Tourney Semis: #4 Seed ASU v. #1 Seed Hartwick 6:30 Ted Mac

[asu66]

The 2015 Sun Belt Conference Men's Soccer Championship, hosted by App State, continues with two semifinal matches today: the No. 2 seed Georgia State vs. No. 3 seed Georgia Southern match is in progress (GaSouth leads GaState 3-1 at the half.) and No. 1 seed Hartwick vs. our No. 4 seed Apps' match will kick off at 6:30 PM. All matches of the tournament will take place at the Ted Mackorell Soccer Complex just off of 421 S.

This will be the fourth match between ASU and Hartwick in the brief, two-season Sun Belt experience for both teams. Hartwick has won the first three. Clearly, Hartwick has played a tougher schedule than the Apps and has more talent; but the Apps played the Hawks well in a 2-1 home loss just two weeks ago. The Apps have the advantage of the home pitch again tonite. Hope springs eternal; anything can happen.

All tournament matches will be broadcasted by ESPN3 and available for viewing on the WatchESPN app... http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index/_/id ... ampionship

Go here for LiveStats... http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=111253

[YesAppCan]

0-0 after 45'

[MountaineerMafia]

Disappointing finish to that one. Thought App had their chances and could have pulled off the upset. They moved the ball pretty well and had good chances from set pieces. They started to unravel after the Hartwick goal. You could see the heartbreak in the body language of our players. They worked so hard and Hartwick gets a quick counter attack goal after being outplayed for most of the game. Decent finish to a lackluster season. Would have thought about road tripping to Boone if they had made it to Sunday.

[asu66]

Disappointing finish to that one. Thought App had their chances and could have pulled off the upset. They moved the ball pretty well and had good chances from set pieces. They started to unravel after the Hartwick goal. You could see the heartbreak in the body language of our players. They worked so hard and Hartwick gets a quick counter attack goal after being outplayed for most of the game. Decent finish to a lackluster season. Would have thought about road tripping to Boone if they had made it to Sunday.

[asu66]

ASU center back and team captain Jordan Melia (junior, Bolton, England) clears the ball from the ASU goal-front in the first period of last night's match with Hartwick.

Disappointing finish to that one. Thought App had their chances and could have pulled off the upset. They moved the ball pretty well and had good chances from set pieces. They started to unravel after the Hartwick goal. You could see the heartbreak in the body language of our players. They worked so hard and Hartwick gets a quick counter attack goal after being outplayed for most of the game. Decent finish to a lackluster season. Would have thought about road tripping to Boone if they had made it to Sunday.

You're correct. It was a completely winnable game; but as I have posted on so many occasions over the last 12 or so years, you can't win if you can't score. And so went the ASU season; shut-out five times by the likes of Longwood and Winthrop to name a couple. Longwood, for instance, was a 9-9-1 team; but only 3-4-1 on the road. One of their infrequent road wins, however, was at ASU.

So now, Matt Nelson, who strangely was listed as "acting head coach" by GoAppStateSports.com after four seasons as head coach, awaits a decision on his now expiring contract. After this, his fifth season, his record stands at 36-35-18. That's very mediocre by my definition, given the soft schedules his teams faced.

It remains to be seen how Doug Gillin will see it. I'll have a more thorough analysis in the days to come. All is not well, and we find ourselves at a cross-roads.

Which direction will we take?

[Highbeam]

I made the trip to Boone last night to see the game. I want to share some of the things that I saw. App played well overall but the same issues that have hurt them all year hurt them last night.

The defensive third for App was quick, tough and challenged Hartwick's attack all night. They got burned on a counter from Hartwick when App's defenders and holding mids failed to track back in time to prevent the score. It was a nice cross and finish by Hartwick.

The middle third was dominated by App all night. They cut off passing lanes, challenged Hartwick's mids and completed a high percentage of their passes all night. This was a new line up in the middle of the field for this game. I asked myself, why hasn't Nelson used this line up before in the middle? Could you have not used it earlier in the season? The only thing I wished they would have done more is push the outside mids forward. I don't know why everything has to come through the middle where Hartwick's
back line was the strongest. There was hardly any space that we could take advantage of and operate in.

The attacking third was the same old story. No creativity or movement by the forward and attacking mids. This has been our problem all year. When Chapman entered the game Hartwick put their best defender on him or marked him. I feel this is not the players fault but the coaches fault. When teams mark our best player and scorer they have no back up plan to counter their strategy. Coaches should anticipate what they can do when different circumstances arise during the game. That is the reason why they call it coaching.

I am like you asu66. The last five years have been average playing below average teams. You showed Nelson's overall record while he has been at App. I checked his conference record during his tenure and it is even worse. 9-14-7 from what I could figure. I found his comments after the game interesting. You could read his comments a couple of different ways. He was lobbying to stay the course and or pleading to keep his job.

I talked to few players after the game and most believe some sort of change is going to happen after the tournament is over. I agree, I think this program needs a new direction and it will be interesting to see which direction Gillen goes. Is he satisfied with mediocrity or will he go for a complete rebuilding of the program? We will see shortly.

[AppGrad78]

This program will improve when we make a commitment to fund more scholarships. Our current level isn't cutting it. Ditto for baseball. We can change coaches every week if we like, but until we put actual dollars behind the program, the result will be the same.


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[DoubleA]

Comes down to resources and commitment to the program, including coaching, recruiting, and budget. While Hartwick and NJIT fly to NC to play in Boone, the Apps endure 12 hour bus rides to Oneonta, NY (2014) and Newark, NJ (2015). Coaching issues have been discussed ad nauseam, with both on the field and off the field issues. Fact is, we've managed to win just 33% of conference games under the current coach, and have finished near to bottom of the table each season. It was believed that formation of Sunbelt MSOC conference would provide a relatively easy path to a conference championship and automatic NCAA tournament bid. So far, that has not proven to be the case. But we haven't been to the NCAA tournament since 1980, so this is by no means a new problem. Sad thing is, 5 out of 8 wins in 2015 have been against teams ranked 196 or lower (out of 206). The program seems to have hit bottom and the new normal is loading the schedule with bottom feeders and striving to complete with the very weakest D1 teams. Ouch!

If my count is correct, ASU (#155) is currently ranked 11th out of 14 D1 teams in NC, and is only ranked ahead of Gardner Webb and UNC-A. Meanwhile, Elon (#27) and UNCC (#26) have managed to find a way to compete at a national level. Go figure.

The coming weeks shall be very telling regarding administration's commitment to the program, or lack of. A lot of people will be anxiously waiting and watching.