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Joined: Dec 1969
81A--
Tale of two halves, really. In the first stanza, Stanford had some good flow, and pinned the Gauchos deep in their own end for the majority of the play. But again, the first goal was really scored on an opponent's error: Chi drove deep on the left side and blistered a shot through her defender's legs. The Santa Barbara keeper got behind the ball, but deflected it straight across the face of her own goal, where Ryan Walker-Hartshorn managed to bundle it toward the goal line. The keeper, trying to recover, lunged back at the ball as it slowly inched forward, and (IMO) pushed the ball over the line herself. Not saying it wouldn't have gone in (it was on the verge of going in), but as her hands landed to try to trap it on the line, she imparted enough momentum to send the ball a foot or so forward. 1-0 Stanford.
Second goal was all Chi, turning her defender in the midfield and sprinting again down the left and unleashing a good low hard shot to the far post; it looked like what she and Uhl had done to North Carolina, but in this case, she managed to get it inside the post. 2-0 Stanford 20 minutes in.
And then it seemed to stall. While Stanford generated a few more chances, they seemed content to hold possession for the remainder of the half. Freshman Mariah Lee had one great shot on a driven header to the near post off a nice cross, but other than that, not a lot of offense.
At the half, leading 2-0, Stanford had outshot the Gauchos 12-1, led 2-0, and had them on the ropes.
Radcliffe switched keepers at half, replacing Campbell with Sarah Cox, who plays a much more standard keeper than Campbell's hybrid sweeper-keeper approach. And the Cardinal really seemed to back off. UCSB generated some quality chances, and probably should have had at least one, when Stanford left a player completely alone about 7 yards out on a cross when the Cardinal midfield was slow in tracking back. But they kept the clean sheet, as Stanford has now started the season with 4 consecutive shutouts.
Yep, our back four (or five, if you include Campbell) is really the strength of the team. Radcliffe again stuck with a 4-3-3, and again, I don't really like it - if the midfield plays in a triangle (as they normally do, with Doll and Sullivan holding and LaBonta attacking), they give up a lot of room wide, and if they play flat, there seems to be little connection between the three lines. Again today, everything seemed to come down to either a Gaucho giveaway or turnover or a great individual effort by Chi, while the set offense only seems to get any penetration when the outside backs overlap. Luckily, both Liedle and Amack are good at it. But we spend an awful lot of time with one of the holding midfielders passing the ball back to the center backs outside, from there back to the keeper, then to the other side. It holds possession, but it's not a threatening possession. At least not as often as it might be. And if they hold possession for a while, I've noticed that eventually either Doll or Sullivan at holding midfielder will either mishit a ball or make an ill-advised pass back or across the field that leads to turnovers and break attempts.
Game ball to Chi, for her part in creating the two goals. Lo LaBonta needs to get going, but again, in a 4-3-3, she's almost always marked by two holding midfielders in the center of the pitch. Right now, the offense is definitely behind the defense; Stanford has 2 1-0 and two 2-0 wins. Chi Ubogagu has either scored or assisted on I think 5 of the 6. They need some other scorer, and they need I think either to provide more support for LaBonta or move Sullivan a bit farther up the pitch.
But that's just nitpicking. Good game coming Sunday against a wounded Notre Dame side, who started the season top-15 before losing at home to both Texas Tech and Spoilt Children. But first a couple of other athletic endeavors. Really looking forward to VBall tomorrow night, and just rewatched the Greatest Upset Ever on Pac-12.
VG
