Look Whose on top of the Pac 10 Mens Soccer Table

by OldSage on Oct 25, 2008 10:01 PM PDT

With last night's win over the Huskies, the Bruins are 5-1-4 in their last ten games garnering three consecutive shut-outs.

The challenge will be to keep from letting down against Oregon State Sunday (as they did vs. Stanford after the big win against Cal two weeks ago!)

I anticipate a very big game vs a well rested Cal team (they had a bye week) Halloween night at Drake Stadium.

Go Bruins!

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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A 1-0 win over OSU today

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Oct 26, 2008 5:19 PM PDT reply actions

Wow

That was certainly unexpected (good news) based on our recent track record. Would love to hear from those (who have been watching these guys) whether they are seeing anything specific from the team leading to these results. Hopefully they stay consistent through rest of the season.

by Nestor on Oct 26, 2008 6:51 PM PDT up reply actions

Hopefully we can keep it up.

I will have to echo Nestor’s request on more specifics from anyone going to the games.

by makenji on Oct 27, 2008 11:44 AM PDT reply actions

A couple of thoughts

The defensive unit appears to be solidifying and getting stingier as evidenced by the four consecutive shut-outs. (Remember, the only returning starter from last season was Rusin).

The experimentation with the starting XI necessitated by the departures of Meyers and Beltran coupled with a significant number of early injuries to a fair number of players ( i.e Nakazawa) appears to have been stabilized.

Stevens has really emerged this year and in my book is the early favorite to win the team’s MVP award. Andy Rose, Rookie of the year.

Of remaining concern is the absence of a consistent finisher. Not that having this year’s goal distribution being spread across quite a few players is a bad thing.

I am hopeful that the Bruins now have their starting XI defined with the squad appearing to be somewhat health. This to allow the team (especially those on the DL early on) to find their rhythm and game fitness to wrap up a PAC 10 title and gain the oh so needed momentum to make the post season tournament.. The week’s Cal game is absolutely huge in this endeavor.

by OldSage on Oct 27, 2008 6:22 PM PDT reply actions

Ding ding ding

you just nailed all my thoughts on this team. I think with the team getting some sort of cohesion Griffin can step up and be a consistent finisher with a few other guys continuing to chip in as they have been.

I’m going to be at UCLA for Halloween Friday so I plan on going to the game beforehand. It will be a major test for this team and it will be interesting to see how they handle it. A win and the conference is just about locked up so hopefully they can get it done. I love your takes on the soccer team Sage so please keep them coming.

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Oct 27, 2008 6:49 PM PDT up reply actions

Less than 48 hours in arguably the biggest game of the Bruins 2008 season

Win Friday and old man momentum is on the team’s side to the Pac 10 title.
Lose – all is not lost, but clearly will be an uphill climb with the real risk of missing the post season tournament for the first time since before a time many of the players playing were even born,

As predominately a very young team, will a clear leader of this team emerge and want the game on his back?

Setting aside all of the pre-season hype (Maxwell Award/Hermann Award candidates), it will be interesting to observe in this game just who thrives and performs under this pressure.

So, who will it be?

by OldSage on Oct 29, 2008 7:22 PM PDT up reply actions

I'm not sure we're that close to missing the playoffs

We’re 7-4-5. We made it last year at 8-8-3. While anything’s possible with our streakiness, it seems like we would have to do pretty badly to even match last year’s record. I don’t follow the rest of the country, so I don’t know how our record compares, but it seems like we’d have to lose all four or lose 3 and draw the last to miss.

That said, this is a big game – we’ll have to beat good teams in the tourney if we want to do anythnig.

by jaffa on Oct 30, 2008 11:27 AM PDT up reply actions

Perhaps my scare was a bit extreme

But having said that, a PAC 10 conference title would be really nice if only to break Cal’s consecutive title run as well as to ensure a more favorable seeding in the tourney.