[Viking_Guy]

Stanford women's soccer defeated BYU 2-1 at Cagan tonight, advancing to the Sweet 16 to play Arizona.

First, an aside.  Is anyone else as disappointed as I am by the quality and quantity of Stanford's streaming offerings?  They are of course light years better more frequent than they were 5 maybe 10 years ago, BUT I see better production values, more sports, and a higher quality stream from small schools with small budgets, notably the Big West Conference.  Does anyone know if the Pac-12's streaming contract precludes more offerings, or is DAPER just that budget conscious?

I ask, because tonight, they played a stream for an NCAA tournament game that could've been from 2006 or so.  A laggy standard definition cam that looked like it had two fixed focal lengths rather than a zoom lens.  No chyron or any other indicator of the score and clock.  And worst of all, NO SOUND.  Not even an ambient mike to pick up the crowd and announcer to let you know when a substitution had been made.

This, from a school as wired into online media technology as any in the country?  In general, it appears that non-Pac-12 network game streaming is only offered if the game is in a facility preset with cameras (Maples, Sunken Diamond, and the softball field), and then there is only an ambient sound mike, or the announcer.  I see better streaming coverage of Stanford teams at Santa Clara, or Santa Barbara, or Pacific a lot of the time.

/rant.  Oh, and the NCAA's live scoreboard reversed the teams in the bracket, labeling Stanford's players as BYU.  Which means that the bracket now shows Stanford losing 2-1.

So tonight, Stanford dominated the run of play, but in a more closely run affair than the win over San Jose State.  The Cougars are big and fast, the kind of team that can throw pressure forward against the Cardinal backline and then recover before Stanford can take advantage, especially given Stanford's tendency to look backwards first when under pressure.  What chances there were in the first half tended toward two varieties - long searching shots looking for a lightning bolt, and dribbling at the endline hoping to win a corner. 

Opening goal by Jordan DiBiasi, a nice half-volley out of a pinballing situation in the BYU box that fell to her feet at the 18, and was promptly struck into the left side netting with some pace.  No chance for a save, 1-0 Cardinal.

Stanford got off a few more 18-25 yard shots, and a couple were nicely placed, but no real threats to score.  Nor did BYU, actually.  They got off two shots that Campbell had to pick up, but neither were any real danger.  The most  dangerous play was actually a near-disastrous pass by Campbell off a backpass.  She calmly settled the ball and tried to send it out to Alana Cook on the left - and hit it arcing close to directly at a Cougar forward, who fortunately got it with her knee rather than settling it with her thigh and sent it caroming off harmlessly wide.

That changed with one silly play in the opening minute.  BYU's rightside forward, a big strong player, pushed her way into the box against an outsized Michelle Xiao, who was subbing at left fullback for both Tegan McGrady and Stephanie Amack (anyone know injury status for either?)  Andi Sullivan came over the help, the Cougar spun away from the endline, and Sullivan foolishly stuck out her leg.  That's too much of an invitation for most forwards, and she promptly fell over the outstretched limb and drew a PK.  45 seconds into the second half, the score is knotted 1-1. 

BYU turned up the pressure for the next 10-15 minutes, but didn't really generate another good chance.  However, they did discombobulate Stanford's attack; it's hard to move the ball around the back when the opposition is giving you no room.  No continuity through midfield, a lot of tense possession in our own defensive third, but no real Cougar threats on goal.

Stanford had a couple of breakout chances that forced BYU to retreat, then had one glorious chance go begging, a rolling ball across the face of the goal that two people had good chances on, but only produced a corner kick.  It was beginning to feel like one of those "Stanford dominates, but can't stick the ball in the net, making the outcome a toss-up" type games.

That changed thanks to some hard work by Kyra Carusa.  The hold-up center forward, who does a lot of back-to-the-goal possession dirty work, faced up on the right side and worked to the endline with some nice close control.  In a VERY tight space, she got to the endline and hooked the ball back across the face of goal - where DiBiasi ran on for a simple tap-in from about 4 yards off the near post.

From there, some tense moments, but Stanford did a good job of possessing the ball, burying it for almost the entire last five minutes in the Cougar's corners, drawing corners and throw-ins and simply possessing.  That said, they did very nearly collapse at the end, when BYU had two players in the box, against 5 Stanford defenders.  None of those five defenders went after the ball as it bounced at the left corner of the box, yet ALL of them were watching that ball, letting another Cougar go right to the penalty spot, receive a lofted ball, and put a header to the far post that forced Campbell into a diving punch clearance. 

Phew.

DiBiasi as player of the game, naturally, especially given the Cardinal's trouble finding the back of the net in tight games this year.  She's now provided the game-winning goals against BYU TWICE, as well as at Washington and against $C (that beautiful back-heel finish). Close second to Xiao, who played a strong game out of position at left back.

That being said, it was difficult to really tell, given the limits of the webcast - on the long shot, the players were all of 10 pixels high, and on the close-up, you could only see about 12 yards of the field square.  Hope they get a better production on Saturday.  But I'm not holding my breath.

VG

[Viking_Guy]

Stanford women's soccer defeated BYU 2-1 at Cagan tonight, advancing to the Sweet 16 to play Arizona.

First, an aside.  Is anyone else as disappointed as I am by the quality and quantity of Stanford's streaming offerings?  They are of course light years better more frequent than they were 5 maybe 10 years ago, BUT I see better production values, more sports, and a higher quality stream from small schools with small budgets, notably the Big West Conference.  Does anyone know if the Pac-12's streaming contract precludes more offerings, or is DAPER just that budget conscious?

I ask, because tonight, they played a stream for an NCAA tournament game that could've been from 2006 or so.  A laggy standard definition cam that looked like it had two fixed focal lengths rather than a zoom lens.  No chyron or any other indicator of the score and clock.  And worst of all, NO SOUND.  Not even an ambient mike to pick up the crowd and announcer to let you know when a substitution had been made.

This, from a school as wired into online media technology as any in the country?  In general, it appears that non-Pac-12 network game streaming is only offered if the game is in a facility preset with cameras (Maples, Sunken Diamond, and the softball field), and then there is only an ambient sound mike, or the announcer.  I see better streaming coverage of Stanford teams at Santa Clara, or Santa Barbara, or Pacific a lot of the time.

/rant.  Oh, and the NCAA's live scoreboard reversed the teams in the bracket, labeling Stanford's players as BYU.  Which means that the bracket now shows Stanford losing 2-1.

So tonight, Stanford dominated the run of play, but in a more closely run affair than the win over San Jose State.  The Cougars are big and fast, the kind of team that can throw pressure forward against the Cardinal backline and then recover before Stanford can take advantage, especially given Stanford's tendency to look backwards first when under pressure.  What chances there were in the first half tended toward two varieties - long searching shots looking for a lightning bolt, and dribbling at the endline hoping to win a corner. 

Opening goal by Jordan DiBiasi, a nice half-volley out of a pinballing situation in the BYU box that fell to her feet at the 18, and was promptly struck into the left side netting with some pace.  No chance for a save, 1-0 Cardinal.

Stanford got off a few more 18-25 yard shots, and a couple were nicely placed, but no real threats to score.  Nor did BYU, actually.  They got off two shots that Campbell had to pick up, but neither were any real danger.  The most  dangerous play was actually a near-disastrous pass by Campbell off a backpass.  She calmly settled the ball and tried to send it out to Alana Cook on the left - and hit it arcing close to directly at a Cougar forward, who fortunately got it with her knee rather than settling it with her thigh and sent it caroming off harmlessly wide.

That changed with one silly play in the opening minute.  BYU's rightside forward, a big strong player, pushed her way into the box against an outsized Michelle Xiao, who was subbing at left fullback for both Tegan McGrady and Stephanie Amack (anyone know injury status for either?)  Andi Sullivan came over the help, the Cougar spun away from the endline, and Sullivan foolishly stuck out her leg.  That's too much of an invitation for most forwards, and she promptly fell over the outstretched limb and drew a PK.  45 seconds into the second half, the score is knotted 1-1. 

BYU turned up the pressure for the next 10-15 minutes, but didn't really generate another good chance.  However, they did discombobulate Stanford's attack; it's hard to move the ball around the back when the opposition is giving you no room.  No continuity through midfield, a lot of tense possession in our own defensive third, but no real Cougar threats on goal.

Stanford had a couple of breakout chances that forced BYU to retreat, then had one glorious chance go begging, a rolling ball across the face of the goal that two people had good chances on, but only produced a corner kick.  It was beginning to feel like one of those "Stanford dominates, but can't stick the ball in the net, making the outcome a toss-up" type games.

That changed thanks to some hard work by Kyra Carusa.  The hold-up center forward, who does a lot of back-to-the-goal possession dirty work, faced up on the right side and worked to the endline with some nice close control.  In a VERY tight space, she got to the endline and hooked the ball back across the face of goal - where DiBiasi ran on for a simple tap-in from about 4 yards off the near post.

From there, some tense moments, but Stanford did a good job of possessing the ball, burying it for almost the entire last five minutes in the Cougar's corners, drawing corners and throw-ins and simply possessing.  That said, they did very nearly collapse at the end, when BYU had two players in the box, against 5 Stanford defenders.  None of those five defenders went after the ball as it bounced at the left corner of the box, yet ALL of them were watching that ball, letting another Cougar go right to the penalty spot, receive a lofted ball, and put a header to the far post that forced Campbell into a diving punch clearance. 

Phew.

DiBiasi as player of the game, naturally, especially given the Cardinal's trouble finding the back of the net in tight games this year.  She's now provided the game-winning goals against BYU TWICE, as well as at Washington and against $C (that beautiful back-heel finish). Close second to Xiao, who played a strong game out of position at left back.

That being said, it was difficult to really tell, given the limits of the webcast - on the long shot, the players were all of 10 pixels high, and on the close-up, you could only see about 12 yards of the field square.  Hope they get a better production on Saturday.  But I'm not holding my breath.

VG

[Viking_Guy]

So just watched the two goals replayed on gostanford.  Sounds like they had a commentator working.  Too bad the audio didn't make it into the stream.

Then watched the full highlights video.  No sound again.  Hmmm.  Wonder if the stream is produced by Stanford but funneled through Pac-12 network, and they're the ones responsible for the dropped audio.  What's also interesting is that the picture quality is much better - wonder if they're trying to low-bandwidth stream wirelessly, then cutting highlights from a recorded feed later.

Whatever the case, still very substandard.

VG

[Viking_Guy]

So just watched the two goals replayed on gostanford.  Sounds like they had a commentator working.  Too bad the audio didn't make it into the stream.

Then watched the full highlights video.  No sound again.  Hmmm.  Wonder if the stream is produced by Stanford but funneled through Pac-12 network, and they're the ones responsible for the dropped audio.  What's also interesting is that the picture quality is much better - wonder if they're trying to low-bandwidth stream wirelessly, then cutting highlights from a recorded feed later.

Whatever the case, still very substandard.

VG

[cardfan77]

Watching the game on the webcast was frustrating.  I expected the video quality to be subpar but not having audio feed throughout the the entire games was painful.  90 minutes of no NO AUDIO!!!!!!!!!!!

For a soccer match that had so much on the line, I expected Stanford to pull out all the bells and whistles for the streaming.  But all I got was a pixelated video with no audio.  Like Viking Guy said, at least an ambient mic and a scoreboard.  Let's just hope that Saturday's webcast of the game will be much better.

[cardfan77]

Watching the game on the webcast was frustrating.  I expected the video quality to be subpar but not having audio feed throughout the the entire games was painful.  90 minutes of no NO AUDIO!!!!!!!!!!!

For a soccer match that had so much on the line, I expected Stanford to pull out all the bells and whistles for the streaming.  But all I got was a pixelated video with no audio.  Like Viking Guy said, at least an ambient mic and a scoreboard.  Let's just hope that Saturday's webcast of the game will be much better.

[TheFarm07]

We play Arizona on Saturday, who we needed 2 OTs to beat 3-2 rather than Santa Clara who we lost to, 1-0

[TheFarm07]

We play Arizona on Saturday, who we needed 2 OTs to beat 3-2 rather than Santa Clara who we lost to, 1-0

[oldalum]

Arizona will be difficult because of their strategy of moving the ball downfield by flip throw-ins, then in the attacking third they use them to essentially convert what should be ordinary throw-ins into corner kicks. This allows them to get the ball into the box often, and with enough chances and scrambles a goal can be scored. Our first two goals against them in the regular season were scored because the strategy their coach tried was to allow us to shoot from very long distance without contesting; it didn't work so they probably won't do that again this time.

It seems to me the flip throw-in confers too much of an advantage, and probably should be disallowed by a rules change.

[oldalum]

Arizona will be difficult because of their strategy of moving the ball downfield by flip throw-ins, then in the attacking third they use them to essentially convert what should be ordinary throw-ins into corner kicks. This allows them to get the ball into the box often, and with enough chances and scrambles a goal can be scored. Our first two goals against them in the regular season were scored because the strategy their coach tried was to allow us to shoot from very long distance without contesting; it didn't work so they probably won't do that again this time.

It seems to me the flip throw-in confers too much of an advantage, and probably should be disallowed by a rules change.