NESCAC 2010

[pcc]

Becks, regarding your last couple of posts... Conn Conn graduates 7 including their best player,  maybe now's the time to throw caution to the wind and play the frosh in 2010. Hope they had strong recruiting class.

From what I've noticed of womens D3 in general, there are impact players who start all four years. Then there are frosh who get into a minimum of 7-8 games, which mostly develop into starters or have significant roles later on. Most of the attrition is the with the kids who get into a couple of games, then are gone by junior year.

[machine54]

yes just blow Conn up and start anew - perhaps Conn can take a page out of the books of Amherst and Midd

2008 Amherst team loses 6 to graduation including 3 mid and 3 defenders - 2009 Amherst - 13-4-1, second place NESCAC, semi-final NESCAC tournament, second round of NCAA tournament - ranked no. 19

2008 Midd - loses 7 starters - including entire front line - 3 mid and 1 defender
2009 - Midd 14-4-2, NESCAC tournament final, 3rd round of NCAA tournament, ranked no. 11 - goes from scoring 18 goals in 2008 to 46 goals in 2009 - 6 all NESCAC players, 1 All-American

Tufts doesn't lose anybody and can only manage 4th place in the regular season and semi-final loss in NESCAC tournament

perhaps Becks is correct - most NESCAC players don't improve over their four years so the only way a team can progress is to turnover its roster   


For the Camels anything is possible !!!!!!

[Becks]

After looking at some of the data, I've started to doubt some of my original beliefs:

1 - Graduating a lot of starters is a bad thing; returning a lot of starters is a good thing - Per machine's examples, this is a gross generality at best.

2 - Having a lot of frosh start is a sign of a strong recruiting class - Differences between programs seem to be a big factor.

I'll keep plugging along anyway, pretending that this stuff is meaningful . . .

BTW, machine -- How did you get a -2 karma?  I'm not sure how it's determined, but I would guess a negative karma is a bad thing.

[pcc]

How many players are on the most NESCAC womens rosters? I have been checking out D3 programs in the northeast and many have as many as 28, that's a looong bench.

[Becks]

2009 roster sizes:

Bates - 26
Bowdoin - 26
Middlebury - 25
Colby - 24
Williams - 23
Amherst - 23
Conn - 23
Wesleyan - 22
Trinity - 21
Tufts - 21

Which indisputably proves that northern latitudes cause larger roster sizes.

[2xfaux]

Thank goodness after 10 PM on a Friday even NESCAC folks have spelling issues.   .

[Becks]

Think I fixed it.  In defense of NESCAC, I'm only a NESCAC person by relation.  

[Becks]

Middlebury

2009 League Results: 7-2-0 (3); GF: 18 (2), GA: 9 (5), GD: +9 (3)
2008 League Results: 6-3-0 (3); GF: 14 (4), GA: 8 (2), GD: +6 (3)
2007 League Results: 4-4-1 (6); GF: 22 (2), GA: 15 (7), GD: +7 (3)
2006 League Results: 6-2-1 (3); GF: 17 (3), GA: 7 (1), GD: +10 (2)
2005 League Results: 4-3-2 (6); GF: 11 (6), GA: 13 (7), GD: -2 (7)

Middlebury's final league standings have been a bit up and down over the last 5 years, but it's GD has been a sold +6 to +10 for the past 4 years.

The prediction for 2009 had been for a slight decline in performance since the team was losing a slightly higher-than-average number of starters (4), including the 2d highest percentage of league goals and 2 starting defenders. Instead, Middlebury had a slight improvement in GF and GD and league results.

This year, Middlebury is losing 8 players to graduation, including 6 starters: forwards Paola Cabonargi and Margaret Owen (NESCAC 2d team), midfielder Lindsay Walker (NESCAC 2d team), and defenders Jenny Galgano (NESCAC 2d team), Anjuli Demers (NESCAC 1st team) and Valerie Christy. The graduating players contributed 33% of the team's scoring (2d highest for all teams). Even though Middlebury tends to bring along players a little more slowly than other teams, have more senior starters than most other NESCAC teams, and thus regularly graduate more starters than most NESCAC teams, that's a lot of talent to lose.  In fact, the stats suggest that the class of 2010 may have been Middlebury's deepest recruiting class in the last 6 years: They had more than double the starts as frosh as any other class in that time period.

Number of Mid frosh starters/total starts by Mid frosh:
Class of 2008: 1/14
Class of 2009: start stats no available
Class of 2010: 2/39
Class of 2011: 1/15
Class of 2012: 0/2
Class of 2013: 0/15

As a result, I think Middlebury did, in fact, lose a particularly strong class and so will more-likely-than-not be somewhat weaker this coming season.

Summary:  Middlebury will probably be somewhat weaker this year than last, since they graduated perhaps their deepest class in the last 6 years (and 6 starters and 33% of scoring) to graduation.  

[2xfaux]

Becks, you are not only a great fan, the premier analyst of the NESCAC but you are also indesputably a good sport as well.   I wonder if the big turn over at Middlebury will change their style of play.  I remember all the fouls from last year.  I will be curious to see what happens this year.

[Becks]

Trinity

2009 League Results: 3-3-3 (4); GF: 10 (6), GA: 8 (4), GD: +2 (5)
2008 League Results: 4-5-0 (6); GF: 12 (6), GA: 13 (6), GD: -1 (6)
2007 League Results: 5-3-1 (5); GF: 6 (8), GA: 5 (2), GD: +1 (6)
2006 League Results: 0-8-1 (9); GF: 7 (10), GA: 24 (9), GD: -17 (10)
2005 League Results: 1-8-0 (10); GF: 8 (9), GA: 27 (10), GD: -19 (10)

Trinity's last 3 years were a dramatic improvement over the prior 2.  A moderate improvement in GF was coupled with a dramatic improvement in GA.  The 16-goal improvement in GA from 2006 to 2007 was probably the best defensive improvement in league history.

The prediction for 2009 had been for no significant change in team strength from 2008, with perhaps an improvement in O but a drop off in D.  Instead, the O slipped a little but the D tightened up substantially, allowing Trinity to move up one spot in the final league standings.

This year, Trinity is losing only 3 players to graduation and only 2 starters: midfielder Lauren Olsen and defender Caitlin Prendergast. Two starters and 16% of scoring should not be difficult to replace. So as long as their leading goal scorer Howard (40% of team goals) stays healthy, Trinity should be stronger in 2010 than they were in 2009.

Summary:  Trinity should be somewhat stronger this year than last, since they are only losing 2 starters to graduation.

[onetouch]

Certainly not up to Beck's standards...just wondering about home and away games.

The big threee (Amherst, Midd, Williams) have an interesting Home/Away schedule that may impact the standings this year.

Amherst - 8 home/6 away (Nescac 4 home/5 away).  Tough away matches at Williams and Midd
Midd - 6 home/8 away (nescac 4 home/5 away).  Away at Williams, home at Amherst.
Williams - 5 home/9 away (nescac 4 home/5 away). Home to Midd and Amherst.

I'd have to say this seems to make life tough on Amherst.

[Becks]

Good point, onetouch.  Schedule is tough on Amherst and favors (cue up Darth Vadar theme) Williams.

[Becks]

Tufts

2009 League Results: 4-4-1 (4); GF: 12 (4), GA: 6 (3), GD: +6 (4)
2008 League Results: 5-4-0 (4); GF: 13 (5), GA: 10 (4), GD: +3 (4)
2007 League Results: 7-2-0 (2); GF: 14 (4), GA: 7 (4), GD: +7 (3)
2006 League Results: 6-1-2 (2); GF: 16 (4), GA: 9 (5), GD: +7 (4)
2005 League Results: 6-2-1 (1); GF: 15 (5), GA: 7 (1), GD: +8 (3)

Tufts has been consistently a top 4 team over the last 5 years.  However, their place in the final standings has slipped a bit in the past 2 years, despite the fact that their GF, GA and GD ranking has remained relatively steady.

The prediction for 2009 had been for a significantly improved team, since they graduated only 1 senior and no starters, Cadigan would be back from her 2008-season-ending acl, and they were unlikely to suffer the same keeper injury problems that troubled them in 2008.  While their defense did improve to a very impressive 6 goals, their offense slipped a bit and their league record ended up essentially the same as in 2008.  All-in-all, Tufts' 2009 season was a disappointment and stands as suggestive evidence that NESCAC players do not improve significantly from year to year and that therefore NESCAC team improvement comes most often from having incoming players that are better than departing or returning players.  Tufts got essentially no boost from its incoming players last year.  There were only 3 frosh on the roster, they played in a total of only 17 games, had 1 start amongst them, and had 0 pts.

This year, Tufts is losing 6 players to graduation, including 5 starters: forwards Whitney Hardy and Cara Cadigan, midfielders Ali Maxwell and Fanna Gamal (NESCAC 1st team), and keeper Kate Minnehan.  Five starter slots is a lot to fill.  Worse still, the departing players represented a whopping 64% of team scoring.  Hard to tell from the stats, but some of the starter slots may get filled by players who were injured last year (the 3 frosh and some of the older players (eg, Rowse) had numbers suggesting they might have been injured).  However, the team will probably need a very good incoming class to prevent a decline from 2009.

Summary:  Tufts should be somewhat weaker than last year, since they graduated 5 starters and a league-high 64% of scoring.

[pcc]

"However, I would suggest that an additional 3-4 week of playing time probably doesn't matter as much as what the players do in the 36 weeks between the end of one season and the start of the next season."

"It's my perception that, on average, female NESCAC players do not improve a lot over their 4 years.  Some definitely improve dramatically, but I think almost an equal number get worse."

Becks, Maybe NESCAC players, indeed most d3 players, regardless of team, make similar progress throughout their four college years. College isn't really about individual development, just results?

Regarding out of season play, do many d3 players rejoin their club or WPSL team in late Spring and summer?

[Becks]

Re rejoining club or WPSL in late spring and summer -- I am aware of 3 Wes girls who played at least some WPSL games this summer, and there may have been others that played WPSL or club, but I would guess that most did not.  I suspect the situation is similar at other D3 schools. I heard that at least some D1 schools supposedly require their players to play D1 in the summer.  However, the fact that there are a lot more D1 teams than WPSL teams suggests that many D1 players do not play WPSL.