August 31, 2006

From the JMU/Comfort Inn Invitational

Hello Spider Soccer Followers,

Coming out of preseason, there is a ways a combination of uncertainty, optimism and excitement. This combination of emotions is always tempered with reality.

We traveled to Harrisonburg and took the field against a very good WVU team, ranked in the National Top 20. I think that they were very good, but we made them look better than they really were. We played with uncertainty and indecision, and the Mountaineers fed off of this to overwhelm our young team. Halftime was a 1-0 Mountaineer advantage, but it could have been much worse. We came out in the second half and played tougher. I was very pleased as we controlled the tempo and had a territorial advantage. We defended a counterattack poorly and gave a soft second goal. This made the comeback that much tougher. I thought that we played better throughout the second half, but were not able to make up the difference.

Sunday brought out a re-energized Spider team. We had a great back-and-forth battle with a very good Rutgers team (that beat JMU 3-1 on Friday). Rutgers drew first blood, scoring a great goal in transition after we had a turnover in our end. We fought back to equalize at 1-1 with a beautiful five-pass sequence leading to a Jen Ruhe cross to Julia Bizer streaking in for a score at the far post. The game went back-and-forth with a few chances for each side. Rutgers scored a great goal with 44 seconds to earn the win, but the Spiders’ team got some great experience in a well played game against a tough opponent. A win would have been nice, but for today, that had to be enough.

We are looking forward to a great game, possibly in the rain against our in state-rival JMU Thursday night at First Market. I hope you can make it.

From the Touchline,

Coach Albright