2018 Season

In an interesting  conference matchup, Pepperdine beat #4 Santa Clara 1-0 in Malibu.

Interesting fact: the Broncos haven’t won there since 1999.  Maybe it’s the narrow pitch.

Or maybe they are distracted by the view.

A perfect Pilot weekend between women's soccer, men's soccer, and volleyball!

I agree with the Geez, Armendariz looked up, saw Taryn, and put the ball right there for her to head it in.

This is one of the games my pre-season simulated ratings said the Pilots should win.  They did.  In terms of the simulated ratings, they have performed at least as well as those ratings said they should in every game and have performed better in a whole bunch.  I'll have more details on that later this week.

A huge weekend coming up in two weeks.  HUGE!

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:A huge weekend coming up in two weeks.  HUGE!

Actually, one of the things I've enjoyed about watching the women this season is that nothing feels HUGE to me. I had low expectations (which they have exceeded), but I still don't expect wins or even competitive performances against the top teams, and I don't expect an NCAA bid. My hope for this season was a team that was enjoyable to watch, scored some goals, and won against the weaker teams they played. They have done that and more. If they make the tournament, OK, but realistically this is not a team that is likely to win the conference or challenge for the final four, so I'm content to enjoy the football and appreciate how far they have come since last year.

Just to put the improvement in perspective statistically,

UP Opp
Goals
2017 11 27 19 games
2018 25 12 15 games

Shots/gm
2017 8.7 15.8
2018 11.5 10.5

Record 5-13-1 vs 10-5-0

The best part of all is that the players appear to be enjoying playing soccer with no one seeming to be restricted in what they are allowed to do. So much different than recent years. They hustle all over the field, someone is always in position to receive a pass, the back line is as solid as ever and the entire team is always pushing forward.

Thank you, Michelle!

ejjqb wrote:Just to put the improvement in perspective statistically,
The best part of all is that the players appear to be enjoying playing soccer with no one seeming to be restricted in what they are allowed to do.  So much different than recent years.  They hustle all over the field, someone is always in position to receive a pass, the back line is as solid as ever and the entire team is always pushing forward.

Thank you, Michelle!

Agreed!

It is striking how loudly and energetically the starters on the field cheer when Michelle's name is introduced. It's far more than the kind of moderate reaction that they have to one another's names. It like every game they are going out of their way to say "We're sooooo glad you're here! Thank you!"

SoreKnees wrote:Actually, one of the things I've enjoyed about watching the women this season is that nothing feels HUGE to me. I had low expectations (which they have exceeded), but I still don't expect wins or even competitive performances against the top teams....

Exactly!!

In general, it has been so much more enjoyable for fans to have no expectations, and then shake their collective heads in wonderment as virtually the same players from last season morph into a new team this year and show improvement in teamwork, confidence and enjoyment as the season progresses.

Somehow, the games this past weekend with the cooler temps and light rain, and slick but slower surface, made for even better soccer and an even more enjoyable time.... the wins were just a bonus, IMO.

SoreKnees wrote:Actually, one of the things I've enjoyed about watching the women this season is that nothing feels HUGE to me. I had low expectations (which they have exceeded), but I still don't expect wins or even competitive performances against the top teams, and I don't expect an NCAA bid. My hope for this season was a team that was enjoyable to watch, scored some goals, and won against the weaker teams they played. They have done that and more. If they make the tournament, OK, but realistically this is not a team that is likely to win the conference or challenge for the final four, so I'm content to enjoy the football and appreciate how far they have come since last year.

Absolutely right, in every respect. Two weeks of practice to come and then the ladies get to test themselves again, against two good teams.

Very tough loss on the road at #7 Santa Clara on a sudden death OT PK (of which I thought the ref call was questionable along with the other PK mentioned below, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) after leading 2-1 through half of the 2nd half, but wow, that was one of the most exciting women's soccer matches I've seen in years. Definitely nothing to be ashamed of.

Santa Clara clearly looked like the dominate team, but props to the Pilots for not giving up and frustrating the Santa Clara offense throughout the match. Lusby and the defense gets extra props for some spectacular saves, one being off a PK by a Bronco who apparently is part of the national Mexico team with 20 seconds left in regulation.

Santa Clara commentator mistook the Bronco Pep Band for the Villa Drum Squad for part of the match, to which me thought "They are showing too little skin and not cheering loud enough (if at all) to be Villa Drum Squad".

Thanks for the write-up!

I have to agree that losing 3-2 in OT to the #7 team in the country on their home field is still a good result. I always want to beat Santa Clara, but this is progress. Aside from the BYU game, all of our losses have been by one goal.

Yes, the Pilots were in the game to the end. This is one the pre-season trends said they should lose massively. It's really great progress.

There's another tough opponent coming up on Sunday, San Francisco. They played to a 1-1 tie last night with Gonzaga.

GO PILOTS!

-It was clearly evident why SC’s #7 Maria Sanchez is on the Mexican National team.  Regardless of whether she faced one or two defenders, when she went to the corner with the ball, she usually worked her way around or through the defenders to cause a dangerous situation.  She was very impressive.

-When UP play Saint Mary’s, I enjoyed watching the Pilot passing.  Wide spacing, releasing the ball before the defender got close, enjoyable to watch.  But when faced with better quality opponents like BYU and SC, I think the passing game came up a bit short.

Both of those teams (BYU & SC) moved the ball well and kept a lot of pressure on the Pilot defense.  Many times the Pilot defenders would kick the ball away just to get it out of danger.  No problem.  Some times the Pilots would get the ball and kick it downfield in hopes of getting it to a teammate breaking downfield.  No problem.  Other times, the Pilots would corral the ball and start to head upfield with it.  That is when their passing touch seemed to disappear.  They weren’t necessarily under pressure, they often had room to maneuver and to pass, but woefully few of their passes made it to the feet of a teammate.  Just my observation.

-That said, the Pilots are fun to watch.  They may not generate as many offensive opportunities as BYU or SC, but they are getting several good looks each game.  And I like the hustle on the field, often applying high pressure.

-Olivia Dendinger consistently gets good reviews from the play-by-play announcers for her performance during the matches.

Anyone watching the stream from USF? Surely there are some former USF players who could do a better job than these guys.

Another tough 3-2 loss. It looked to be a difficult weekend, based on trends coming into the season, and it was. (San Fran has been a program on the rise.) Nevertheless, I'm still heartened, these were two close games, which shouldn't have been expected at the beginning of the season. I'm really looking forward to having the ladies at home for two games next weekend.

If you remember, before the season began I suggested fans not have too high expectations. That continues to be a good suggestion, but credit to the ladies, they've far exceeded what would have been reasonable expectations.

-My comment about poor passing from an earlier game also applies to the SF game.

-Good to see Rachel Khaw on the field.  She doesn’t seem to as aggressive as some of the other starters.  I’d guess she just needs a bit more self-confidence, which should come with more playing time.

-I like that Ries can play with her back to the goal.  We haven’t had someone like that since Sophie Schmidt.

-I also like that the team didn’t give up when they went down a couple of goals on two different occasions in the 2nd half.

Pilots win tonight vs Loyola Marymount, 1-0 on a second half goal by Jasmine Garibay. The write-up on the Pilots website is a pretty good description of the game.

All of the prognosticators, including teams' historic trended ratings, had LMU ranking well ahead of the Pilots, so this is one more game in which the Pilots have outperformed reasonable pre-season expectations. (For some reason, LMU has under-performed as much as the Pilots have over-performed.)

Way to go Pilots!

Sunday's match against Pepperdine was a tough one. The Waves, to me, seemed like one of the better teams we've faced. Still, it could have been 0-0, but for a PK given up on what seemed like an unnecessary challenge and a worm burner that I'm sure Rachel was not happy about not blocking it (could have been she was looking directly into the sun, which for a brief time was straight into her face). This was a game the pre-season ratings had as a definite loss, so the Pilots' current out-performance of the pre-season ratings remains undiminished.

Good luck to the ladies this Saturday against Gonzaga. Wish I could be there.

We finished the season 11-9 overall with a 4-5 record in the WCC.

1) I really appreciated and will continue to look forward to UPSF's summaries of the matches compared to the modeling.

2) From my amateur eye, I would say this season is somewhat of a success. We appear to have improved with mostly just the players we had on the team last year.

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:We finished the season 11-9 overall with a 4-5 record in the WCC.

1) I really appreciated and will continue to look forward to UPSF's summaries of the matches compared to the modeling.

2) From my amateur eye, I would say this season is somewhat of a success. We appear to have improved with mostly just the players we had on the team last year.

I agree with both of these points.

The same players who lost almost every match last year were not going to come out and win the league this year. Given that, this year's performance was very strong.

Our recruiting for this year class was determined mostly one or more years in advance, and any new-coach bump from possible last-minute additions was doomed because we didn't hire the new coach until several months after the season.

For the last few seasons, our recruiting classes have been basically FC Portland plus a few. Can we do better? It used to be much fun on this site to speculate about top recruits and visit the recruiting site to see which awesome young players were deciding to come to Portland. It would be fun to get that back, as the men have done in the last few years. Competition in recruiting seems to be much greater now, with more of the big athletic departments taking women's soccer seriously. It will take 3-4 years to see if the new staff is able to begin to attract the kind of national-quality recruits that Clive (and Garrett initially) used to get. I'm cautiously optimistic that Michelle will be able to tell a compelling story about her program (and the history, facilities, and support should help). If so, then we should be challenging to get back to the levels we attained 10-20 years ago.

First, regarding the loss to Gonzaga, it was a tough one, but was in accord with the pre-season indications.

Second, the numbers say that from where they were at the end of last year, the Pilots had a spectacular season. I have some work yet to do to determine how spectacular, and when I'm done I'll report it. And, if I can figure out how to post it, I'll have a very nice chart that will show just how deep the hole was that the Pilots were in and how well they've done so far at climbing out of it.

Kudos to Coach French and her staff on an unexpectedly competitive season. Looking forward to more of the same next year.

Regardless of what the final numbers tell us, this season was such a huge improvement over the last several years in terms of obvious player enjoyment while on the pitch, player appreciation for their coach, the freedom that the players finally were given to perform with some originality and have some fun again. Thanks to Michelle for making the Pilots fun to watch again. I am looking forward to even better things to come in the future with this team. And thanks so much to UPSF for putting the season in an even better perspective for us.