Dominican Game Report

As usual, a great game report written by Paul Neumann.
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I have avoided writing this for a couple of days as the 25 parents and assorted fans got a reminder of how soccer can sometimes be the most frustrating of sports on Friday night. We had multiple chances to win the game but ended up with a tie, instead to a chippy (borderline dirty) team that the refs never got under control.

The WUSTL website did a much better job than usual writing up the game (link), so I will let you read that for the game report with a few highlights thrown in as follows;

-with it being parents weekend we were well represented with parents from 11 states and Cindy Clarke back in the stands after the maternal visit to her sons in LA. We got to see the Grandins for the first time this season and meet the Kanoffs and David Klein's mom, Rita Corwin, and Kim Duncan for the first time.

-I would have given Hengel an assist on Patrick's second goal because I thought he had controlled it after the rebound and dropped it off to Pat for the shot from the 18, but the official scorer had it differently.

-John Hengel's goal came against the run of play as Dominican had controlled most of the first fifteen minutes of the second half, and was a great effort by a newly shorn player (apparently not suffering from a Sampson complex) to beat his defender to the ball, dribble into the box, and spin at twelve yards and beat the goalie with a left footed shot to the right post.

-WUSTL had at least three good chances to score to push our lead to 4-1 in a 10 minute stretch, but we were beat by the post on Marshall's free kick thru the wall, a good save by the goalie off a flick on from about 6 feet, and Pierre going wide on Nick Karr's corner. We then allowed a goal on a header that looked like it was going wide and caught the inside of the far post. Dominican earned their third goal.

-WUSTL had the better chances in OT with the ball in the box a couple of times- once when Nat turned the corner but played the ball a little too far ahead and the second when Alex came up on a corner and had the ball at the side of the box with his back to the goal and was fouled but we got no call

-Good fan support from the students at the game with WUSTL FC chants and spelling out WUSTL (kind of like the Village people) so the cheering section is finding its voice anew

As I said a frustrating game. WUSTL gets its chance to get back on the winning track against Maryville tomorrow night and then travels to Rochester on Thursday for a Friday night game.

The Zenner's, Mike Hendrickson and Zach's grandfather and Onyi will be in Rochester and they and three Neumann's, two Schoens, Rose Beddo, and Bruce Brege will be joining the team for dinner at the Plow's in Cleveland and to cheer the Bears on to victory at Case on Sunday. Anybody else planning to be in attendance?

We will look forward to Jeff's twittering (link) tomorrow night. Hopefully one of the St Louis parents might give us a little more game insight.

good luck tomorrow.

Go Bears- Allez Ours

paul
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NOTE: Photos to come. As I write this, the video is being processed by vimeo and has a couple hours left. I will embed the video on Monday some time, until then you can find it on vimeo.com/pomranka (link)

WUSTL vs Brandeis video

It took a little longer than I hoped to put together, but here is the WUSTL vs Brandeis game video. It is hosted on a different site, vimeo.com. Let me know what you think of it compared to ustream.tv



WUSTL vs Brandeis from Jeffrey Pomranka on Vimeo.

For the next game, I hope to improve the quality, get rid of the text on screen, and get it uploaded sooner. If you cannot see the video, try viewing it directly on vimeo. (link)

WUSTL FC Weekend Report

On a lovely fall weekend, WUSTL FC came away with a pair of 2-1 wins against conference rivals to run its record to 10-3 on the season and settle in to a second place tie with Rochester in the UAA. We had 30 parents from 11 states in attendance at the games and as it was fall break at Wash U we made up a good part of the crowd, particularly on Sunday.

All four players who scored (Pat Mclean, Nat Zenner, Cliff Goldkind and John Hengel) had parents in attendance. Assuming this pattern could continue to hold we really need to concentrate on our turnout over the last 5 games of this season to cheer the Bears on to more wins.

We had a pizza dinner with most of the team on Saturday night. Thanks to Ellen Morgan for making the food arrangements and to both Ellen and Arlene Smelcer for bringing cookies for dessert. it was a fun time and every one went away full.

Joe and Val both had to miss the pizza dinner to attend the 35th anniversary celebration of the 1973 St Louis University National Championship in Men's Soccer. Joe was a midfielder for that team and Val was an assistant coach. It was the followup to last year's 35th anniversary celebration of the 1972 championship. Congratulations to both of you and we can hope that the Bears are able to add to your championship ring collection someday.

The next game is this coming Friday (parent's weekend at WUSTL) against Dominican, who WUSTL beat in the NCAAs last year in OT. They are 13-2 on the year and ranked right behind the Bears in the central region polls. We have heard from about 10 parents who plan to be at the game and hope to add more to the list. A win by the Bears would obviously be helpful in terms of the NCAA seeding process if the rest of the season goes well.

Game Reports

NYU

The game got off to a great start as NYU started play, back passed to the right side, WUSTL pressured, Pierre picked the ball out of the air, played it over his defender and then touched the ball over the next defender to put Pat McLean in on the goalie. Pat controlled the ball and slid it past the goalie with a left footed shot to make the score 1-0, 33 seconds in to his first start (Harry was out for the weekend with a significant foot bruise sustained in the Emory game). His parents had arrived about 3 minutes before hand after a 16 hour drive from Houston so the timing could not have been better.

The Bears were playing a 4-4-2 with John Hengel and Pat up top, and were working to go over the top to play the ball in to the corners and then center the ball. I think it is fair to say we had trouble executing the strategy and the first half was marked by a record number of give aways on our part. NYU controlled possession in our half of the field about 70% of the time. Despite this WUSTL played excellent defense forming a tight line at the 18 and turning away almost every attempt to penetrate into our box. Despite the possession difference we actually had the best chances to score, once on a two on two break with John and Pat working the ball nicely but coming up short of the goal and the second with Kevin Brege making a great run and receiving the ball at the 18 with space to shoot but the goalie collecting the subsequent shot.

In the second half we came out and played more possession soccer but seemed a bit tired after a half of chasing the ball. With Harry, Nick Wilbar, and Peter Jebson all unavailable for action the mid field subs were limited and we gave up a goal with about 15 minutes remaining off a solid cross from the right hand side that was headed cleanly into the back of the net.

We then came alive offensively with three good chances in the next five minutes. Nat Zenner was denied on a free kick form 25 yards out that was touched to the side of the post by a diving goalie, Eric Hill getting a good shot on goal but without enough pace to beat the goalie and Pierre beating his guy coming across from the left hand side and shooting a curving ball from about 20 yards out that beat the goalie but went just wide of the post.

The game finished in a tie. Overtime began with us immediately putting pressure on NYU as Pat Mclean was played thru into the right hand side of the box, the goalie came out for the ball but was unable to control it and Pat played it high in front of the goal but it was headed away before we could score. We controlled the clearance at midfield, played the ball down the right hand side again to Pat who was fouled. Nick Karr took the free kick and put a beautiful ball on to the six yard line at the back post. There was a scrum of players but one of the Bears slotted the ball into the back of the net. You could not see who had scored but when Nat Zenner came streaking out of the pack pulling his shirt off and was buried by his team mates at mid field we gave him credit for the goal. For the record, his mother would like everyone to know she was there to witness the event.



Brandeis

It looked like we were going to continue our early game scoring streaks as Ryan Grandin ripped a shot with under two minutes elapsed but the Brandeis goalie came up with the first of many good saves on the day to leave the game scoreless. The Bears continued to look the better team and with about 10 minutes gone Kevin Brege played a great ball from mid field 25 yards down the right hand side into space. Nick Wilbar ran onto it, hit a nice cross that went by two players in the middle but was collected at just outside the 18 at the corner of the box on the opposite side of the field by Cliff Goldkind, who hit a lovely low ball into the back of the net. His entire family (parents and three siblings) were in the stands so teh score was very timely in that regard. We continued to control play with a variety of chances that came up short. Pierre (who was simply too quick for his defender to think about stopping) and John and Pat all had chances but without success. Our second goal came as Pat McLean headed a ball down field to a streaking John Hengel who beat his man and held him off and beat the goalie from just inside the 18 to make the score 2-0. Brandeis then pressed and had a number of shots from out side the box but seemed unlikely to score and the half ended 2-0.

We got off to a quick start in the second half as Kevin Brege had two good chances, the first off a pass from Pierre putting Kevin thru on the goalie. He chipped him from about 15 yards out only to see the ball go off the top of the cross bar at the far post. three minutes later, Nick Karr played a great thru ball to Kevin but the goalie made a diving save to deny the goal. Pierre then had a nice shot saved by the goalie tipping wide of the post. A corner kick by Eric Hill followed which Randy one touched over the goal. With 4 good chances in 5 minutes we looked like we were going to put the game away but Nat Zenner went down with an ankle injury, we subbed for him, and as the back was getting organized Brandeis won a ball on the left, cut thru and played a player thru on John still on the left of the goal. John came out on the ball but the player hit a low ball that snuck just under Smelcer and rolled in to the back of the net. With the score 2-1 and Brandeis energized we played about even for the balance of the game. John Hengel had a crushing shot from about 12 yards out that the goalie got his hands up to save and a breakaway with about 4 minutes left that the keeper made a diving save on to keep them in the game. Brandeis's best chances came off of corners and free kicks. Smelcer punched one away, David klein cleared another off the back line, Alex Neumann cleared one out of danger, Smelcer went up to pull two out of the air and had his best save of the game about five minutes from time on a ball headed down off a corner that John calmly saved as it bounced up to him. Another solid game by the back line and a good win that shoulda/coulda/woulda been a blowout with a little luck and a worse goalie for Brandeis.

Regardless, the weekend finished with two wins and a tired team that has a bit of recovery time before next Friday's game. it was nice to see Nick Wilbar back in action and hopefully Harry will be ready to go by next weekend as well.

It was also great to see such a large turnout of parental support. Planning ahead you might want to check your calendars for Halloween night as we will be playing Rochester (in NY) for sole possession of second place in the UAA. The following night, the Plow's host a team dinner in Cleveland so you get free food (for one meal at least) to help offset the travel costs. Hope to see many of you in the next couple of weeks.

go bears- allez ours

paul

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NOTE: Photos from the games will go up on the SmugMug page in a couple of days. I had a wedding to photograph on Saturday between games and ended up with about 1,000 photos to sort through and process. I am also working on a better quality video experience (still not live) and will post a test video of the Brandeis game whenever my computer is finished rendering the file. Right now it has over 9 hours to go, so hopefully I will upload it Monday morning before work. It will be at http://vimeo.com/pomranka

Report on the Emory Game

Good Morning to all of you.

Along with a good crowd of students and parents, family and friends we witnessed the Bears losing 1-0 to Emory yesterday (10/12) on a very warm day (for October) at Wash U. Looking at the game as a whole it was a fair result even though their goal was a little cheesy (no offense intended to our friends from Wisconsin by this remark). Emory, who started a lineup of almost all seniors, passed the ball well, was very aggressive to the ball in both ends of the field, and got the right bounces on a couple of balls. The first twenty minutes had the Bears playing almost all defense and having a lot of difficulty moving the ball out of our half. We recovered after twenty minutes and started playing more consistently and stringing passes together to allow us to bring the ball into the offensive end but other than Harry's header off a free kick and a ball to Marshall into space that took a goofy bounce that allowed the defense to close we had limited chances. Emory had a couple of decent opportunities including a shot with two seconds remaining that went about a foot wide.

We came out the second half looking like a different team. For the first ten minutes of the half we put pressure on Emory winning a couple of corners, having Pierre in behind the defense centering a ball that was just cleared over the end line by a defender, and generally looking like a different team. After this flurry, which failed to produce a score, Emory rebounded and had an excellent shot from 20 yards out off the crossbar, but it looked like we still might prevail. However, they scored on a corner (aided by a push in the box that I and the center missed) but my fellow observer John Hengel was very clear on. With that, Emory went into a defensive posture, with most of their team behind the ball and defended well during the final 17 minutes. Our best chances in this time frame were a cross to Zach Hendrickson who one timed a shot (from a very tough angle) that went high and a couple of efforts by Pat McLean where he beat his defender but got closed out by a second guy before he got a clean shot on the goal.

A good effort in a losing cause by the Bears. Everyone on the field played hard, and after the first 20 minutes we won our share of the fifty-fifties (Randy Schoen won about 90% on his side of the field) and looked dangerous in spots. This was undoubtedly a game we can learn from. Last year, after losing to Emory 3-0, WUSTL came back the next weekend to beat both NYU and Brandeis on their home fields and we need to do the same this weekend.

We get to play them at Francis Field this weekend so we have another chance to see soccer on a Friday/Sunday matchup. It is fall break so parents will make up a larger share of the home crowd than is normal. I think we have about 20 parents already confirmed and would love to add more to the list.

Sheldon is contacting a local Pizza parlor with a private room to arrange a team get together with parents for early evening on Saturday. We will keep you posted. We will look forward to seeing many of you next weekend as we look to get back on a winning track and know all the rest of you will be there in spirit.

Go Bears- Allez Ours.

paul
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Once again, thanks to Paul Neuman for the great recap of the game. For the official WUSTL game report, including the box score click here. For all of the photos from the game click here.

The video from the game has also been uploaded to the Ustream.TV WUSTL Soccer page. You can click here or just watch the embedded video below.

NOTE: The game footage starts with the lineup and playing of the national anthem. This is not good video considering there is no audio. Sorry. The actual game starts at the 4 minute mark. So start the stream, go get a bucket of popcorn and enjoy a very well played game.


Live streaming video by Ustream

Report on the CMU Game

Another fabulous report on WUSTL vs Carnegie Mellon University game October 5, 2008. Sorry for the long delay in posting.
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Hey,

We have just arrived home from our family's long weekend sojourn to Pittsburgh where we witnessed spectacular fireworks on Saturday night (it was the 250th anniversary of the founding of Pittsburgh), visited the Warhol museum on Sunday morning (very interesting if you like Andy Warhol), and best of all got to see the Bears pull off a gritty, hard fought victory on the field on Sunday. I would take issue with the reporting on the game I have just read at the WUSTL web site in that it did not look like an upset to me or our English Football expert (Harry Beddo the elder) , it looked like the better team won.

We started in a 4-3-3 and the Bears got on the board early with a Cliff Goldkind goal that started off a ball that was centered by Pierre, touched by Harry to John Hengel in the box who laid the ball off back to Cliff just outside the box who one-timed the ball into the back of the net. At that point we were on pace to score 44 goals in the game. We ended up 43 short. The rest of the first half was relatively even with better passing by the Bears and a more physical style of play by the Tartans. CMU was better on defense than in the offensive third with good speed on the defensive wings and phenomenal in the air. They won about 80% of the midfield and defensive head balls. The ref was consistent with no calls both directions (including no calls on two hand balls- one each way- in a three minute stretch in the second half) and the game flowed well and was played almost exclusively between the 18s. CMU had two legitimate chances in the half, both with a couple of nice passes to players at the 18 who turned and shot, one went wide of the far post and the other went wide near post. Smelcer had one covered for sure, the other I could not tell. Our best chances came on thru balls into the box (Kevin had a great run on one ball that was about a foot too far from Pat McLean) and Pierre and Pat both beat their guys and centered balls but we never got a good shot on goal. We held our shape very well defensively with the back line defending at the 18 very successfully and the midfielders about 10-15 yards up field and everyone on offense and in the middle putting presssure on the ball.


WUSTL subbed much more than CMU (you could see the effect in the last 10 minutes) with Pat first coming on about halfway thru the first half as the point forward, Harry going back to central defense, Alex moving up to defensive mid and Marshal shifting out to the wing. Nick Karr, Kevin, Mac and Ryan also subbed in in both halves. Everyone contributed to this win.

In the second half we played even for the first 10 or 15 minutes and then CMU put on a huge push that lasted until about the 10 minute mark. We defended very well except for about a three minute stretch where it seemed like we were chasing the ball and CMU was winning every 50/50. They were still winning the head balls (Joe was telling our guys to win the second ball on goal kicks and punts) but we defended very well and they never were able to get the ball into an attacking position. Other than on corner kicks and long throw ins CMU was never successful in bringing the ball inside the 18 in the entire second half. They had two good chances in this stretch, one off a corner that was headed off the back post to the near post on goal but David Klein (in position we might add and with his Dad in attendance) cleared the ball to prevent the score. The second close call came off a ball that was headed high into the air from about 8 yards out towards the goal but John Smelcer went up high and with two CMU players crashing the goal left one on the ground and the other frustrated as he came away with the ball. Never a doubt. Everything else they had was long shots from outside the box that were either way high or easily handled by John. Again excellent team defense with everyone looking strong on the back line and at defensive mid and eveyone else staying in position and pressuring the ball. We were very consistent in doubling the ball and coming away with it on our sidelines.

In the last 10 minutes our subbing and fitness showed as Marshall, Kevin, Pierre and Pat put some nice combinations together to run at CMUs defense but we never got the last pass thru. With about five minutes left we switched the ball to the left side where Zach Hendrickson beat his man and centered the ball which was cleared over the goal line by a lunging defender right beside an onrushing Pat McLean to prevent a score. About a minute later Pierre had a lovely pass to play Zach thru on the goalie on the left hand side. Zach touched once and then hammered a shot from about 12 yards that the goalie managed a great reflex save on to keep them in the game but we held our poise and ran out the clock for the win.

We had 17 supporters in attendance from 6 states (including Mac's grandmother from Pittsburgh) and were probably 10% of the crowd but at least 25% of the noise. Pierre's mom was there to help us correctly pronounce Allez Ours (it really sounds a lot better when she says it). I was able to explain to one very obnoxious CMU fan that suggested "Pierre should be called Peter as that is how we do it in America" that in this case Pierre could be translated more simply to "I'm a better soccer player than you are". There was a great echo off the buildings on the other side of the field that helped the amplitude of our cheering. We had a lot to cheer about.

We will look forward to seeing many of you next weekend in St Louis. I understand from Sheldon that both of Nat's grandmothers are coming (I am looking forward to Elie getting them appropriately psyched up for this game) and I know we will have at least 25 other Parent Squad friends and family at the game. Jeff will be twittering I am sure and we will arrange some sort of longer e mail report at the half if possible.

Looking forward to another great game.

Congratulations on the great win players.

Go Bears- Allez Ours

paul

p.s. Injury update- Nick Wilbar who got tackled from behind in the IWU game and ended up with a knee injury is rehabbing well and will hopefully be back on the field soon

Team Rock vs Lindenwood

Ok, so it has taken me a week to get a posting up about the game. Sorry for that. Things have been a little busy. None the less, on Wednesday, October 1st Team Rock traveled to Lindenwood University to take on their jv squad. It was a hard fought game with some very hard tackles against us, but in the end the only goal that was scored came in the second half when a Lindenwood player took a dive (my opinion) in the box a drew a PK. I guess that is the way the game goes some times.Be sure to check out all of the photos from the game on my SmugMug page (link) and in a day or two I should have the video from the game posted on UStream.tv. (link)