A Sea Of Red

The Lady Flames continue their excellent play with a 3-0 win over Coastal who narrowly was voted second in the pre-season Big South poll. Silvia Betancourt led the way with two goals, and Maria Owen add the other goal. The Lady Flames are unbeaten in their last four games. Great playing ladies!

http://www.libertyflames.com/index.cfm? ... 6&TeamID=5

saw that on the ESPN ticker last night and was very pleased.

and a bit surprised

gotta have more faith I guess- seems like the ladies have it turned around

While I am not particularly a fan of women's soccer, this recent success makes me happy on a number of levels. Hopefully it will continue and keep those with "agendas" quiet. I also think it is/will be a big plus for LU's overall image to have a successful program headed up by a female coach.

Yeah, there seems to be a lot less noise in this forum after the tie against CSU and this win over the Lady Chants... hmmm....

I said it in another thread, but I'll say it again: they've changed up their style of play. It's a much more Brazilian style of soccer. They're letting their athletes do what they do best and not forcing round pegs in square holes.

SuperJon wrote:I said it in another thread, but I'll say it again: they've changed up their style of play. It's a much more Brazilian style of soccer. They're letting their athletes do what they do best and not forcing round pegs in square holes.

So maybe they were sandbagging the non-conference schedule?

I wouldn't say that. I would just say they saw something and made adjustments.

They have changed their lineup. At least for the start of games they've been coming out in a three back system, with 4 midfielders tight in the middle to frustrate the other teams play and three forwards up top, high and wide, playing extremely high pressure.
This coming out "early and strong" seems to be working well. In the game against Coastal the score could have been much higher, all the starters were taken out a few minutes into the second half and the entire squad made it onto the field.
Moving some players from defense up to offense and some players from the midfield to defense has turned out to be the right move--the whole team just looks a lot more comfortable in their respective positions.
Big South teams are already and will continue to struggle with AL and MO as the high and wide forwards on either flank bombarding teams with speed and intensity especially so early on. To finish it off, SB is a great finisher and when's she's given the chance, puts it in the back of the net. Also as SB gains more and more confidence, she'll simply score more and more. She was too isolated earlier on in the season, now she has people in support all around her, and she receives the ball in the other team's 18 where she really is destructive instead of at midfield where she struggles to hold off stronger defenders.
One thing to keep in mind, however, is that even though Coastal was voted 2nd in the polls at the beginning of the season, they have been playing terribly, and I don't think anyone expects them to finish the year well at all. So this victory like the Francis Marion one should be taken with a grain of salt. The Ladies got the result they needed against this team, now they need to go beat two slightly better teams this weekend.

I appreciate your detailed input ff10. You obviously follow our women's soccer team much closer than most of us here, so keep in mind that as casual fans (at best) we don't know all the players by their initials. I figured out Sylvia Betincourt, but that was it. If this is a clever ploy to get us all to take a look at the roster, it hasn't worked yet (for me anyway).

Here's hoping our women keep their roll going against Winthrop.

MO= Maria Owen
AL= Amy Luurtsema

Yeah, I don't really think anyone has any "agendas" here other than the Lady Flames winning - and we aren't particularly picky about who's coaching when it happens, as long as it happens. period.

Btw, excellent soccer analysis...

It must be remembered that the Big South teams look very weak this year. Take a good look at their non conference records. We SHOULD be winning these games and should be in the top three at the end of the conference schedule or an argument could be made for underachievement. They should win the two roads games this weekend.