Portland slams Lady Mustang's soccer

[redpony]

The rankings I gave are from a top women's soccer site. No matter, Portland is a top 10 team and probably a top 5 team. Portland won the NCAA championship in both 2002 and 2005 being one of I believe only three teams to win multiple women's champiionships. It was undefeated in 2005. A consistently very strong program.

You are correct. I didn't mention the 2002 championship since that was more than a few years ago. I am sure that the players from both championship teams have since graduated.

As I mentioned in another post- we should hire their coach.

GO PONIES!!!

[redblue08]

I do not know where you are getting your info.

topdrawersoccer.com had Portland ranked #1 going into last weekend. Doesn't really matter whether they were #1 or #3. The Mustang team that was winning the WAC wouldn't have beaten them either. Best mid-season ranking I saw back in the day was #14. Ranking was typically between #18 and #24. And as quoted often, that is what this program aspires to be. I'm confident they'll get there. But when they do, you will find some way to minimize the accomplishment.

[redpony]

I do not know where you are getting your info.

topdrawersoccer.com had Portland ranked #1 going into last weekend. Doesn't really matter whether they were #1 or #3. The Mustang team that was winning the WAC wouldn't have beaten them either. Best mid-season ranking I saw back in the day was #14. Ranking was typically between #18 and #24. And as quoted often, that is what this program aspires to be. I'm confident they'll get there. But when they do, you will find some way to minimize the accomplishment.

You are incorrect. I think we both want the same thing. I am perhaps just a bit more impatient as I have been fortunate enough to have seen a lot of great performances by the soccer teams, basketball teams and the football teams. I am too old to wait another 5 years for more greatness.

GO PONIES!!!

[redpony]

Here is an except from the Portland soccer site. If you will read it carefully you will observe that other schools have faced greater challenges than our women's team and have still been able to be successful and more than competitive. Their asst. director of soccer is apparently their women's coach as their director of soccer is responsible for both the men's and women's programs.
All-in-all pretty damn impressive.

"The 2007 season was all about overcoming obstacles as numerous key players were lost to injury and two players – Stephanie Lopez and Sophie Schmidt – missed half of the regular season while competing at the World Cup. Smith and the resilient Pilots still rattled off an 18-4-0 record, including 11 straight wins, before falling to No. 1 UCLA on the road in the quarterfinals. He earned National Coach of the Year honors from FieldTurf, his second such honor after claiming the Soccer Times National Coach of the Year award in 2005.

Smith orchestrated a record-breaking 2005 season that resulted in the school’s second NCAA title in four years. Portland finished 23-0-2 and routed UCLA in the title game by a 4-0 margin. The Pilots became just the second school in history to complete an unbeaten season with a title, joining North Carolina. The Pilots also became the third program to win multiple women’s soccer titles along with North Carolina and Notre Dame. Portland became the first program to bring in more than 40,000 fans in one season. Along the way, Smith became a fan favorite for his straight-forward and reserved coaching nature...so reserved that a member of the media compared his sideline coaching style to putting on a “poker face.”

No matter the style, Smith has produced phenomenal results, both as an assistant and as a head coach. After helping Portland claim the school’s first NCAA championship in any sport as an assistant in 2002, Smith took the helm and led the Pilot women to the third round of the NCAA playoffs in 2003, finishing with an 18-3-2 overall record. Impressive as the record was, it was even more remarkable considering the nation’s best player - Christine Sinclair - was forced to redshirt the entire season while competing in the FIFA World Cup for her native Canada. Sinclair returned in 2004, but the Pilots were again shorthanded as three of the team’s top players - Angie Woznuk, Stephanie Lopez and Megan Rapinoe - redshirted while competing with the U.S. Under-19 National Team at the FIFA Youth World Championships. Despite their absence, Smith and the Pilots would claim the fourth 20-win season in program history before falling to eventual national champion Notre Dame in the NCAA quarterfinals. With “all the Pilots home” in 2005, nobody could topple the Pilots."

GO PONIES!!!

[EastStang]

Gee, that's weird, Portland State's highly successful coach was elevated from the assistant ranks. Hmm, perhaps that might be a viable formula for success for some programs.

[redblue08]

It also helps to have a pair of 5' 10" goalkeepers. Makes any coach look like a genius. Mustangs had as many shots-on-goal as Portland did.

[redpony]

Gee, that's weird, Portland State's highly successful coach was elevated from the assistant ranks. Hmm, perhaps that might be a viable formula for success for some programs.

IIRC all of their asst. coaches played at Portland and then continued as asst. coaches. That not only provides continuity but also loyalty.

GO PONIES!!!

[redblue08]

That not only provides continuity but also loyalty.

Where's yours?

[redpony]

It also helps to have a pair of 5' 10" goalkeepers. Makes any coach look like a genius. Mustangs had as many shots-on-goal as Portland did.

I believe that one of our keepers is 5'9'' and another is 5'7''. If they have a decent vertical leap they should be just as competitive. Surely you would agree that it is not smart to put a midget in goal.

GO PONIES!!!

[redpony]

That not only provides continuity but also loyalty.

Where's yours?

I was an active and loyal SMU fan and alum long before you were probably born. To question one's loyalty because they are tired of seeing some of our winning programs trashed by incompetent coaches is sheer stupidity. BTW, did you graduate from SMU or are you just a lurker from some 'wannabe' school? Are you a member of the Mustang club? lettermans club? Not nosey, just curious.

GO PONIES!!!

[neustang]

This forum is better than the Soaps I watched in my younger years. Amusing to say the least. It is interesting how many hits any topic about the women's soccer program gets. It has to mean something, everything else associated with it does.

[redpony]

Yep- our new soap - 'As the shot curls'.


GO PONIES!!!

[EastStang]

McClements was an assistant to SH for several years with a hiatus at Vanderbilt (I think). Erwin was a player and assistant under SH. So, why is it okay for Portland State to promote assistants and not for SMU to promote assistants? Both were protoge's of SH and certainly you have to give them the benefit of the doubt at hiring that they learned something from SH. Orsini knew Erwin and when UCF terminated their men's soccer program due to Title IX, he became available and we had an opening in women's soccer. (Part of me suspects that Orsini was hiring him as shadow coach for the Men's team if McClements stumbled). At the time UCF hired him, he was considered a solid hire and he did beat us out for several Florida prospects. At this point his credibility as a women's coach has to be seriously questioned as a really bad experiment. The sad part about this is, he might very well have been a decent hire for the Men's position, but now that he is out of position, he might be out for good if things don't turn around for the women's team.

[redpony]

McClements was an assistant to SH for several years with a hiatus at Vanderbilt (I think). Erwin was a player and assistant under SH. So, why is it okay for Portland State to promote assistants and not for SMU to promote assistants? Both were protoge's of SH and certainly you have to give them the benefit of the doubt at hiring that they learned something from SH. At this point his credibility as a women's coach has to be seriously questioned as a really bad experiment. The sad part about this is, he might very well have been a decent hire for the Men's position, but now that he is out of position, he might be out for good if things don't turn around for the women's team.

First, I do not believe that Erwin ever played for SH as he attended froggie high. One big difference I see is that the Portland assistants started coaching at Portland without going to other schools to coach first. I would not speculate as to why they are very successful and our assistants have not been. TMc's head coaching record for eight years was 84-98-12 and Erwin's was 13-17-3 at UCF. I would hope that you would agree that those records are hardly what you would expect in replacement coaches for a program(s) that had consistently been nationally ranked, highly successful programs in the past.
If you were a sales manager for a large company would you hire a sales person that met his quota less than 50% of the time?

If these programs are not turned around this year then there need to be some major changes made.

GO PONIES!!!

[neustang]

The subject line needs to read: "redpony slams Lady Mustang's soccer".