How good is Penn St.?

will our girls be able to go to State College and win?



Soccer Rocks:http://sports.tamu.edu/gallery/freevideo/051104-WSO-nebraska.wmv
So does billyball:http://sports.tamu.edu/coaches/gillispie/media/video/2005season.wmv
and just about every other sport in Aggieland...still waiting on football...

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I've said it a hundred times before, and i'll say it again: if we had even a statistically mediocre defense, i'm talking about 60th in the nation, we'd be AT LEAST 7-2 right now.

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Penn St is very good. If our team plays up to their talent and makes very few mistakes we can come away with the win, but it will be difficult.

Penn St. is # 1 in the nation right now and in NCAA, but we are #4 in the NCAA (don't know if that is the same for the nation...).

Its gonna be a great, hard game. I wish it were here. I think its in PA.

quote:

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Penn St. is # 1 in the nation right now and in NCAA, but we are #4 in the NCAA (don't know if that is the same for the nation...).

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We are fourth in our section of the bracket which means we are about 16th overall according to the NCAA. Penn State is #1 in the nation and hasn't lost yet this year (21-0-1).

In other words, its gonna be a tough game, but I believe we can do it. We have more heart than any other team I've seen. Gig 'em girls.

I thought that us being in Penn St's bracket was pretty tough. I'm surprised we were ranked around #16, I thought we'd be at least slightly higher (maybe 13 or so). Oh well, if you want to be the best you've got to beat the best.

A #4 seed is a national #13-16 seed.

ah, gotcha...

BTHO PENN ST.!!!!

Its gonna be an uphill battle but we can do it. I just wish I could be there!

It is ridiculous how similar these teams are statistically. For example:

Goals For/Against:
A&M: 71/19
PSU: 72/18

Goals Against Average:
A&M: 0.81
PSU: 0.80

One area where it is pretty lopsided is that we have outshot PSU by a count of 543-374. I think that we can win if we can just take advantage of our opportunities and not give Penn State too many good looks. Our defense is pretty good about that. I have faith. These girls can do it!


BTHO PSU!!!!!

It's going to be a very tough game and a pretty big upset if we win. At least one of the top 5 victories for our program if we pull it off if not the top victory. Good luck ladies. Hope to see you back at the ASS after Thanksgiving.

This will be a very tough game, especially since it is being played at Penn State. There is something about being undefeated that gives a team an air of invincibility. But I suppose you can look at it this way, the bigger they are the harder they fall.

Records against common opponents:

Penn State
10/21/05 @ Michigan W 4-2
10/23/05 @ Michigan State W 3-0
11/03/05 Michigan L 2-4 PK(2OT, 3-3)
(Big Ten Tournament)

TAMU
9/2/05 @ Michigan State (OT) L 0-1
9/4/05 @ Michigan (2OT) T 1-1

i really think we have a great shot this weekend. if we play our best game, we can undoubtedly hand with them. our defense must play incredible, as they have a very strong attack led by weimer. they will definitely have trouble with kat, pistorious, and garey as well. i have a feeling katie jo will come up huge this game!

gig 'em ags!

I was going to look up those scores against common opponents...thanks. Since the Aggies played those two Michigan teams much earlier in the season, I think that helps our case, as I think our team has improved a lot as the season progressed. PSU may have too. I really think we will have a better and even deeper team next year....but it would be sweet to get to the final 4 this year!

BTHO psu! WHOOP!!

I think that this is a totally different team than the one that struggled in Michigan this past September. We are in a much better place now than we were back then:

All of our healthy freshmen are big-time contributors to this team, and back then they were just getting started. I think that we are much better now than we were then, and hopefully Penn State will look at our struggles against those Big 10 teams and enderestimate us. If we can take advantage of our chances, then we can definitely win.


BTHO Penn State!!!!!

wish we could be there to support them...

http://sports.tamu.edu/gallery/freevideo/051104-WSO-nebraska.wmv
http://sports.tamu.edu/coaches/gillispie/media/video/2005season.wmv

Maybe it was just the game I saw, but something tells me the speed of the back line is going to be our down fall.

ya our D is definitely going to be our weakness... we ALWAYS have a habit of giving up stupid goals to even the crappiest of teams

i agree.

the key will be to score early and often, and own the midfield

http://sports.tamu.edu/gallery/freevideo/051104-WSO-nebraska.wmv
http://sports.tamu.edu/coaches/gillispie/media/video/2005season.wmv

I don't think that I would view our defense as a weakness. One of the girls admitted that she didn't think that they played that great of a game against SMU and I agree that our defenders couldn't keep up with a couple of SMU's forwards, but those forwards definitely had what I would consider excellent speed. Linda may not have blazing speed, but she plays position as well as any sweeper that I have seen us up against and I wouldn't call Linda slow at all. Emily Peterson and Micah both have a ton of speed. Paige can turn it on when she needs to. A big part of the time that SMU was taking advantage of the speed matchup was when Annie was in the game. Annie is a great defender, but I don't think that she has the speed that Emily or Micah does. The defense didn't have their best game on Sunday, but they were also facing a very direct attack that relied almost exclusively on speed, which is not the type of attack that I would expect to see out of Penn State. No doubt that the defense will have to play a great game in order for us to win, but I think that our girls have what it takes.


BTHO Penn State!!!!!

[This message has been edited by bagger05 (edited 11/14/2005 11:49p).]

We got burned repeatedly against Texas.

It was 107 degrees the afternoon we played Texas, and tu was subbing a lot more often than we were.

Not going to happen in Penn.

The game will be broadcast in CS on 1150 AM.

Thank God its on broadcast. The airplane ticket is around $1,200 and there are no convienient flight times in and out of town.

Any video? AUA?

McJulie
So is coaching to blame then?
Or is it the weather?

Either way we looked slow and the tu goals were crap!

win this one, girls, so we all in aggieland can cheer you guys to victory in the nat'l chamionship!

bthotu!
http://sports.tamu.edu/gallery/freevideo/051104-WSO-nebraska.wmv
http://sports.tamu.edu/coaches/gillispie/media/video/2005season.wmv

no one is saying our defense will probably be our weakness based on that one game alone. im talkin all season. we are great at getting up and peppering the goal all day on the other side of the field, but we are TERRIBLE at defending against the quick strike counter attack off the clear.


if we could shoot half as good of a ratio of shots to goals as our opponents do, we'd win every game like 10-1

The one factor that truly kills us is speed. We just aren't a fast team. We have some fast individuals but some weak points as well. When we play against opposing teams with great team speed they get many forward and we sometimes cave under the pressure. If we defend well, when we attempt to counter, they are fast enough to get back and defend.

A better game for this team would be to play a slow controlled attack instead of trying to get forward as quickly as possible. We do string together some passes once in a while and the team looks great when we do. But too often we try to rely on our speed and in the end that is our undoing.

I'm pretty surprised that we ended up on the road against the No. 1 team.... that seems a harsh draw.

But then again, if we win, that should put us in good stead going forward and should also give the team a huge confidence boost.

Gig 'Em!