2023 D3 Men's Soccer National Perspective

[PitchSidePat]

Ohio Northern travels to Ohio Wesleyan tomorrow which is sure to be a great game at Roy Rike. Ohio Northern dominated OWU last year in Ada, which the Bishops will surely be looking to avenge. ONU comes into this game a bit cooled off after their emphatic start, while OWU is just the opposite, winning their last two games, including one over #13 St. Olaf. Definitely a game worth watching as these two will battle to claim regional supremacy.

[Kuiper]

If you want to see a great goal. https://twitter.com/i/status/1700992478223257659

I'd be curious to hear what some of the GK folks think....clearly a very nice goal, but should the keeper have done better?

He might have shifted over to make an easier jump on the ball, but the ball had a lot of movement on it and there were a lot of bodies that could have obscured his line of sight.

That is just an amazing shot. I don't really even think the goalie did much wrong there, he just wasn't prepared for a one in a thousand shot from that spot on the field.

(I also don't really see very much the defenders did wrong there. Sometimes a golazo is just what it is. Professional announcers have kind of messed with us a bit... They are constantly looking to pin the blame of a goal on someone, when sometimes a player does something that just couldn't be stopped under normal circumstances.)

To elaborate and provide more context to the not being "prepared" point, a GK in the modern game is expected to have their eyes looking back and forth for possible runs or unmarked players and, in an instant, evaluating priorities to determine where to shift, where to direct defenders to shift, and how to set themselves up.  From a priority perspective, a shot after a ball is trapped on the chest and is bouncing like that at that distance is lower down on the priority list for a GK.  That's why you see the GK pull out of his set position in anticipation of a different kind of action than a shot after the ball was cleared.  He might have re-evaluated once he saw the attacker cock his foot, but I'm not sure he could see it that well and it might have happened too quickly.  I'm sure a shot moved up the priority list the next time that player had the ball in the offensive half of the field.

[Hopkins92]

Exactly. It's like criticizing a defender in basketball when a dude takes one dribble over the half-court line and jacks up a 3.

[Kuiper]

Chicago pulls out a 1-0 victory at North Park on a well-placed corner kick that resulted in an own goal.  Neither team looks as strong as they did last year, with lots of uncharacteristic giveaways (some the result of aggressive marking), but Chicago looked a bit stronger.  Interestingly, I thought Chicago's grad student transfer from D1 was not as solid in the back as their senior CBs from last year.  He may not have played out of the back at Princeton as they do at Chicago.

Great play-by-play and color crew, by the way, @GregorySager!

[Gregory Sager]

Chicago pulls out a 1-0 victory at North Park on a well-placed corner kick that resulted in an own goal.  Neither team looks as strong as they did last year, with lots of uncharacteristic giveaways (some the result of aggressive marking), but Chicago looked a bit stronger.  Interestingly, I thought Chicago's grad student transfer from D1 was not as solid in the back as their senior CBs from last year.  He may not have played out of the back at Princeton as they do at Chicago.

Great play-by-play and color crew, by the way, @GregorySager!

Thanks! Appreciate that.

Chicago bossed the ball most of the night, but NPU had the better opportunities in the run of play, including a Mike Dejworek header that hit the crossbar and a pair of close-in strikes from Eduardo Cirilo and Emil Svenander that resulted in a spectacular double save by Maroons GK Will Boyes. Chicago's best chances came off of set plays -- the own goal was, as Kuiper said, the fruit of a perfectly-placed corner kick by Jack Leuker, and Lyndon Hu took advantage of a misplaced Vikings wall to rocket a free kick from 25 yards out that struck the upper right corner of the frame.

Both teams are dealing with some injury attrition, but the Maroons were able to provide the veteran experience that the youthful Vikings couldn't match. Still, I was encouraged by how well an NPU team that started two freshmen and nine sophomores stood up to that kind of scrutiny.

[PaulNewman]

Exactly. It's like criticizing a defender in basketball when a dude takes one dribble over the half-court line and jacks up a 3.

Love the analogy.  I was right in the middle of a response to you and Kuiper when the lights went out yesterday...something along the lines of "you can't stop Lucas Pleasants, you can only hope to contain him."  Anyway, I'm not contesting anything, just trying to understand and why I asked what the real GK folks think.  In terms of Kuiper's comments and yours, if part of the argument is that he had no reason to anticipate such a deep shot when he also must attend to the various possibilities unfolding right in front of him, why did he make his jump too early?  Or did he not make his jump too early?

[Hopkins92]

I just went back and watched a handful of times again... I don't think he so much jumped early as he threw what I like to call a "token" dive out there. He knew he was beat, so he just made the effort to save a little face. He was a dead duck, but he dove over there so he didn't look like a statue. And I'm not giving him grief, we've all been there.

(A lot of Messi goals, especially on free kicks, you see the goalie do this.)

[Kuiper]

Exactly. It's like criticizing a defender in basketball when a dude takes one dribble over the half-court line and jacks up a 3.

Love the analogy.  I was right in the middle of a response to you and Kuiper when the lights went out yesterday...something along the lines of "you can't stop Lucas Pleasants, you can only hope to contain him."  Anyway, I'm not contesting anything, just trying to understand and why I asked what the real GK folks think.  In terms of Kuiper's comments and yours, if part of the argument is that he had no reason to anticipate such a deep shot when he also must attend to the various possibilities unfolding right in front of him, why did he make his jump too early?  Or did he not make his jump too early?

I had to watch it several times.  My read is that he didn't make his jump early.  He made an early shift to his right as the attacker struck the ball and then realized it was swerving left and tried to jump immediately to correct it because he didn't think he had time to shift back left before making the jump.

And this is why GKs get frustrated when coaches scrutinize the film of their actions on a goal while fast-forwarding right by the field players originally responsible for this mess. If Otterbein's coach is watching this goal closely on film, all of his attention should be on why two defenders easily allow the left-sided player to pass the ball across the box, why the defender falls to his knees (in what might have been a penalty), and why the defender panic boots the ball up the center of the field (risking it getting blocked by the attacker on the ground or his teammate on his knees) rather than booting or pushing it out to the left side for a better chance for a clearance or booting it farther toward the sideline to his right where there was less chance of a block (it was a clear 10 foot+ lane to his right with no players to get in his way) and it would be less dangerous when it hit the ground.  That defender will get no grief for what happened, but he either made a split second decision no different than the GK that wasn't the best one in retrospect or he used poor technique in clearing the ball.  I get why he did it (there was a player in the box rushing in from his left and defenders are taught to clear a ball quickly in the box), but he kicked it right to the opponent, which was the proximate cause for the shot.

[PaulNewman]

Lucas Pleasants...please meet Miko Warshaw.

[SierraFD3soccer]

Messiah Dickinson 0-0 with 30 min. left. Dickinson grass though nice is really really high so very slow game. Dickinson also had a great chance to score and does not appear to be just parking the bus.

[Kuiper]

Carleton with a big 1-0 win over Gustavus Adolphus to move to 5-0

Ohio Wesleyan beats Ohio Northern 1-0

Cortland and Rowan tie 1-1

Redlands beats Chapman 2-1

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 1 Cal Lutheran 1 (Cal Lu tied it up at the buzzer on a shot from the edge of the box while CMS was playing with 10 men)

Occidental 8 Cal Tech 0 (ouch)

[SierraFD3soccer]

F&M 4-2 over Penn State Harrisburg. 5-0

F&M came out sleepwalking in some ways and PSU scored a popcorn goal after a very, very good long throw in the first half.  Over the last couple of years, PSU has definitely given F&M a hard time. Last 3 games to include NCAAs, 1-0 wins against PSU.  In second half, F&M's quality started to take over by scoring 2, then giving up a stupid foul with the free kick leading to 2-2. Oscar Horowitz stepped up and scored the next two goals.

Horowitz now has 7 goals over 5 games and 4 game winners.

FYI, Messiah scored with 9 min. left.  Dickinson fought back and almost tied it up. 7 min. left.

Trap games are real in soccer.

[paclassic89]

PSU-Harrisburg also beat Messiah in 2019.  They're a quality program now.   2 of F&M's goals were also "popcorn goals".  Shots 14-11 in favor of PSU-Harrisburg.   A lot of these F&M games have been even contests

[SierraFD3soccer]

PSU-Harrisburg also beat Messiah in 2019.  They're a quality program now.   2 of F&M's goals were also "popcorn goals".  Shots 14-11 in favor of PSU-Harrisburg.   A lot of these F&M games have been even contests

May have beaten them in 2019, but PSU beat Messiah definitely in 2021 1-0. Couple of my son's friends played for them.

Absolutely as to popcorn goals for F&M for at least one, but all in the run of play. 3 come from behind wins with many goals scored after the 70th min. If they don't play stronger early and figure out their defense, they'll end up on the wrong end running out of time to comeback. Could be easily 2-3 or 2-1-2.  Thankfully for them its a 90 min game.

Dickinson definitely looked good and lost a heartbreaker.

[paclassic89]

To F&M's credit, they are one of the best programs in the country at winning close games and grinding out wins.  The style of play and the bench antics has drawn a lot of negative attention/detractors (of which I am probably one) but the results are the results.