[Viking_Guy]

GAME REPORT

Again with the craptacular stream, about which more in the next post.

Stanford won 3-0, holding a 1-0 for the majority of the game and then a couple of late insurance goals from Ryan Walker-Hartshorn, who has been MIA for a lot of the season.


The Wildcats are a "dump and scramble" team - they don't try to possess and move forward.  Instead, they rely on dump and chase tactics, with the ball only taking a momentary pause in the midfield before being launched at Stanford's endline.  For a while, when combined with some high physical pressure, it threw Stanford off their game, but midway through the first half, and for all but about 10 minutes of the second, the Cardinal was able to calmly cut them up when they moved through the midfield, or switch the point of attack easily enough at the back.

The problem for Stanford is translating possession into consistent aggression in the attack.  Their overwhelming drive to possess the ball means that often, given a choice between a slightly risky diagonal or square ball and a minimally risky backpass, they'll backpass.  Which means the other team knows that pressure on Stanford's midfield can relieve pressure on their defense.

The other symptom or expression is in the final third - Stanford seems content to launch 25 or 30 yard shots, or dribble into open areas wide, rather than to take on opponents' defenders in the box; I've mentioned before that for such a great possession team with so much on-the-ball time, they really don't draw many PKs.

Today was a case in point.  Early on, a lot of 20-25 yards bouncing balls that never really threatened the keeper, and little attempt to attack into a retreating Arizona backline.

The key moment of the game was a bit of hard work by Kyra Carusa, who is "sneaky physical."  She's not really big, but is solid, and knows a lot of the little tricks to get around her defender.  In this case, the defender tried to shield Carusa off the ball with her right shoulder as the ball trickled toward the endline about 6-8 yards off the near post of the Arizona goal.  Kyra did an archetypal swim move, swinging her left arm up and over the defender's right, driving it downward and pinning it, then stepped around to send a right-footed cross low across the face of goal.  Megan Turner met it in the center of the goal about 6 yards out and hammered it back to the right, giving the keeper no chance.  1-0 Stanford 17 minutes in.

The balance of the half, Stanford had the majority of the possession, but few really good chances - their best shot may have been an "at the horn" 40 yard shot from Rosen that just cleared the Arizona crossbar.  On the other hand, Arizona, while they took some speculative attempts from distance, didn't have a shot on frame in the half - most were over the bar and forcing Campbell to retrieve the ball out of the top netting.

SECOND HALF

The other part of the Arizona offense that I should have mentioned, as OldAlum said in a prior thread, is their flip throws.  From the left side, they have a defender who can launch the ball into the center of the penalty area from the midfield stripe.  Today, she was lofting the ball a bit, not driving through it and creating a "deflection" chance, but it still created a lot of opportunities for Arizona to scramble a ball home. 

This was a bit of a problem earlier in the year for the Cardinal, as part of a general difficulty in dealing with high balls into the box.  Often times, they would bounce, which should NEVER happen on long service.  I remember in the game at Utah (? I think) a long ball in that bounced once, was flicked closer to the net, then bounced again before a Ute player poked it home in the middle of three Stanford defenders.

This game was MUCH cleaner in that respect.  Arizona kept trying it, and Stanford kept dealing with it cleanly.  One positive was that, with the majority of the flip throws coming from the left, it wasn't lined up for the offensive player running at Michelle Xiao, again covering at left back for injured Tegan McGrady and Stephanie Amack (and I do wish I had some info on them - I know Amack was injured in the C.al game (I think), but the Pac-12 video coverage cut away during the injury timeout and I never got a clear sense of what had happened.  Xiao is a great player, but she gives up a lot of size against most forwards and wing midfielders, today being no exception.

So what do we have?  Arizona trying to generate chaos, and Stanford trying to play a clean passing and possession game.  Today, the Stanford plan prevailed.  Arizona did not record a SHOT, let alone a shot on goal, for the first 30 minutes of the second half.  And by the time they had, Ryan Walker-Hartshorn had scored Stanford's second, again with her defender on her back, back to goal spinning style, converting a scramble in the box, with one ball saved off the line, into a goal by striking the ball low and clean from about 5 yards out underneath the keeper before she could react in the 76th minute.

Arizona turned it up a notch, pushing the ball deep into the corner and generating their two best looks of the game about 15 seconds apart in the 77th minute, with Campbell getting down to her left on a shot from about 9 yards out of a service in from the left corner, then coming out to claim a higher shot shortly after.

And the Wildcats really had nothing more to offer.  If you maintain your defensive shape, and don't let them in behind you, they're not going to pick you apart out front.  The final score, as I mentioned, came when Walker-Hartshorn found herself 1v1 with a defender on the right side of the box at about 16 yards, following a scramble in the right corner as Stanford tried to stand on the ball and run the clock out.  All of Arizona's backline were outside the area in that corner except for Ryan's defender, and when she received the ball and spun left, there was only a keeper to beat, and she did that low and right.

Gameball for me to Carusa, who again, does the dirty work - possession with back to goal up top, "working the body" with her array of sneaky physical moves (she had one called back in the second half where a Wildcat defender had her in a clinch from behind, and Kyra gave her a little bit of the "Charles Barkley backside clearout," knocking her to the ground and spinning inside onto the ball.  I REALLY wanted the ref to let that one go.

Next match next weekend, at Cagan, on the schedule for Friday, vs the winner of Florida/Duke tomorrow at 11 AM PST.  Hopefully with a better viewing experience; ESPN3 might pick it up.

VG

[Viking_Guy]

GAME REPORT

Again with the craptacular stream, about which more in the next post.

Stanford won 3-0, holding a 1-0 for the majority of the game and then a couple of late insurance goals from Ryan Walker-Hartshorn, who has been MIA for a lot of the season.


The Wildcats are a "dump and scramble" team - they don't try to possess and move forward.  Instead, they rely on dump and chase tactics, with the ball only taking a momentary pause in the midfield before being launched at Stanford's endline.  For a while, when combined with some high physical pressure, it threw Stanford off their game, but midway through the first half, and for all but about 10 minutes of the second, the Cardinal was able to calmly cut them up when they moved through the midfield, or switch the point of attack easily enough at the back.

The problem for Stanford is translating possession into consistent aggression in the attack.  Their overwhelming drive to possess the ball means that often, given a choice between a slightly risky diagonal or square ball and a minimally risky backpass, they'll backpass.  Which means the other team knows that pressure on Stanford's midfield can relieve pressure on their defense.

The other symptom or expression is in the final third - Stanford seems content to launch 25 or 30 yard shots, or dribble into open areas wide, rather than to take on opponents' defenders in the box; I've mentioned before that for such a great possession team with so much on-the-ball time, they really don't draw many PKs.

Today was a case in point.  Early on, a lot of 20-25 yards bouncing balls that never really threatened the keeper, and little attempt to attack into a retreating Arizona backline.

The key moment of the game was a bit of hard work by Kyra Carusa, who is "sneaky physical."  She's not really big, but is solid, and knows a lot of the little tricks to get around her defender.  In this case, the defender tried to shield Carusa off the ball with her right shoulder as the ball trickled toward the endline about 6-8 yards off the near post of the Arizona goal.  Kyra did an archetypal swim move, swinging her left arm up and over the defender's right, driving it downward and pinning it, then stepped around to send a right-footed cross low across the face of goal.  Megan Turner met it in the center of the goal about 6 yards out and hammered it back to the right, giving the keeper no chance.  1-0 Stanford 17 minutes in.

The balance of the half, Stanford had the majority of the possession, but few really good chances - their best shot may have been an "at the horn" 40 yard shot from Rosen that just cleared the Arizona crossbar.  On the other hand, Arizona, while they took some speculative attempts from distance, didn't have a shot on frame in the half - most were over the bar and forcing Campbell to retrieve the ball out of the top netting.

SECOND HALF

The other part of the Arizona offense that I should have mentioned, as OldAlum said in a prior thread, is their flip throws.  From the left side, they have a defender who can launch the ball into the center of the penalty area from the midfield stripe.  Today, she was lofting the ball a bit, not driving through it and creating a "deflection" chance, but it still created a lot of opportunities for Arizona to scramble a ball home. 

This was a bit of a problem earlier in the year for the Cardinal, as part of a general difficulty in dealing with high balls into the box.  Often times, they would bounce, which should NEVER happen on long service.  I remember in the game at Utah (? I think) a long ball in that bounced once, was flicked closer to the net, then bounced again before a Ute player poked it home in the middle of three Stanford defenders.

This game was MUCH cleaner in that respect.  Arizona kept trying it, and Stanford kept dealing with it cleanly.  One positive was that, with the majority of the flip throws coming from the left, it wasn't lined up for the offensive player running at Michelle Xiao, again covering at left back for injured Tegan McGrady and Stephanie Amack (and I do wish I had some info on them - I know Amack was injured in the C.al game (I think), but the Pac-12 video coverage cut away during the injury timeout and I never got a clear sense of what had happened.  Xiao is a great player, but she gives up a lot of size against most forwards and wing midfielders, today being no exception.

So what do we have?  Arizona trying to generate chaos, and Stanford trying to play a clean passing and possession game.  Today, the Stanford plan prevailed.  Arizona did not record a SHOT, let alone a shot on goal, for the first 30 minutes of the second half.  And by the time they had, Ryan Walker-Hartshorn had scored Stanford's second, again with her defender on her back, back to goal spinning style, converting a scramble in the box, with one ball saved off the line, into a goal by striking the ball low and clean from about 5 yards out underneath the keeper before she could react in the 76th minute.

Arizona turned it up a notch, pushing the ball deep into the corner and generating their two best looks of the game about 15 seconds apart in the 77th minute, with Campbell getting down to her left on a shot from about 9 yards out of a service in from the left corner, then coming out to claim a higher shot shortly after.

And the Wildcats really had nothing more to offer.  If you maintain your defensive shape, and don't let them in behind you, they're not going to pick you apart out front.  The final score, as I mentioned, came when Walker-Hartshorn found herself 1v1 with a defender on the right side of the box at about 16 yards, following a scramble in the right corner as Stanford tried to stand on the ball and run the clock out.  All of Arizona's backline were outside the area in that corner except for Ryan's defender, and when she received the ball and spun left, there was only a keeper to beat, and she did that low and right.

Gameball for me to Carusa, who again, does the dirty work - possession with back to goal up top, "working the body" with her array of sneaky physical moves (she had one called back in the second half where a Wildcat defender had her in a clinch from behind, and Kyra gave her a little bit of the "Charles Barkley backside clearout," knocking her to the ground and spinning inside onto the ball.  I REALLY wanted the ref to let that one go.

Next match next weekend, at Cagan, on the schedule for Friday, vs the winner of Florida/Duke tomorrow at 11 AM PST.  Hopefully with a better viewing experience; ESPN3 might pick it up.

VG