2012 Husker Women's Soccer season thread

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HuskerFanChuck

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Hope this is okay with the mods to start this for the year. Thought I'd kick it off, since the ladies kick it off up in South Dakota on Friday with an exhibition against South Dakota State.

Can't wait to see the ladies in action. As I stated in the thread regarding the schedule, there are five freshmen coming in from a nationally competitive club team in Omaha, and hopefully that will provide some cohesiveness right off the bat. Should be interesting to see how the women compete this year. While we lost our prolific scorer, sometimes that can be a good thing, because if you have one player that's so strong, you can begin to rely on that individual too much. I think we'll see pretty early on how well this team can work together.

GBR!

 
Husker Women won 2-0 on Friday. Goals by sophomore Sandra Areman and freshman Caroline Flynn. While SDSU isn't the cream of the crop, they were a 160 RPI last year, so not bottom of the barrel either. 12-6-2 on the season last year. Nice exhibition game to get the kinks out. And Ms. Flynn is indeed one of the five Toro club soccer players coming in this year. Nice to see them making an impact already! Can't wait to get out and see them in action soon. :D First home game next Sunday, August 19.

 
Well... couple things on the soccer front:

Evidently the women were picked to finish tenth in the conference this year. Sad, but probably not surprising with where our performance has been the last few years. Considering Walker has been our one and only coach since the team was created, it might be a little tough to try and oust him at this point, but I think at some point, if the underperforming continues, you have to start thinking about a change. Lots of optimism for this year and the future, with who Coach Walker has brought in, but we have to start to see some performance on the field.

The home opener will be at Abbott Sports Complex, where the ladies used to play before they renovated Ed Weir for soccer. Evidently there is still construction going on, and the new surface hasn't taken like they expected it to, with the above-average temperatures and so little rainfall.

Couple articles expounding on this. The first from the Journal-Star, found here:

http://journalstar.com/sports/huskers/nu-sports-notes-husker-soccer-th-in-b-g-poll/article_62168b04-7073-548c-9cdd-fded512e9f90.html

The second, from huskers.com, found here:

http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=205588430

This weekend should start to give us a glimpse of where we might be. Oklahoma away on Friday, and the above-referenced home opener on Sunday. Might try to hit the game on Sunday.

 
Tough opening weekend. Loss to Oklahoma on Friday, 2-1. Sounds like they played a tough match away from home, and had their chances. The gut punch was probably more the loss on Sunday to Drake, 1-0, at home. No two ways around it, those are the games you have to win. Hopefully, that gets them fired up, and they go on a run after this. Have to see how they respond. Play a couple good teams in Virginia Tech and New Mexico. Finished last year 21 and 68, respectively, in RPI. This weekend will show a lot about what kind of fortitude this young team has. Had intended to go on Sunday, but didn't get there. WIll probably try and make it on Friday for the game, then see about possibly going Sunday. Links from Huskers.com for last weekends games are here:

http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=38&SPID=26&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205612752&DB_OEM_ID=100

and here:

http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=38&SPID=26&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205623024&DB_OEM_ID=100

One things of note I will give for both games, and probably a good indication that bounces just may not have gone their way is that the Huskers outshot both the Sooners and the Bulldogs. But you still need to find a way to finish, and it doesn't look like the team has found that touch yet.

 
This is going to be a tough year. Friend of ours knows a bunch of the players and they were worried about this season, but they think we're on the right track for the future. They won't make any assessment of Walker, but it's disheartening how low we've fallen.

In other news, the new pitch looks fantastic. That's a plus.... I guess.

 
Yeah, when you lose arguably one of the best players to come through here since Cooper's death in the offseason, it's going to be tough to overcome. I'd agree that we're on the right path, but agree with you, knapp, that it's also disheartening to see how far the team has fallen in comparison to the late 90's/early 00's. I think Walker, even now, will be given some time to rebuild this a bit. Considering the five players he brought in from Toro this past year, and the potential they have in the next few years, and considering what Walker had built, and he's the only coach the program has known... I don't see anything happening after this season. If some progress isn't seen over the process of this season and on into next season... that could start to call into question his ability to bring the program back. But I think you let it develop for this year and next, and evaluate at that time. The only way I see anything happening after this season is if it gets really bad, and we win say less than 5 games this season. That might turn heads enough to at least bring out the question. But beyond that... and I think Walker still has the ability to build this team even yet this year. Neither one of those games were they overmatched, and we outshot the other team in both games. So the chances are there, just have to build the quality chances, and find the finishers on the team. We'll see where they're at two to three weeks from now. Will give us a better notion, I believe, of where this team might be headed. This weekend will be tough. I'd be thrilled to see them competitve and win at least one of the two.

 
And from the pics you've shown, it does look fantastic. Hopefully, the cooler weather is giving it a chance to set a little better, and they can get back to the home field for their games. Hadn't seen any announcements yet about this weekend.

Edit: Looks like this came out today. The games this weekend will be down at the Husker Soccer Field, but it appears there is no seating on the track, and that fans have to sit in the South grandstands. Pathways will be provided from field level. Will be interesting. Sure they're glad to be back down on campus. Here's the link:

http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=205654211

Also didn't realize they were without Romero either. Being without one of your more experienced players I'm sure is making at least somewhat of a difference for them. Be good to get her back, but I hope she can help her U-20 national team as well.

 
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Interesting, and likely a good, weekend for the women. While they went 1-1 on the weekend, they did so against much better competition, and showed much better this weekend. Maybe it just took that extra week of practice to get the extra team play into it for the new players, but they take the #16 team into overtime before losing 3-2, and then take a team predicted to win the Mountain West, and a 60some RPI from last year, and beat them 2-0, and controlled the ball and the flow of the play quite a bit of the game. I got to go to the New Mexico game, but we didn't get there until halftime. The team I saw this afternoon v. the team I saw several times last year just seemed like night and day. They seemed to work together as a team better, seemed to be more aggressive going after open balls, and overall just seemed more in sync than any time last year. This team has the capability to be scary good. It may not quite get to that level this year, but the talent is there, and I think this team will easily surprise some people this year. I think they may just end up at least top half of the conference, and maybe top third by the time its all done. Should be fun to watch this year. Links for the two games on huskers.com follow:

http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=205668660

and

http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=205669435

Should be some good tests this weekend. At Baylor, currently ranked #24 in the country, and at Cincinatti, a top 100 RPI team from last year. See what they can do away from home now that they've gotten their first win of the season, and had a good weekend overall. One last thing: I really tend to wonder if losing Morgan Marlborough might have helped this team overall. I tend to wonder if there was too much reliance on Morgan to do the yeoman's part of the scoring last season. Could be too that she was the only one able to get those chances off that team as well. But I didn't see the ability to work together nearly as much last year, and one wonders if that was part of it. Don't have any inside info on it, just pondering out loud. Can't wait to see them in action again! Was fun to be at today. Got to see the second goal. Nice firm shot buried in the net. Need more finishes like that, and this team will be something special to see.

 
Haven't had much time to get back to this since the season started, and we're already at the last regular season game. Interesting that the women could end with the same record in conference as last year (4-7-0), and yet they're already guaranteed of making the tournament, where they didn't make it last year (only top 8 in conference go to the tournament). Today's match against Minnesota could put them in 7th going into the tournament, which would help, because eighth plays Penn St., who hasn't lost a match in play this year, and only has one tie. At least they'll get to continue their season this year.

There have been some good things this season, though it's clear they have some work to do to battle with the top of the conference. Good things to build on for next season. Should be interesting to see whether TO does the eval himself, or whether he lets Eichorst evaluate the season to see what direction they want to go in. Tough to fire the only coach the program has ever had, but sometimes you have to accept that maybe it's just not going where you want. I could see giving him another year to develop some freshmen and sophomores that are loaded with potential for the future, but I could also see making the change now, to maybe have the potential for when these kids are juniors and seniors in a couple years. Will be interesting to see how the season is evaluated. The 4-0 and 4-1 losses recently to the top of the conference can't feel too good to the administration.

 
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