Sooner Soccer- Plays late this afternoon vs BYU in the Quarters

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooners Soccer Team plays this afternoon at the scheduled time of 5:30 PM vs the 7th Ranked BYU Cougars. But there are two other Quarterfinal games that will be played before the Sooner BYU match today so the game time could shift to a later start.

In their earlier meeting this season, the Sooners were defeated by BYU 2-0 at John Crain Field in Norman. Both BYU goals included 2 assists showing the ability that BYU has to pass and to flood the zone with players. BYU plays a quick brand of soccer. I thought OU played pretty well against BYU the first time. But the Sooners will have to find a way to score if they desire a win in regular time.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the math with BYU.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/10/2 ... arterfinal

One key is the availability of Dani Wolfe for today's game. During the second half in the match against OSU on Saturday, Wolfe took a hard fall and seemed to injure her hand/wrist/elbow or shoulder. If she can not play today, I think OU would take one of three approaches. 1) Move Hadley Murrell into the starting forward role with Ella Pappas taking Murrell's place in the midfield. 2) Move Muriel Kroflin off the back row where she played on Saturday to the midfield and allow Weber to move forward to join Emma Hawkins as a forward. Ella Pappas would take Wolfe's spot. 3) They will move Morganne Eikelbarner from the bench into the starting forward role.

I do not think that Escalante Galekhutle has the endurance to play big minutes in the starting role. She is a valuable sub playing short minutes in each half. But I am sure that Coach Mott will have a plan today if it is needed to replace D Wolfe.

It will also be interesting to see if Kroflin stays on the 4 player back line as an inside defender alongside Andie Wolfe with Calley England on the outside right and Cassie Clifton on the outside left. That change against OSU seemed to be effective and kept OU from being short-handed on the back row as they sometimes can find themselves. England was also effective at moving forward to help in the midfield at times.

Good luck this afternoon to the Sooners against BYU.

Boomer Sooner!

[AustinTXSooner]

Weather will have an effect today. The high peaks out today at 48 degrees. It's supposed to rain from around 3:30 until about 4:30. That's not during our game, but it might cause a delay in the game before us if lighting strikes. The wind is currently at 16 mph due south.

[OUBeliever56A]

I was not able to watch the entire match yesterday but I was able to check in at the end of the first half and see that OU trailed BYI by a 1-0 score at halftime. I thought that was a decent start to the match, especially with BYU scoring in the 9th minute to open the match. By the time I arrived home and unpacked from playing in the OU Softball Golf Tourney at Belmar, the score had grown to 4-0 in favor of BYU. BYU had scored another goal in the 5th minute of the second half to take a 2-0 lead. Two more goals in about 8 minutes apart in the 60-th minutes put BYU up 4-0 and al but sealed the victory. But as I watched the end of the match, OU was still working hard to try and pull off a miracle. I am so impressed with Emma Hawkins as she is truly the Eveready Rabbit as she just never rests and chases the ball trying to score a goal or assist on a goal on the forward end. Calley England is much the same way on the defensive end of the pitch. At game's end, every one of the Sooners on the field was still working hard even with the score reaching 6-0. BYU can be overwhelming with their ball control and ability to strike quickly with the ball. They are a mature team with lots of Seniors on the pitch.

The Sooners season is now over. Here is the Sooner staff wrtiers article about the final match for the Sooners.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/10/3 ... arterfinal

Dani Wolfe was able to start with a good tape job on her wrist. The Sooners use dthree subs in the match against BYU in Ella Papas, Escalante Galekhutle and Zoe Parkhurst. Six Sooners played all 90 minutes for the second match in a row on Saturday and Monday. I did notice the match was on a natural turf field yesterday. That was a better thing for the game I think but it sounds like the weather caused the matches on Saturday to be played on an artificial turf field.

Here are two quotes in the article from Coach Mott about this season.

"When I got here we talked about creating a new OU," first-year head coach Matt Mott said after the loss. "I think this team did that. They bought in to what we were trying to do from the very first second and I can't appreciate that enough. The seniors left the program better than they found it. The way that the team welcomed myself and our staff into the program was awesome. The future is so bright for us and I'm really proud of the season that we had. We're looking forward to moving on to what's next."

"I'm incredibly excited to move into the future with this group," Mott added. "We've laid a really strong foundation and I know that we're moving in the right direction. The future will bring new challenges, but that means it'll bring new opportunities for our program. We'll be excited when we can get back to work and attack what's next."

I think that the Sooners will only lose two players for the next season. But losing Emma Hawkins and Dani Wolfe will be key for the Sooners moving forward. I think that both of Calley England and Escalante Galekhutle, while being honored as Seniors, are able to return to the Sooners for 2023 if they chose to do so.

IMO, Coach Mott has made the most of the season where he was hired a bit late and had many players to leave and all but one of the recruits decommit from the Sooners. That was a tough blow to his first season. But Coach Mott picked up some key transfers to put together a team for this season. I think I give him a B+ in his first season. The team is still for the most part, a young team. This year's play in the Coach Mott style will help them next season. The team needs some depth and this year's recruiting will be important. I only know of a couple of recruits for this class though so the transfer portal should be a key again for Coach Mott. They play a up-tempo style, maybe that will help Coach Mott pickup some key players.

The Sooners finished 8-10-2. That was beyond my expectations before the season. The fact that OU made the Big 12 Tourney is a big check mark for the team and Coach Mott. One of the goals for next season, would be to be more competitive on the road. If they can so that, the season should take care of itself.

Boomer Sooner!