NESCAC 2010

[Becks]

First post for the 2010 season.  My last season, unless daughter #3 ends up going to a NESCAC school 4 years from now . . .

Number of 2010 home league games by team (key factor since home field advantage is worth about a 1 goal swing at least in NESCAC women's games):

Colby - 6
Conn - 5
Tufts - 5
Wesleyan - 5
Amherst - 4
Bates - 4
Bowdoin - 4
Middlebury - 4
Williams - 4
Trinity - 4

[2xfaux]

Does this translate into the usual suspects.  Williams, Amherst, M-bury?

[Becks]

2xfaux - I haven't finished my full analysis yet, but Williams and Amherst look like the top 2 again.  I always seem to underestimate Middlebury, but they look like they are losing too many starters from last year to be a sound pre-season pick.

[Becks]

Re number of home/away games:

- All the top contenders seem to have the same number of games (4), so no advantage/disadvantage as far as home/away goes at the top of the table.

- Toward the bottom of the table, Colby, Conn, and Wes all have an advantage over Bates in number of home games, which puts Bates at a disadvantage for making the tournament.

- Fact that the weaker teams generally have more home games than the stronger teams should tighten up some of the scores, but may not change the final league table.

[Becks]

Number of starters that each team has lost to graduation:

6 - Middlebury
5 - Conn
5 - Tufts
4 - Colby
3 - Wes
2 - Amherst
2 - Bowdoin
2 - Trinity
2 - Williams
1 - Bates

Losing more talent than you can replace is obviously a bad thing, but as Tufts proved last year (when its league record declined slightly even though it returned every starter), having all or almost all your starters return doesn't necessarily give you an advantage.  If, on average, a team gets 3-4 new starter-quality freshmen a year, that would suggest that Middlebury, Conn and Tufts may have a hard time filling all their holes with players of the same quality as their departing seniors.

[Becks]

Percent of goal scoring that each team has lost to graduation:

64% Tufts (eg, Hardy, Cadigan, Maxwell, Gemal)
33% Middlebury (eg, Cabonargi, Owen, Walker, Ford)
29% Conn (eg, Katz, Davey)
20% Williams (eg, Walmsley, Wolfson)
16% Amherst (eg Murphy)
16% Trinity (eg Olsen)
15% Bowdoin (eg, Riker)
11% Wes (eg, Kenworthy, Parl)
10% Colby (eg, Edwards)
0% Bates

Tufts is clearly the team whose scoring is most likely to be impacted by graduation.  Middlebury's losses may be felt most on defense, where it is losing 3 starters.  Tufts, Conn and Williams are each losing their starting keepers.  Williams, Amherst and Bowdoin are all losing top offensive players, but have enough other weapons that the departures should not have a significant impact.

[Becks]

Since there is still a lot of time before the season starts, instead of doing all of my 2010 preseason team evaluations in a single post (as per 2009), I've decided to serialize them and post them on a team by team basis in alphabetical order and then follow up with power rankings and final league table predictions.  As per last year, I am not going to try to factor in the impact of incoming freshmen.  Although the quality of incoming freshmen can clearly have a huge impact on a team, it is very hard to assess before they actually play against league competition.  First up, Amherst.


Amherst

2009 League Results: 7-1-1 (2); GF: 18 (2), GA: 4 (2), GD: +14 (2)
2008 League Results: 7-0-2 (2); GF: 34 (1), GA: 9 (3), GD: +25 (1)
2007 League Results: 5-2-2 (3); GF: 14 (4), GA: 6 (3), GD: +8 (2)
2006 League Results: 7-0-1 (1); GF: 20 (2), GA: 7 (1), GD: +13 (1)
2005 League Results: 6-2-1 (1); GF: 16 (4), GA: 8 (2), GD: +8 (3)

Note: The win-loss-draw records and GF, GA and GD stats above are for conference games only.  The numbers in parentheses are the rankings in the applicable category in NESCAC.

Amherst has pretty consistently ranked in the top 2 or 3 teams in the league for each of the last 3 years in terms of results, GF, GA and GD, despite huge swings in GF and GA during the period.

Amherst put together very solid 2d place seasons in 2008 and 2009.  The 2008 team was a goal-scoring powerhouse, led by Meg Murphy (13 goals in all games), Kyla Woodhouse (8 goals) and Jackie Hirsch (8 goals).  With all 3 returning, but 3 starting midfielders and 3 starting defenders graduating, the expectation was that scoring would continue to be strong but that the defense would be weaker.  Instead, in 2009, scoring was down significantly and the defense improved significantly (perhaps as a result of an increased focus on defense to compensate for the loss of all those defensive starters).  A still-decent offense, complemented by a very stingy defense, resulted in another fine season and a second straight NCAA tournament bid.

This year, Amherst will be losing only 3 players to graduation, and only 2 starters:  perennial 1st team all-NESCAC player and leading scorer, midfielder Meg Murphy, and defender Kathy Nolan.  Offensively, losing Murphy will be a bit of a blow.  However, the departing graduates only collectively represented 16% of Amherst's scoring last year. Returning players should be able to provide Amherst with plenty of offensive production from varied sources.  Hirsch and Woodhouse will be back, as will Cooper, Little and Nathan, three freshmen from last year who each scored at least 5 goals.

Summary:  Amherst should be stronger in 2010 than they were in 2009.  They are losing only 2 starters (1 M, 1 D) and only 16% of total scoring.

[johnboy]

Thanks for doing this. It's really interesting and I find your comments very insightful. Will you be doing them in alphabetical order? Then I have to wait a week or so...

[Becks]

Yes, in alphabetical order.  But not necessarily a week apart.

[johnboy]

I was assuming a day apart, hence 9 days for me.

But I'm not trying to rush you, of course.

[Becks]

Bates

2009 League Results: 2-7-0 (9); GF: 6 (8), GA: 17 (9), GD: -11 (8)
2008 League Results: 2-7-0 (9); GF: 6 (8), GA: 20 (9), GD: -14 (8)
2007 League Results: 1-8-0 (9); GF: 4 (10), GA: 23 (9). GD: -19 (10)
2006 League Results: 4-4-0 (6); GF: 11 (6), GA: 16 (6), GD: -5 (7)
2005 League Results: 5-3-1 (4); GF: 25 (1), GA: 11 (5), GD: +14 (1)

Bates has been stuck in 9th place in the league for the last 3 years running, after being in the middle of the pack in the prior couple of years.  GF, GA and GD have all fallen to near the bottom of the league, although GA and GD have both improved slightly in the last 2 years.

The prediction for 2009 had been for moderate improvement over 2008, since only 3 starters were graduating, a freshman-heavy 2008 team would have one more year under its belt, and the team would have 5 home games in 2009 versus only 3 in 2008.  However, while defensively the 2009 team improved slightly over the 2008 team, overall improvement was minimal statistically and the team remained near the bottom of the league in both offense and defense.

This year, Bates will be losing only 4 players to graduation, and only 1 starter: defender Avery Pierce.  Since none of the seniors scored a goal last year, Bates is losing no offensive production through graduation.  The key for improvement, however, may be the strength of the incoming class.  Last year, no freshman started more than 6 games (out of 14 games played).  To significantly improve over the past few seasons, they need to get a bigger boost than that from the new incoming class.

Summary:  Bates should be stronger in 2010 than they were in 2009.  They are only losing 1 starter (1 D) and 0% of total scoring.  With a reasonably decent freshman class, they should improve over 2009.

[pcc]

Almost  confused the following link with the UNC womens program... pretty brash compared to the understated NESCAC websites which just put up the '10 schedules!





http://www.vassarathletics.com/news/2010/4/30/WSOC_0430102244.aspx

[Becks]

Yes.  Someone on the soccerhead.com (CT premier soccer) discussion board had previusly pointed out this Vassar team page.  I would say that whoever is responsible for it (Vassar AD, SID and/or coach) are either coming from D1 (and not familiar with how things are done in D3) or are D1 wannabees.  Pretty inappropriate for a D3 team page IMHO.  What's particularly out of line is listing the colleges that the recruits supposedly rejected in favor of Vassar.  Very unusual even on D1 pages.  No way of knowing how interested the other schools actually were in the players or whether the player could have gotten into those schools.  In any event, taking this kind of public dig at the competition seems to violate the norms of how colleges (at least elite colleges) are supposed to behave toward one another.

[2xfaux]

Good grief,

It is called capitalism.  Vassar wants the Williams kid's money.  What am I missing here.  "Elite" colleges are competing for your money in tough times.  I am not sure if the references to other colleges are "digs" or just to point out that this kid had some other choices and chose Vassar, maybe because of the soccer opportunities.  Perhaps, "understated" isn't the way to go in the 21st century.

Having said this, I must admit I thought Vassar closed in 1968 and I pick Wesleyan to win the D-3 Championship this year!   

[Becks]

"Perhaps, 'understated' isn't the way to go in the 21st century."
Forunately some schools still have higher standards. (Sniffing with nose up in the air.)

"I pick Wesleyan to win the D-3 Championship this year!"
Clearly you have lost all touch with reality, 2faux!