Started their preseason campaign with a 1-0 loss to the Paraguayan women's national team. Yesterday they had 3-2 win over Seminole State College. TU went down 2-0 early in this game. That shouldn't happen. I have no idea what to expect. TU has some good players but I don't know that there is a player that can be a dynamic game changer for them. I suspect that TU will struggle this season.
TU Women's Soccer Fall thread
- Thread starter TU_BLA
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Let's be fair, Jim Rhein has been a TU assistant coach/associate head coach with the women's side since 2008. Rachel Blankenship is a former TU player and 4 time 1st team all AAC player. And Jo Johnson was the girls head coach at Jenks last year but she's no slug either. Understand that this staff is basically on a 1 year trial. Not only do they have to do well on the field, they need to start pulling in some of the star recruits in the Tulsa area. That's where I think Johnson comes in. There is plenty of talent that comes out of Union, BA, Bixby, Jenks, Bishop Kelley, and Owasso to field a starting 11 that would compete for conference championships. TU needs to get out in front of Makenzie Malham and get her here next year (she's almost a lock to be Gatorade Player of the Year in Oklahoma). Giselle Urquiza is on campus now. She's a really good player from Bixby.
There's a couple ways to do that...one is facilities. TU's soccer facilities are the best in the state...the natural grass field surface is one of the best in the country, let alone college. And then use TU's academics to keep them here over say Arkansas and OkState.
I hadn't heard that Makenzie committed yet but it doesn't surprise me it would be Arkansas. The in state tuition and SEC competition make it an attractive offer for players from the 918. It also doesn't hurt that Arkansas has become Union HS east.
Arkansas has a great relationship with the TSC upper level coaches on the girls side. Hopefully the new TU coaches are working on building a close relationship with Yolanda. TU doesn’t just need a few girls from TSC every year, they need the BEST girls from TSC.
And it shouldn't be that hard to get 2-3 of them each year. Great school, immediate playing time, league with multiple bids to the NCAAs.
Why did Ashton Gordon tell UA to piss off to go to Pitt? I obviously have a good idea. Just curious what others think. She's the best player out of Tulsa in the last five years so what's going on at UA?
The program is clearly in cost cutting mode. And that’s probably a good thing.
The talent signed had dipped and that needs to be addressed. The program has lacked punch since Cami and Jordan graduated. And that’s starting to be a long time ago.
It remains to be seen whether getting local talent is the answer. Kids work hard. Many want to see where that hard work can take them, not three miles away where Mom went to school and the school Dad thinks is second class in athletics. You need a good mix of players and that takes a recruiting budget. Jo Johnson was a good addition.
The talent signed had dipped and that needs to be addressed. The program has lacked punch since Cami and Jordan graduated. And that’s starting to be a long time ago.
It remains to be seen whether getting local talent is the answer. Kids work hard. Many want to see where that hard work can take them, not three miles away where Mom went to school and the school Dad thinks is second class in athletics. You need a good mix of players and that takes a recruiting budget. Jo Johnson was a good addition.
I have no idea who you're talking about so obviously a while back. But it's been probably 20 years since I really followed the women's program closely. It went into free fall mode when Renae was the HC. You knew she was a disaster when she couldn't organize her own summer camps and Tom did her a favor and let her combine with his.
We need to recruit better. Start getting the best players from TSC, pick up a few from Solar, Sting, Texans, etc…and fill in the gaps with a few foreign born girls. Right now the best local girls are headed to Arkansas and Okla State. That needs to change.
Jordan O’Brien and Cami Pelley were stand outs on the 2013 team. The team had a unique chemistry. They were good not great but they played for each other. You could see them having fun.
Jordan played for the Dash briefly then on to Europe then eventually River Platte. She camped with the USWNT a few times and was briefly part of the pool. She was legit and doesn’t get the recognition she deserves.
Im pretty sure Cami played briefly professionally and her father or grandfather played football at TU. Can’t remember for sure.
TU is deadlocked 0-0 with Creighton right now. Tactically TU is fine. Technically this team is deficient. The one touch passing is killing me and the execution in the final 1/3 is a disaster. There's potential if they can clean that up.
TU also lacks any dynamic athletes. There's just not a lot of pace to put a ton of pressure on the D in 1v1 situations.
TU also lacks any dynamic athletes. There's just not a lot of pace to put a ton of pressure on the D in 1v1 situations.
TU scores a cracker of a goal in the 86th minute! TU wins 1-0 over a Creighton squad that was 2-0 coming into the game. I will be honest the defense was a lot better than the scores from the 1st 2 games seemed to indicate. There were some good things I saw but still the technical skill lacked for the most part.
Good win for TU
Good win for TU
Was it Poplin that said it about the Creighton coach? Jim Rhein has been at TU for quite some time as Cussen's assistant and prior to that he was the Bixby girls coach. I felt they did an awful lot of talking about the Creighton coach last night
Tulsa has some great girls' club programs and turns out 5-6 D1 players each year. And there is some upper level talent that is getting noticed by USWNT program at the U23 and younger stages. None of those players are coming to TU. Union basically had the #1 girls program in the entire country for 3 years running. The only game they lost in that time span was a shootout to BA in game 1 of the 2018 season where BA basically kept 10 behind the ball looking to get a draw. The talent is in the area. A couple of those players end up at OSU, a couple at OU, but a lot of them are going to Arkansas. The difficult thing about soccer is there are no full scholarships (there could be but typically you don't see that). Women's soccer gets like 14.5 scholarships. If you watched the game against Creighton, Poplin mentioned TU is carrying 37 players right now (IMO, 26-28 is a good number). My guess is 26 of those are on some type of athletic scholarship. If you don't get need based grants or merit based scholarships to supplement that, then you're asking parents to make up the difference of a $40k annual bill. In Arkansas the total is closer to $20k annually with the in state rate.
The general rule for all sports other than football and basketball is to give partial ships and make up as much of the rest with other scholarships and financial aid. All colleges operate in this manner. Is TU not doing enough with supplemental money for non revenue sport athletes? If TCU and Rice can both have top 25 women’s soccer teams I’m not sure why we can’t at least be competitive. Our facilities certainly aren’t the problem.
Part of it is perception that we are at a disadvantage in getting at large berths. But that’s just negative recruiting.
Part of it is that a lot of our partials are paying cash. Hard money. That matters at TU. It doesn’t matter at Arkansas and they cost half as much.
And the last bit is we offer a different product. 90% of the team wanted to get away from home for school and chose Tulsa. 90% of the area high school players want to get away from home and that means not choosing Tulsa.
Our program is doing what it needs to do. No doubt an increase in emphasis on women’s soccer would net better results, but then you’d be wondering why we aren’t putting that time and money into mbball and softball.
They really are enjoyable games. I save my “what if’s” for football.
Part of it is that a lot of our partials are paying cash. Hard money. That matters at TU. It doesn’t matter at Arkansas and they cost half as much.
And the last bit is we offer a different product. 90% of the team wanted to get away from home for school and chose Tulsa. 90% of the area high school players want to get away from home and that means not choosing Tulsa.
Our program is doing what it needs to do. No doubt an increase in emphasis on women’s soccer would net better results, but then you’d be wondering why we aren’t putting that time and money into mbball and softball.
They really are enjoyable games. I save my “what if’s” for football.
Facilities are certainly not the problem. The game pitch rivals that of MLS in terms of quality....and it's natural grass vs. field turf. The practice pitch (drainage ditch next to the tennis facility) is only behind the game pitch in terms of the quality of surface in the state.
So recruit Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Austin, KC, and Saint Louis. We always have players from there. We don't need Tulsa. If they want to be here pick them up, we don't need an entirely local team. As someone on this board has suggested.
When the Girls Development Academy existed, I referring it and virtually every college coach was there, including Stanford, North Carolina, UCLA, etc...Since that has folded, I am sure the ECNL showcases it is in the same way.
TU was the only local school not to have a coach at the girls ECNL spring national showcase. That has to change. I’m not sure how much attention the girls pay to that type of thing but those ecnl coaches certainly take notice.
And one of those local ECNL girls just committed to UMKC. If she's capable of playing D1 soccer, why wasn't TU recruiting her because there are a number of girls on the team right now who are not D1 caliber. And the girls at the ECNL level here are pretty damn good.
I wondered about the caliber of some on our team because they don’t look like they belong on a college team.
Conditioning has been an issue in the recent past, not talent, skill, tactics, or speed potential. Not sure about now though.
2021 SIGNING CLASS
Karsen Aguirre MF 5-7 DALLAS TEXANS ECNL
Elizabeth Campbell MF 5-5 TSC ECNL
Ileana Ferguson MF 5-4 ENERGY FC DA
Haley Nichols MF 5-7 DALLAS TEXANS ECNL
Lily Powell D 5-7 DALLAS TEXANS ECNL
Quinn Turner F 5-2 TSC ECNL
Giselle Urquiza MF 5-6 TSC ECNL
Madison Williams D 5-3 FC DALLAS ECNL
Karsen Aguirre MF 5-7 DALLAS TEXANS ECNL
Elizabeth Campbell MF 5-5 TSC ECNL
Ileana Ferguson MF 5-4 ENERGY FC DA
Haley Nichols MF 5-7 DALLAS TEXANS ECNL
Lily Powell D 5-7 DALLAS TEXANS ECNL
Quinn Turner F 5-2 TSC ECNL
Giselle Urquiza MF 5-6 TSC ECNL
Madison Williams D 5-3 FC DALLAS ECNL
Plus one on Giselle. She’s elite imo. TSC has one of the best technical trainers in the country imo. The players coming up through the club now should be much better on with that aspect of the game.
TU needs to be signing the best girls at TSC (like Giselle) . Her signing is a great start.
I saw her play at BIxby last season. Even with Makenzie Malham on the field, Giselle was the best player on the field from either team. She didn't have a ton of help around her though and that's where Union was able to get the better of Bixby.
I'm glad they are showing that improvement. But I've watched 2 of the games. This team is very tactically sound. The back line is generally well organized from what I've seen.
Technically they are not. I've seen 11 and 12 year olds who are more sound technically. In my experience coaching soccer and being around a lot of high level competitive club teams and their coaches, young players are sponges when it comes to learning new ways to play the game tactically. It is an area teams can improve rapidly. Technical skills only improve through constant work and touches. Receiving a ball, 1st touch, passing a ball correctly all have to be practiced ad nauseam. The older a player gets the more difficult it becomes to break them of bad technical habits and poor technique.
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