2023 NCAA Tournament

[Freddyfud]

Composure in the box to finish by St Olaf is the difference.  They go up 3-1.  Impressive.  And without Morgan who is hurt.

[SimpleCoach]

Great game.  My game notes.

[SierraFD3soccer]

Great game.  St. Olaf definitely outplayed. Pinto played great. Roanoke's plays like an ice hockey rink without the boards.

Who wants to pay for those guys to go to announcing school?? Unbelievable.

[camosfan]

Announcers were not bad, the streaming was not good for me since the women's games yesterday.

[GKForverr1]

camosfan I agree the stream was not good. I do video production for a living and was annoyed to see each camera set to different exposures and white balance. Seemed like they had to cut to different cameras during second game PK's because the center camera was so dark. I expect that from student workers during the regular season but not for an NCAA hired crew. (Was told by an athletic comm friend there is a hired crew) A first world problem but nonetheless this is the championship it should look like it!

For anyone who was on site... did the field boundaries and corners seem dark? It looked like the lights did not fill the whole field with consistent light.

[camosfan]

Going right to left on the screen, the left side corner flag is not adequately lighted.

[Kuiper]

Amherst 1 - W&L 0

That was a screamer of a goal off a poor headed clearance by the W&L defender. 

Joseph has been really aggressive in coming off his line to try to snuff out breakaways, but he almost got in trouble right before the goal with a clearance that went off the striker rather than being played out of trouble.

UPDATE:  Amherst 1 - W&L 0 at the Half

Amherst had the better of the chances even after the goal, including one Joseph pushed over the bar at close range, but it has mostly been a pretty physical game with neither side fully able to establish possession or productively able to connect enough threatening passes.  Could have been some yellows in the first half on both sides, but the ref seems to have made an effort to avoid going down that route too early.

And just like that, Amherst scores again 28 seconds into the second half

Amherst 2 - W&L 0

[Freddyfud]

Some great athletes and creative ideas, but man this is hard to watch.  I don't recall seeing more than 3 successive passes from either side. There is no flow due to the amount of restarts and changes in possession.  One of W&L's backline players is having a rough game.

Edit:  and as soon as I say that W&L puts some passes together and scores.  Let's see if they can repeat.

[kevdog]

This is how Amherst plays. They literally can not or refuse to play possession. Just kick it up to their trees up front.  W&L at least is trying to play possession.

[Freddyfud]

This is how Amherst plays. They literally can not or refuse to play possession. Just kick it up to their trees up front.  W&L at least is trying to play possession.

Makes sense.  But if everyone knows this then why isn't W&L prepared?  Their midfielders are capable.

[paclassic89]

How many times is Amherst going to push someone over in the box and get away with it?  O/U 5

[Freddyfud]

That was a fantastic low shot to tie.  Very smart.

[stlawus]

Amherst #33 with another shove in the back but all he does is clear a shooting lane for W&L.  Something poetic about that. 

[kevdog]

That is what happens when you just shoot the ball. Can get deflected and go in. Anything can happen when you do that.

[kevdog]

This is how Amherst plays. They literally can not or refuse to play possession. Just kick it up to their trees up front.  W&L at least is trying to play possession.

Makes sense.  But if everyone knows this then why isn't W&L prepared?  Their midfielders are capable.

Teams try but Amherst have big guys who just close the space. They seem to score a lot of goals off of set pieces and long throw ins. It is not pretty but it has been effective for them