Echoing the comments above, the biggest concern coming out of the weekend might be the backline and the continuous unforced stupid turnovers in our defensive third of the field, thereby setting up easy scoring chances for the opponent. They had another 2 ridiculous giveaways in the back again. We are trying to play out of the back a little too much instead of Morche just kicking it downfield and letting our fast forwards get onto the ball with the midfield behind them to help. The 3 back formation is just not sustainable. I hope they prove me wrong this season and continue to shutout teams (with a lot of help from Morche) but when we start facing true offensive threats who can score we could get embarrassed back there.
The midfield played much, much better tonight overall, especially in the first 20 minutes of the match. They were much more aggressive and focused and the passing was more accurate for the most part. There are still some errant passes forward to no one instead of at a teammates' feet (Piper had several of them), but I was encouraged with their improvement. Now, San Diego was nowhere near the level of BYU in the middle of the field and that had something to do with it as well, but the communication was better and even Kendall Bates played much more under control. I do think that Emily Bates will need to be more assertive than just a handful of times in a match as she disappears for long stretches. And as a group they did get back to defend quite a bit, with Lopez having some great defensive stops in the first half. For some reason McCain is not starting, but she did play a lot off the bench and scored on a PK, although she passed up an easy shot in front of goal for an extra pass that resulted in nothing.
Watt finally made some aggressive runs right at the defense and she scored a nice goal by blowing past the backline in the first half. She needs to trust her speed more and stretch the defense because there is no defensive player in the United States that can stay with her at a full sprint. She is taking more long distance shots, but I don't mind those as much because they are usually dangerous shots that have a chance to score. Asdis did get the start tonight up top in place of Crabtree and she is continuing to improve; I think she will start scoring some goals once she builds the chemistry with Watt. Rheagan Smith didn't play as well as she did on Friday but I still like her to play more minutes and she develops.
So San Diego was worst than I thought and they lost to a bad Georgia team last week as well. They are most likely looking at a losing season so this wasn't a game we should have been hanging on to a 1-0 lead late in the match. We need to put teams like this away early in matches when they don't have the athletes to stay in the game with us. Oklahoma is next and they are not a good team either so we won't learn anything about the team there. However, a very good Santa Clara team will be at Ellis Field next Sunday night and that will tell us a lot about this year's team's chances of making the tournament. I feel a bit relieved that maybe Friday was just a bad game for us, but we won't be able to hide anything against the Broncos as I think they will be the best team we face this regular season.
