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Posted (edited)

Spring schedule continues with Northwestern State on April 14th. 

Results so far: 3-0 win vs UTSA, 3-1 win vs A&M Corpus, 2-0 win vs ST. Edwards. 

Returning almost everyone from the Sweet 16 team last year. 

Edited by texasstrong12
  • 3 weeks later...
Posted (edited)

http://admin.texassports.com/news/2018/4/18/soccer-announces-its-2018-fall-schedule.aspx

"UT is returning 23 letter winners from last fall's 14-4-3 squad that advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16 for only the fourth time in program history. Those returnees combined to account for 97 percent (28-of-29) of UT's total goals and 90 percent (27-of-30) of the total assists from the 2017 campaign as well as all 14 goalkeeping wins and 11 shutouts between the pipes."

Pretty much return the entire roster from the Sweet 16 team. 

Edited by texasstrong12
Posted

Worried that non-conf schedule will not get us ready for conference play.

 

Nice to have returning starters, but that will not mean much if we don't improve style of play. We can't have defenders turning the ball over with practically every touch.

Posted (edited)

I think there's going to be changes defensively. One of those Canadians is likely going to win an outside fullback position. If not both. 

Edited by texasstrong12
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
Posted

Article on Grosso

https://wwfshow.tumblr.com/post/174742338993/canadas-17-year-old-midfielder-is-looking-to-make

In addition to potentially representing Canada at her first WWC, the Vancouver Whitecaps FC Girls Elite product is getting ready for her freshman season with the University of Texas, alongside CanWNT fullback Emma Regan. 

“I leave at the end of July,” said Grosso, "I’m looking forward to getting started with them. There’s someone on the [CanWNT] who’s going with me, so it’s nice to travel with someone [I know].”

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
Posted

Chris Henderson has started writing previews of teams we play. First team up is UTRGV (picked to finish 7th in the WAC). This should obviously be a win. 

http://www.allwhitekit.com/?p=16482

Texas Rio Grande Valley have not taken long to adapt to life in the WAC, already looking more credible than some of their (slightly) more high profile rivals in the league. While the Vaqueros were about as average as it gets in non-conference play, they were strong when league play came around. At least at home. UTRGV won all four of its matches at home and went 0-2-1 away from home in the WAC. Some would say that correlated to not just home/away but the best/worst teams in the league, but it was still enough to net third in the league. Their WAC Tournament stay was a short one though, as they were bounced by Grand Canyon in the quarterfinal.

The odds of repeating that league finish look considerably longer though. UTRGV loses four starters, including a couple of big ones. Leading scorer Andreya Barrera is one of the graduates after netting seven as a senior while also chipping in with four assists. Central midfielder Hanna Spets also graduates following a three assist season as a senior.

The cupboard’s not entirely bare on offense, as Ghanian winger Sarah Bonney does return and is the club’s leading returning scorer with five goals and six assists, though nobody else returning had more than three. A wild card could be Stony Brook transfer Lea Kalmbach, who was impressive as a central midfielder in the America East as a rookie in 2016 before finding opportunities more limited last year.

It may be a more defensively oriented Vaqueros side in 2018, and the club can rely on center-back Tuva Rolstad Nilsen, who also had five assists last season. UTRGV looks to be taking a bit of a step back this season given some of the departures, but they still have an outside shot at making it back to the postseason.

Posted (edited)

UTRGV parked the bus and gave our offense fits last year as they took us to overtime before Texas netted the winning goal. Looking forward to this season getting under way. Our exhibition against TAMU-CC is less than 3 weeks away.

Edited by perfectchaos007
Posted (edited)

It's a good problem to have but Kelly is going to have a lot of decisions to make in terms MF/F. 6 or 7 starting spots out of Berg, Strouphauer, Billups, Adams, Hintzen, Dollas, Stearns, Graham, Falcone, and Glenn. 

Two of the freshman (Grosso and Smith) are also very talented. But I think they will give Grosso an opportunity at outside fullback to start. 

Crazy how our roster went from shit to pretty damn salty in a matter of a couple years. 

Edited by texasstrong12
Posted

Count me as one that did not expect or think Kelly would be able to recruit this well. I hope she continues to roll. What are expectations for this year?

Posted (edited)
21 hours ago, Goodman said:

What are expectations for this year?

Not sure but this is by far the best roster Kelly has had on campus since she's been at Texas. It's pretty much the same roster from the Sweet 16 team with a couple impact FR. 

Feels like we should be a top 20 team at worst. 

This is one of those situations where I hope Kelly keeps winning because the future recruiting classes are loaded with talent. 

Edited by texasstrong12
Posted

Is Kelly or her staff welcomed by our top state programs or is our recruiting national/international?

 

I am also curious to know if y'all think Kelly can make this a power program re:wins/championships or will she best viewed when an underdog?

 

Appreciate the info as I have zero clue on soccer recruiting/program.

Posted
12 minutes ago, texasstrong12 said:

Not sure but this is by far the best roster Kelly has had on campus since she's been at Texas. It's pretty much the same roster from the Sweet 16 team with a couple impact FR. 

Feels like we should be a top 20 team at worst. 

This is one of those situations where I hope Kelly keeps winning because the future recruiting classes are loaded with talent. 

I buy this. Top 16 seed, host an opening game at home, reach Sweet 16 again.  Our ceiling is probably top 8, host 2 games at home.  A lot of graduations in the Big 12 and we return basically our whole roster with some good impact freshman.

Posted
9 minutes ago, Goodman said:

Is Kelly or her staff welcomed by our top state programs or is our recruiting national/international?

 

I am also curious to know if y'all think Kelly can make this a power program re:wins/championships or will she best viewed when an underdog?

 

Appreciate the info as I have zero clue on soccer recruiting/program.

Combination of both. She's started to build her recruiting base in Texas but she's definitively using her Canada connections. She's recruited heavily in California too. 

As for "power program" vs "underdog" I think Texas is always going to be an underdog type program because they don't have a men's program. We aren't a soccer school. 

 

Posted
On 7/23/2018 at 8:32 AM, texasstrong12 said:

I actually wonder if both of these girls are asked to reclassify to the 20 class. They are probably ready. 

 

 

On 7/23/2018 at 8:28 AM, texasstrong12 said:

Missimo could probably play for Texas right now at 15 or 16 years old. Unreal talent. Byars and Missimo on the same club team is just unfair. 

 

Still can't believe we got Missimo. Her dad is one of the leading North Carolina Men's Soccer goal scorers in history. But, understand he knows Kelly well so I guess that and access to both daughters trumps his allegiance to UNC.

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

#7 is Grosso. The Canadians are on campus. Also of note, every Canadian we are recruiting is beautiful. Not sure what they are putting in the water up there but it's working. 

 

Edited by texasstrong12
Posted
3 hours ago, pacman said:

Uh oh..could pull a Pugh and skip college. Interesting.

I think she wants to play college soccer for a few years. She started for PSG and was one of the better players on the pitch. She's perfectly capable of making a pro roster right now if that was her desire. 

  • Like 1
Posted

#17 is fair but I won't be surprised if we end up ranked higher at the end of the season. 

That road trip to Chapel Hill won't be easy. #6 UNC on the road and then #16 UCF on a neutral field. Any type of result in those two games would be significant. 

Posted

Interested to see who Kelly starts at outside fullback. I think it will look similar to the way we finished last year but as the season progresses I think one of the FR will win at least one of the outside fullback jobs. 

Posted

I'm also interested to see what Kelly does with Berg. I still like her in the midfield but we've started to get more talent at the position. Berg and Hintzen up top would be deadly but Berg's technical ability is probably better utilized in a center midfield role. 

But Texas has lot of options now in the midfield (especially center mid). Sterns, Dollas, Glenn, Grosso, and Strophauer can all play that role. 

I'm going to guess Berg starts up top with Hintzen because there's too much talent to leave on the bench with Berg taking up one of the center midfield spots. 

Posted (edited)
29 minutes ago, perfectchaos007 said:

I'm looking forward to seeing the Canadians mostly

I just hope we add their Canadian teammate because damn she's good. 

Huitema, Berg and Hintzen together for a year would be so salty. 

 

Edited by texasstrong12
Posted (edited)

Our non-conference schedule is much tougher than I realized. 3 of our first 4 games will be against good teams. Northern Colorado should be pretty good too. 1-1-1 over that 3 game stretch would probably be significant. 

 

Edited by texasstrong12
Posted (edited)

Tough to get much of a read because Kelly is playing so many players and treating this like an exhibition. But that's fine. That's what should happen in these games. 

Looks like the Canadians will start early. Regan is playing at outside fullback and looks like Grosso is playing an attacking central mid role. I started watching at the end of the first half so maybe it looked different to start the game. 

Edited by texasstrong12
Posted (edited)

Regan and Grosso look like players that have been playing international soccer for years. 

Completely different caliber players at this level. So much technical ability. 

Edited by texasstrong12
Posted (edited)

I'm excited about this team. We are loaded in the midfield and at striker. We are going stress a lot of teams defensively. 

It's already obvious there's a significant upgrade from a technical ability at fullback with Regan. 

Edited by texasstrong12
Posted (edited)

3-0 win but it wasn't that close. If Kelly played the starters more minutes together this would have been ugly. 

Looks like Kelly wants to play a 4-3-3. 

Regan, Surpris, Mshana and Jett at fulback. Grosso, Dollas and Billups in the midfield. Hintzen, Glenn and Berg up top. There's a lot of interchangeability in the midfield/forward because everyone has technical ability. 

This team is really gifted in the midfield and at forward. There's no reason they shouldn't score goals. 

Edited by texasstrong12
Posted

Expectations have to be high.  Kelly herself is really pimping this year.

They've reminded us that we returned 97% of goals, 90% of assists, 94% of points and 100% of shutouts; along with 2 All-Americans, 4 All-Regions, 3 All-Conferences, 1 Big 12 FOY.

Expectations are through the roof.

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