.

$C is going to be a tussle - they are fast and physical, and Stanford really doesn't like playing against teams that pressure them and prevent them from knocking the ball around, which is definitely what the Toejams do and what UCLA did for portions of their game.  But it will be the game for the Pac-12 championship, I think.  3:00 pm Sunday on the network.

VG

[Viking_Guy]

CTC--

DVRed it, and watched after having to sit through that travesty of a football game, hoping for a more satisfying game.

Sort of.

Stanford dominated the opening run of both the game and the second half, but really faltered later on - the last 25 minutes of the first half, and especially the last 15 of the game.  The ball of the crossbar was iffy - I couldn't detect any "green" between the ball and the line on the slowest replay I saw.  Stanford also had a header by Carusa bicycled off the line, but not as close.

Toward the tail end of the initial period of Cardinal on the front foot in the first half, Stanford drew a corner.  Boissiere served it into the box, and Alana Cook headed down a ball that had pinballed a bit, squirting it through right to the odds-defying feet of DiBiasi, who always seems to be in the right spot; she had a headed goal off a Macario shot deflecting off the post on the bounce and right back into Jordan's run.  She poked it home at the near post, and Stanford led 1-0 in the 29th minute.

The Bruins really amped up the pressure for the remainder of the first half, especially in the midfield.  Stanford found no joy in the middle of the park against the Bruins' talented (and slightly bigger) midfielders, and Stanford was forced up the sidelines for a large portion of the latter 2/3rds of the match.

After half, Stanford had another run of good play for the opening 15 minutes, then 15 minutes of free-for-all, then 15 minutes where it really felt like the Cardinal was playing with desperation - lots of long clearances into touch, lots of trying route one over the top of the defense.  The problem is, with the exception of Macario, Stanford is not overly fast - Xiao is quick, and Kiki Pickett is lightning fast, but both of them can be easily bodied off the ball, and Kiki has a tendency to try to use her speed to sprint by defenders, or over-dribbles into them.  But up front, teams don't have to be overly conscientious about covering the ball in behind the defense (to be fair, also because Stanford is normally not a direct-playing team).

UCLA's Hallie Mace is going to be a problem - tall, fast striker who got behind Stanford's defense all of 11 seconds into the match and scuffed a good look.  She was the one who hammered the crossbar and down that could've gone either way.

Beyond the goal/no goal call, the officiating was eh.  There was a yellow card on Madison Haley for a slide where she slid between the other player and the ball to hook it away, got to the ball first, and the Bruin tripped over the leg that was on the ground in contact with the ball.  All in all, the central ref seemed to buy more to the ground calls from the Bruins, and yet, I saw one two-handed shove of Andi Sullivan off the ball late when she was approaching the top of the UCLA area that wasn't deemed a foul.  17 fouls on Stanford to only 8 on the Bruins.  Hmm.

So no, it wasn't a redemptive watching experience following the Coronary in Corvallis.

Player of the match, no doubt - Jahansouz in goal.  Several times the Bruins got in behind the defense after the initial foray.  In the 70th minute, a UCLA corner went to a completely unmarked Gabi Matulich at the far corner of the six-yard box, and she hammered a header just under the bar.  Jahansouz tipped it over. She also stopped another ball when a Bruin got in behind and tried a redirect one-touch, and several times had to fearlessly dive for a loose ball in the box or to tip one away.

All in all, it felt a little more deserved than the win against OSU, but also almost as fortunate a result.

$C is going to be a tussle - they are fast and physical, and Stanford really doesn't like playing against teams that pressure them and prevent them from knocking the ball around, which is definitely what the Toejams do and what UCLA did for portions of their game.  But it will be the game for the Pac-12 championship, I think.  3:00 pm Sunday on the network.

VG

[Viking_Guy]

A couple more thoughts:

This is what Stanford and Ratcliffe are - they are extremely skilled, move the ball well, and work hard.  But they tend to be undersized, and can fall victim to teams that have the horses to simply run at them and beat them physically ($C, Florida), or are content to bunker and good enough to make it work (Santa Clara last year).  Last night, UCLA dominated the midfield for large portions of the game, with Stanford limited to the 10 yards nearest the touchlines, or long balls over the top.  So I'm really interested in seeing what McAlpine has in store.  And we shouldn't forget, they're the defending NCAA champs as well.

That said, I was hoping for a bit more from Macario last night, but UCLA did something smart - they bracketed her, and left single coverage on Carusa and Xiao.  Carusa had a wide-open run from a Macario feed in the first half, one on one vs. the keeper from a narrow but very makeable angle, and sent it wide across the face of goal.  The Bruins were content to keep Stanford out of the center channel and force them outside the posts, and the Cardinal didn't react well to the narrow angles.  As it was, the UCLA pressure led to a lot of "back to goal" play from Macario and Haley, just trying to knock down and hold up the ball to relieve some of the pressure on the Stanford backline.  For the most part, it worked, but it kept the Cardinal from applying consistent pressure, especially in the last 15 minutes.  There were a whole lot of 2-3 Stanford players against 6 defenders sequences.

VG

[Viking_Guy]

A couple more thoughts:

This is what Stanford and Ratcliffe are - they are extremely skilled, move the ball well, and work hard.  But they tend to be undersized, and can fall victim to teams that have the horses to simply run at them and beat them physically ($C, Florida), or are content to bunker and good enough to make it work (Santa Clara last year).  Last night, UCLA dominated the midfield for large portions of the game, with Stanford limited to the 10 yards nearest the touchlines, or long balls over the top.  So I'm really interested in seeing what McAlpine has in store.  And we shouldn't forget, they're the defending NCAA champs as well.

That said, I was hoping for a bit more from Macario last night, but UCLA did something smart - they bracketed her, and left single coverage on Carusa and Xiao.  Carusa had a wide-open run from a Macario feed in the first half, one on one vs. the keeper from a narrow but very makeable angle, and sent it wide across the face of goal.  The Bruins were content to keep Stanford out of the center channel and force them outside the posts, and the Cardinal didn't react well to the narrow angles.  As it was, the UCLA pressure led to a lot of "back to goal" play from Macario and Haley, just trying to knock down and hold up the ball to relieve some of the pressure on the Stanford backline.  For the most part, it worked, but it kept the Cardinal from applying consistent pressure, especially in the last 15 minutes.  There were a whole lot of 2-3 Stanford players against 6 defenders sequences.

VG