Women's Soccer - 2015

[VULB#62]

The Women' World Cup is in the quarter finals and the VUWSO 2015 schedule is out. Beside the normal HL 9 games it is quite ambitious and includes Notre Dame and Northwestern among a lot of good D-I opponents. Our women are the defending HL champs.  Here's hoping for a repeat. 

[agibson]

Absolutely.  I love the Notre Dame rematch!  Was a heck of a game at their place.  Notre Dame legitimately seemed relieved to escape.  And the Valpo crowd was fantastic.  Home crowd for sure.  Still a shame they took away VUMSO's drum.  Hope they got it back.

Nice to get a few non-conf home games as well - Avery's got his boys almost exclusively on the road.

[VULB#62]

Absolutely.  I love the Notre Dame rematch!  Was a heck of a game at their place.  Notre Dame legitimately seemed relieved to escape.  And the Valpo crowd was fantastic.  Home crowd for sure.  Still a shame they took away VUMSO's drum.  Hope they got it back.

Nice to get a few non-conf home games as well - Avery's got his boys almost exclusively on the road.

Difference twixt men's and women's sports I would presume.

[agibson]

Difference twixt men's and women's sports I would presume.

You're thinking a difference in travel $$? Or some sort of scheduling difference?

[VULB#62]

Thinking similar to the Biggies vs. mid major BB scheduling dilemma - - the biggies don't want to go to "lesser" venues.  So smaller programs must come there to show respect (ala the Godfather  )  Women's sports (currently) don't have that much ego involved -- just my opinion.

[agibson]

Thinking similar to the Biggies vs. mid major BB scheduling dilemma - - the biggies don't want to go to "lesser" venues.  So smaller programs must come there to show respect (ala the Godfather  )  Women's sports (currently) don't have that much ego involved -- just my opinion.

Ah, I gotcha.  You may be correct.

That said, the women are on the road to play Notre Dame and Northwestern. Highest profile home game might be Indiana State?  But, I'm not so sure of my soccer power teams.

For the men, some of it is the phase of home-and-away agreements. So, Western Illinois came here last year, we go there this year.  (We had four non-conf home games last year, including Dayton.)  I don't know why we're at IUPUI two years in a row. I wonder if scheduling the field might sometimes be difficult?  Not sure who practices where, but men's soccer, football, and now women's soccer all use Brown Field for games.

I assume that some of the women's/men's difference is just that Avery wants tough games, and has to go on the road to get them (maybe the women would too, to get the same caliber... _maybe_ not).  At Indiana (exhibition). At Kentucky, at Cincinnati, at New Mexico, at Michigan.  Hopefully they're up to the challenge! They've certainly played giant killer before, including recently.  And Avery seems very excited about the new additions coming in.  Should be a good season for both teams!

P.S.  Odd that Belmont is Horizon League for _men's_ soccer only.

[VULB#62]

P.S.  Odd that Belmont is Horizon League for _men's_ soccer only.

Thought it odd as well.  The OVC does not have MSO so they needed a home.  But would have thought that they might have stayed in the Atlantic Sun for just that one sport.  But then the A-Sun may have said all or nuthin.  At the time of the HL/Belmont MSO agreement, I think there might have been hope that the HL could convince Belmont to leave the OVC and join the HL.  Doesn't seem that'll happen.  The A-Sun has been jilted by BU and NKU recently and scrambled to pick up NJ Institute of Technology to stay at 8 members.  They stretch from NJ to FL. I suppose that even with trips to UWM and GB there are more bus trips than plane rides.

[valpopal]

Checked out the home opener exhibition 1-0 tough loss to Central Michigan today. The only goal came on a yellow card free kick that just got by Barrett, one of our freshman goalkeepers, in an upper corner of the net. Though the temperature was a humid 90 degrees, it felt good to see the athletic season begin again on campus.

[agibson]

As I mentioned in the other thread, I thought we looked pretty dominant in the first 30 minutes (first of three periods; adjusted format because of the heat?) when, near as I could tell, we had most of our "starters" in.

Ending that period, the goal was basically a fluke - completely against the run of play.  And, I was pretty confident that if we kept that lineup we'd have an excellent chance of scoring a couple.  We were very much in charge during that first period.

My guess is that, being an exhibition and pre-season, winning wasn't our primary goal.  I don't know our roster _so_ well, but it seemed like we never really got back to such a "starter-heavy" lineup as the first 30 minutes.  (Though I did have to leave maybe 10 minutes early; perhaps we pushed for a win at the end.)  We did have some excellent chances later on in the game.  But, it was more balanced overall than the first 30.

So, a little hard to evaluate, at least for my fairly naive eyes.  Definitely some exciting possibilities.  It'd be fun to follow them to Notre Dame this Friday, a repeat of our NCAA match from last year (lost on a goal in about the 90th minute), but alas, it's not in the cards for me.

[agibson]

6:30 PM central at Notre Dame tonight, great way to open the season.  Apparently Notre Dame will have video (blurb from the game notes copied below).

The ladies are also essentially the unanimous #1 in the Horizon League pre-season poll.

They didn't advertise it in quite the usual way, but Jon Maravich, ValpoWSO's coach, also has the inaugural Valpo Coach's Show.  (He wasn't allowed to vote for his own team, and chose to vote for Oakland.)

http://youtu.be/LJn51s6HH2A

Following the Crusaders: Both matches this weekend will have live stats available through ValpoAthletics.com. while Friday's match will have a free live video broadcast from Notre Dame as well. Over the course of the 2015 season, seven home matches will be broadcast live on ESPN3.com, while WVUR, Valpo's student radio station, will also be broadcasting select matches.

[agibson]

[I can never remember how to embed those... A little googling suggest that maybe youtube links are meant to auto-embed?]

[agibson]

6-0 loss.  Which, frankly, is about what I was expecting from the NCAA game last year.  Even driving to South Bend with the kids last year, I was warning them in the car, "We'll root for a win, but we'll not be disappointed by a close game, and it might not be so close..."  I might have even been happy at 2-0, or 3-0 last year, so was certainly delighted that ND's only goal came in the 89th or 90th minute.

Hard to know what to read into the result, this early in the season.

I was surprised to see Moulton go 90 in goal.  Is Syndey hurt or something?  They'd been playing the freshmen in exhibitions, but I'd sort of assumed that was to get them some minutes, not expecting many in the season.  (Even if that would seem a risky strategy, since presumably you'd want your defensive unit to get some reps in...)  It did seem like she wasn't dressed for the exhibition, maybe even running back and forth to the press box?

[agibson]

And, of course, recall this is #9 Notre Dame.  An elite team, to be sure.  So, a loss is no shame.  Of course, noone likes to lose 6-0.

Same starting 11 today at Northwestern.  Including freshmen Moulton in goal, Oliver in defense.

[valpotx]

Yes, I had figured that we would lose the NCAA tourney game by that score.  No shame in losing to an elite team in women's soccer by 6.  The have and have nots in women's soccer have a very large difference in quality, similar to women's basketball.

[VULB#62]

VU WSO open the real season by taking down Miami (O) 2-nil.

[vu72]

VU WSO open the real season by taking down Miami (O) 2-nil.

Very good win on the road over a team picked to finish second in their division of the MAC.

[VULB#62]

They were 2-0 vs. WKU and Vandy.  Lost to Purdue 2-0 in an exhibition.

I'm thinking that the 0-6 ND blowout was an aberration due to substitutions and combination try-outs.

This was the first start for Sydney Galvez-Daley in goal.

Stat  VALPO  MIAMI
Shots    5   15
SOG      4   2
Corners  3   7
Fouls     5   8

Scoring Summary
Player Assist Time
CRAVEN, Rita None 26:49
CRONIN, April None 53:08

Red Hawk release:
http://www.muredhawks.com/sports/w-soccer/recaps/082815aaa.html

We apparently came into Oxford with the classic visitor bend-don't-break game plan and executed it well. Way to go women!

[agibson]

It's all on the line tonight, in the last regular season game of the season.

If Wright State finishes off Detroit in the second half, currently underway, a draw against Cleveland State tonight is enough to get Valpo 6th place and into the Horizon League tournament.

Historically we're 10-1 against Cleveland State, so hopefully that helps.

It seems like the team's struggled to find the lock-down defensive form of last season, with several players shifting positions through the season, and from last season to this.  And, the injury bug has bitten late in the season.  So, we'll see.

A win gets us 6th for sure, and 5th unless Detroit pulls out a win.

ESPN3 at 7 PM http://es.pn/1P2EkNr (the ESPN3-Valpo coverage of the men's game Wednesday was... not bad at all; the officiating is another matter. Hopefully the broadcast quality is similar for the women)

Or, come on out to Brown Field!

[vu72]

Great dominating win!!  On to the tourney!!

[agibson]

Win or go home time for the ladies.  On the road at Wright State in the first round of the HL tourney.  It's on the ESPN3 schedule, so a link should appear later today. 6:00 PM central kick.

With our #1 keeper out with a concussion, freshman Drew Moulton stepped in Friday and did a very reasonable job.  Both freshman keepers got some minutes early in the season, and surely that's paying off now.  (I'd assumed that it was related to Syndey G-D's off-season hip surgery, but who knows? Maybe it was strategic.)

The regular season match-up against Wright State was a 1-1 tie that it felt like Valpo should have won.  Checking the box, SOG differential was 11-3.  Corner Kicks 13-0.

Hopefully that gives VUWSO some confidence going into tonight's game.

[agibson]

Here's the link
http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index/_/id/2694853/valparaiso-vs-wright-state-w-soccer#type/upcoming/
or maybe
http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index/_/id/2694853/valparaiso-vs-wright-state-w-soccer

[agibson]

Valpo loses 2-1.

In the half I watched closely, the first, Valpo had a lot of the ball but never looked _all_ that dangerous.  (Then ESPN3 glitched, I should learn not to try to skip through halftime, perhaps, and spoiled the result, so I only watched pieces of the second half.)  A couple of near chances, where a good cross went into a box with no Valpo players, or there was a player there but they couldn't quite connect.

Fitting that senior Sarah Ludwig, reinvented as a center back this season, scored her first goal of the season in the closing minutes. Mirroring her career, it was with her head. A sharply taken header, nicely done.

I'm no goalkeeper of any kind, so I sort of hate to speculate. I have a ton of respect and sympathy for our freshman keeper who had to step up for our injured #1.  But, I do wonder if both goals might have been saved.  The first was a looping shot from 25 or 30 yards out, into the top of the net.  GK was off her line, but then seemed frozen.  Maybe she was too far off to do anything about it, and you just commend a well-taken shot.  But, I wondered if she could have made a play on it.

Second was near post, on the ground, through a tight gap between GK and the post. Again, maybe it was too quick a shot for anyone's reflexes to allow them to get down on the ground for it. But, it made me wonder if a more experienced keeper might have gotten a touch on it.

Maybe it's unfair, and my mind only speculates because I know our reserve keeper doesn't have much NCAA game experience.

And, of course, defense is a team affair. No one can score if they can't get a shot off.

It felt like a season where the defense never quite found its shape.  Where a lot of players were playing in new positions, perhaps out of position, and things didn't quite click.

But, a fun ride for sure.  Congratulations to the seniors on a memorable four years! And, I'm looking forward to the next.

[vu72]

I think soccer is pretty much done as the men aren't going to make the tourney (I think)

[FWalum]

I think soccer is pretty much done as the men aren't going to make the tourney (I think)

If Cleveland State loses to first place UIC and VU beats 8th place Green Bay then we would still make the tournament.... I think.

[agibson]

I think soccer is pretty much done as the men aren't going to make the tourney (I think)

If Cleveland State loses to first place UIC and VU beats 8th place Green Bay then we would still make the tournament.... I think.

I think there are scenarios involving ties that can work too.  Not any kind of a done deal.

Let me put it on the other thread
http://www.valpofanzone.com/forum/index.php?topic=2204.msg62089#msg62089

But, it's definitely not over.