Lady Vols Soccer ⚽️ Tennessee @ Virginia Tech 11/15 Friday 7PM Blacksburg VA ⚽️ NCAA TOURNAMENT First Round

#5,877
#5,877
Only 2-of 32 home teams failed to advance in #NCAAsoccer Women's 1st Round & those results led to Nebraska @HuskerSoccer [5-seed in UCLA quad) being able to host next weekend's 2nd & 3rd Rounds.

~ Advanced on Road:
UC Irvine 1-0 at [quad 1-seed] UCLA
Tennessee 1-0 at [4] Xavier
 
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#5,879
#5,879
Super soccer stat man CP Thomas wrote today: "All of the end-of-season rating systems have Nebraska over Tennessee, even without home field advantage."

Not a surprise. I'm sure the same was true of Xavier. I also read that South Dakota State had an impressive 67 percent possession against Nebraska and a higher XG (expected goals given where and how shots were taken)--yet Nebraska scored 5 goals. I'm going to watch some of that match to get a bead on the Bug Eaters.

Xavier's XG in our game was 4.
 
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#5,880
#5,880
I mentioned that Nebraska's Eleanor Dale takes a lot of shots. I just heard at the start of the broadcast of their match against South Dakota State that she's scored 25 goals this year--an almost comical number. Nebraska had the Big10's most prolific offense.
 
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#5,881
#5,881
turbovol said:
Super soccer stat man CP Thomas wrote today: "All of the end-of-season rating systems have Nebraska over Tennessee, even without home field advantage."

Not a surprise. I'm sure the same was true of Xavier. I also read that South Dakota State had an impressive 67 percent possession against Nebraska and a higher XG (expected goals given where and how shots were taken)--yet Nebraska scored 5 goals. I'm going to watch some of that match to get a bead on the Bug Eaters.
Click to expand...
I expect a full report on the bug eaters.
 
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#5,884
#5,884
A night game in Lincoln, Nebraska. It could be cold. Never been to Nebraska and never want to go! I think we'd be better off playing during the day, but Gonzaga and UC Irvine are playing the early game, which starts at 4:30.

I said Xavier played a bit like Arkansas, but Nebraska is even more so, based on the half I saw against South Dakota State--which
has a pretty decent team. South Dakota State is a possession team while Nebraska, like Xavier and Arkansas, does not care much
about knocking the ball around. They get the ball in the attacking half and then their wingers or midfielders like to loft long passes down into or toward the box, and there they've got a couple of forwards who seem pretty good shooters and can put the ball in the net, if they get hold of the ball and a bit of space. South Dakota State actually scored on a beautiful play in the first 2 minutes of the game to take the lead, then Braska tied it, then SDS took a 2-1 lead on a miscue by the Braska keeper. They maintained the lead until about 11:00 minutes or so were left in the half, and then Braska scored a couple of goals to go up 3-2. One of their goals came on a bad giveaway by the SDS keeper--she essentially passed it to a Braska forward who promptly put the ball in the net.

Eleanor Dale, who has 25 goals this season, is a senior from England. She actually didn't do a lot in the first half--the three goals were scored by others---though her teammates lump the ball downfield in her direction quite frequently. She seems reasonably athletic with decent or better speed, but I didn't notice anything spectacular about her or her play in the 40 minutes I've so far watched. They've got another forward who's scored 13 goals, and she scored one of their first-half goals against SD State. I'm going to try to watch a bit more of the game.

Nebraska likes to play the ball down their right side of the field a lot; they've got a winger on that side who is quite speedy; she sends a lot of deep crosses into the box. They've also got a midfielder who led the Big10 in assists. The Braska announcers acknowledged that the team has had some back-line issue and can give up shots and goals. It's a team that generally outscores its opponent. We'll have to bottle up their mids and wingers and make it difficult for them to get the ball forward--and our centerbacks will have to be alert at all times and make good clearances. And we really need to score a couple of goals in this game, even though we are not a particularly good scoring team.

One thing that might favor us is that, IMO we've faced a higher level of competition this season. The Big10 got 9 teams in the NCAA--more than any conference--but I'm still not sold on it as a good conference, top-to-bottom. In fact, 4 of those 9 teams lost in the first round; the Big10 has 5 left. Only 1 SEC team lost in the first round--we have 7 left (though 3 or 4 have tough 2nd-round matchups). So this will be a mano-a-mano conference matchup. There's already been another--the Aggies beat Colorado in the first round.

--Penn State, a very good team (one of top teams in the tourney), beat Nebraska 1-0--the only game in which Braska didn't score a goal.
--A good St. Louis team--in the second round of the NCAA--beat Nebraska, 3-2.
--A solid and well-coached Wisconsin team tied Braska 1-1 in the regular season, then beat Braska 3-1 in the Big10 tournament. I'd be watching film of those games if I were UT's coaches.
--Nebraska beat Ohio State, which made the NCAA tourney, twice by 1 goal--once in the regular season and the first game of conferernce tourney.
However, Ohio State got waxed by Pittsburgh in the tourney the other night--lost 0-6.

My sense is that if we play tough and smart defensively, get another good game from Zazzara, we can play with Nebraska and even win this game if we can put the ball in the net at least 2 times. I think we'll get some chances in attack, and we'll have to take advantage.

I just noticed a team we should thank for helping the Vols with its RPI and getting in the tourney--mighty Radford, a team we beat 3-1 early in the season. Radford won its conference, I think lost only one game--and I just noticed that it got into the NCAA. It lost its first round game to a very good Clemson team by a very respectable 2-0 score.
 
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#5,889
#5,889
I've a question about the Lady Vol logo: I see it sometimes with a baby blue triangle or somesuch "draped" over the upper left]
part of the logo. What is that supposed to mean?
 
#5,897
#5,897
Wow, well deserved.

TENNESSEE GOALKEEPER ALLY ZAZZARA – COLLEGE SOCCER NEWS WOMEN’S NATIONAL PLAYER OF THE WEEK – WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 12, 2023​

IMG_5567.jpeg

No player had more of an impact on the success that their team had in the first round of the NCAA Tournament than Tennessee netminder Ally Zazzara who had fifteen saves while anchoring a stout bend but don’t break Lady Vol defense that shutout Xavier 1-0. Zazzara came through in the clutch making all the big stops that she needed to make to give Tennessee the opportunity to prevail in overtime where graduate student Sizzy Lawton scored the game winning goal for the Lady Vols.

A gusty team oriented effort led by Zazzara enables Tennessee to advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament to face Nebraska on Friday.
 
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