Saturday, August 25, 2012

Game 3-8-107: Men's Soccer vs. St. Francis

What: Men's Soccer vs. St. Francis

When: Saturday, August 25, 2012, 7:00 PM

Where: Morrone Stadium

Result: Win 1-0

This was the first regular season game of the year for men's soccer, so it was also the first Goal Patrol meeting. It was crowded, probably more crowded than it will be at any game the rest of the season. We probably had several hundred students, at least, at the Goal Patrol meeting. Then it was on to Morrone Stadium.

St. Francis warmups - why
the red?
When we arrived, St. Francis was warming up. They were wearing red uniforms. (See picture on left) This confused me because I distinctly recalled St. Francis wearing blue when we played them before. Several thoughts occurred to me - was I wrong? Had they changed their uniforms? Were we playing the other St. Francis? But it turns out, those were just their warm ups. Strange. They changed into blue uniforms for the actual game, per their school colors. But the red warmups looked like real uniforms. They had numbers only on the front, while the real uniforms had numbers only on the back, but they could easily have been interchanged. Is one the alternate away uniform or something, and they use it as warmups when they're not wearing it? I don't know. Anyway, you can view a photo of the blue game uniforms on this page as well.

St. Francis huddling in blue uniforms
before the game. 
Then the game started. We scored our only goal on a Mamadou Doudou Diouf penalty kick, but frankly it could have been a lot more of a blowout. We had almost 20 shots, and about a dozen chances that could easily have led to goals. But we only scored one. But a win is a win. We are ranked #1 in one poll now and #4 in the other. With #2 UCLA losing to St. Francis, we could be ranked #3 next week in that poll. Next up for men's soccer is Dartmouth next Friday. There are a women's soccer game and a field hockey game tomorrow at 1:00 PM. I may go to one, and I probably will. But there's other events going on then that aren't sports that I may attend instead. I don't know yet. I'll update tomorrow.

Regardless, I will be at the men's soccer vs. Dartmouth Friday night. But I can't attend football vs. UMass Thursday night, which is disappointing. I get out of class at 6:15, but that doesn't leave me time to catch the bus, the last one leaves at 6:00. That's all for now.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Weekly Schedule, August 20 - September 2

The schedule of games I plan on attending, next week and the week after. Next week is break, but I'll still be on campus. The week after is the first week of classes.

Key:

(Y) - Will Attend
(P) - Probably Attending
(M) - Might Attend
(D) - Doubtful to Attend
(N) - Not attending (only used in exceptional cases)

Friday, August 24:

7:00 PM: Women's Soccer vs. Boston College (Y)

Saturday, August 25:

12:00 PM: Field Hockey vs. Bucknell (Y)
7:00 PM: Men's soccer vs. St. Francis (Y)

Sunday, August 26:

1:00 PM: Field Hockey vs. Sacred Heart (D)
1:00 PM: Women's soccer vs. Maine (M)
Between the two, it's a (P)

Thursday, August 30:

7:30 PM: Football vs. UMass (N)
I get out of class at 6:15, in time to watch the game on TV, but not to catch the bus

Friday, August 31:

7:00 PM: Men's soccer vs. Dartmouth (Y)
All simultaneous games are therefore (N), unless rain cancels the soccer game.

Saturday, September 1:

10:00 AM: Women's Volleyball - Toyota UConn Classic: Michigan State vs. Dartmouth (P)
12:30 PM: Women's Volleyball - Toyota UConn Classic: UConn vs. Fairfield (Y)
5:00 PM: Women's Volleyball - Toyota UConn Classic: Fairfield vs. Dartmouth (P)
7:30 PM: Women's Volleyball - Toyota UConn Classic - UConn vs. Michigan State (Y)

Game 3-5-105: Women's Soccer vs. Vermont

What: Women's soccer vs. Vermont

When: Sunday, August 19, 2012, 1:00 PM

Where: Morrone Stadium

Result: Win 4-2

Vermont in the green,
UConn in the white.
Finally, a regular season game! After Friday night's game was interrupted and not counted, this one finally counts. Home opener - take two!

As it was, we outshot the Catamouths 25-3, but somehow allowed 2 of those 3 shots to go in. The third almost went in. It's troubling, because if teams manage to shoot against us, we'll be in trouble.

Nevertheless, we won. We went down 1-0 early, and it looks like the UCLA near-win was false hope. But we went up 2-1, and we were finally ahead. Vermont evened it 2-2, which had some of the fans groaning. But less than 30 seconds later, we took the lead back! We showed quick strike ability, scoring again right after that.

Mini husky on my desk
On the way out, they gave out miniature husky things. They're kind of cute. I'm not surprised they waited until the end. Keep the fans in their seats, even when the game became a blowout. You can see a photo on the right.

Unfortunately, two of our players left with injuries. The refs let Vermont get away with almost anything. We got called for a lot of fouls however. Bad refeereing. Maybe he was from Vermont?

Well, I finally saw a regular season UConn game this year. The next game will be Friday night, with the women's soccer again playing, this time against Boston College. On Saturday, I'll be at two games, field hockey against Bucknell and men's soccer OPENER vs. St. Francis. I'll also be posting a schedule for the first week of classes later today.

Game 3-4-103: Men's Soccer Exhibition vs. Stony Brook

What: Men's soccer exhibition vs. Stony Brook
Stony Brook (red) and
UConn (blue) before a
corner kick

When: Saturday, August 18, 2012, 7:00 PM

Where: Morrone Stadium

Result: Tie 0-0

Exhibitions are usually nothing special. But this game was unique. First of all, we were wearing our blue road uniforms while Stony Book was wearing their red uniforms. We did that last year against the Seawolves too. And we wore our blue uniforms vs. UMass in the first exhibition. Not sure if it means anything for the regular season.

Andre in his plain
white T-shirt.
As for the game itself, there was no scoring. 0-0 draw, although we had A LOT of chances. We need to beat teams like Stony Brook, but it was an exhibition, so I guess it's ok.

The interesting part was when Andre Blake got a controversial yellow card that he probably didn't deserve. Speaking of Blake, he was wearing a plain white t-shirt to signify he was the goalkeeper. No number or team name. We in the Goal Patrol were discussing why he was wearing that. Did he lose his goalie shirts and simply grab the first thing in his drawer? I don't know.

There were only a few students in the Goal Patrol but we were joined by a few little kids late in the game. They joined us in calling the goalie names like "weenie with hot sauce". Actually, only they did that. But it's a kind of cool name. We should remember it for the future. The first regular season game is this Saturday vs. St. Francis. I will finally attend my first regular season game in ANY sport today at 1:00 PM as the women's soccer team takes on Vermont. I attended the UCLA women's soccer game, but it didn't count.


Saturday, August 18, 2012

August 17, 2012: Women's Soccer vs. UCLA: NO CONTEST

What: Women's soccer vs. UCLA
Where: Morrone Stadium
When: August 17, 2012
Result: NO CONTEST

Well, it was fun while it lasted. We had a 3-2 lead over #6 UCLA with 32 minutes left. Then lightning came and they delayed the game. And then they canceled the game as the lightning continued. 12 more minutes and it would have been official. Unfortunately, it doesn't count so it is declared "NO CONTEST".

Therefore, I am not counting it as a game in my games log, although it will be duly noted that I attended.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Game 3-3-102: Women's Field Hockey exhibition vs. Quinnipaic

What: Field Hockey exhibition vs. Quinnipiac
Where: Sherman Family Sports Complex
When: Thursday August 16, 12:00 PM
Result: Win, 6-1

The players warming up
before the match.
From 10:00-11:35, I was in philosophy class for the last time before the final. Fortunately, my class was in the Classroom Building, a two minute walk from the Sherman Family Sports Complex. I stopped by the Student Union to have a quick lunch, then walked across the street to Sherman.

Field hockey exhibitions are a bit different from regular season games. They have three periods of 25 minutes, instead of two halves of 35 minutes. Also, the scoreboard reset the score after each period. We lost the first period 1-0, won the second period by the same score, and won the third period 5-0. The total above reflects the combined score.

There was a family sitting behind me, and their daughter was on the team, I guess. They were cheering really loudly when she scored a goal. Unfortunately, I don't know who "she" is, because there were no roster sheets and no P.A. system. However, the player was laughing about it, and about how vocal her family was. Reminds me of my family. :-)

Melissa Gonzalez (left, in white)
and an unknown fan (in blue).
Surprisingly, as I said, we were down 1-0 after the first period to a far lesser team in the Bobcats. But we evened the score in the second on a penalty stroke, and scored five goals in the third to win 6-1. One of those goals came on a penalty stroke. Strange to have two penalty strokes in the same game.

Early in the first period, UConn alumnus Melissa Gonzalez came into the stands, fresh off her Olympic performance. She was wearing her Team USA Warmup jersey. It's hard to tell in the photo, but there was a really big Nike Swoosh on there on the right side, as well as some bizarre lime green piping in the collar area. Seemed kind of weird. Lime green is not a national color, why is it on our USA warmups?

In any case, Gonzalez got a warm welcome from the fans, most of whom recalled her time as a player. In an otherwise ordinary exhibition, Gonzalez added some excitement to the fans in the seats. Even though USA finished last among 12 teams, it's still impressive that she made the team, went to London, and competed.


Sunday, August 12, 2012

Game 3-1-100: Women's Soccer exhibition vs. LIU

What: Women's soccer vs. LIU-Brooklyn
Where: Morrone Stadium
When: 1:00 PM, Sunday, August 12, 2012
Result: Win 2-1

This was my first game of the year, and my 100th game over all. Exciting! And considering it was an exhibition, you could say the same about the game.

The players warm up before the match. 
UConn came out wearing their gray warm-up uniforms for the whole game. At first I thought they were just wearing them for practice, but they wore them the whole game. And LIU's uniforms had no numbers. Strange.

UConn got off to a 1-0 lead just before the half, thanks to a Linda Ruutu goal off a free kick. We went up 2-0 later, when we scored a goal in the second half. In the end, it was 2-1.

Not very exciting in general, but for an exhibition game it was. The real action starts next weekend, but this was just to get us (and the players) warmed up.

What kind of a name is Blackbirds, by the way? Hardly intimidating, unless it's 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

Next up is a men's soccer game vs. UMass tonight. The Goal Patrol (or some of them) will be there. It should be fun. Details to come.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Women's Soccer exhibition vs. Northeastern CANCELLED

The women's soccer exhibition vs. Northeastern has been cancelled. Two games on Sunday - one women's soccer, and one men's soccer, are next up. The weather shows patchy fog for that day, but no rain. I'll be at both.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Known UConn 2012-13 Basketball Schedule

I am splitting this off the original post which had ALL known UConn games for this season, most schedules for fall have been released, but basketball has not. I will update this as info is know.

Last Updated August 23 2012:


Men's Basketball:

Thursday, Novemebr 1: vs. American International (exh), at Gampel, time TBD (source)
Sunday, November 4: vs. UMass-Lowell (exh), at XL, time TBD
Friday, November 9: vs. Michigan State at Ramstein AFB, Germany, TBD (source)
Tuesday, November 13: vs. Vermont, TBD (probably at Gampel) source
Friday, November 16: vs. Wake Forest, 6:30 PM in Virgin Islands Paradise Jam
Saturday, November 17 or Sunday, November 18: vs. Iona-Quinnipiac loser, 6:30 PM (Sat) or vs. Iona-Quinnipiac winner (Sun), 9:00 PM
Monday, November 19: vs. George Mason, Mercer, New Mexico, or Illinois Chicago at Paradise Jam, time TBA
Sunday, November 25: vs. Stony Brook, time and location TBA (source)
Tuesday, December 4: vs. NC State at Madison Square Garden, 9:00 PM (Jimmy V Classic)
Monday, December 17: vs. Maryland-Eastern Shore, TBD (source)
Friday, December 21: vs. Fordham - source says "the Rams will head up to Storrs, Conn." but as it's over Winter Break, I think it's referring to the fact that UConn is in Storrs, and not saying the game is in Storrs. Actually other source says it's in Storrs. Would be strange to put it in Gampel over break, but maybe they are.
Saturday, December 29: vs. Washington, 7:30 PM, location TBD (source)
Unknown Dates:  New Hampshire (H), Harvard (H)

Conference home/away matchups (dates TBD):

Home: Cincinnati, DePaul, Georgetown, Louisville, Providence, Rutgers, USF, Syracuse, Villanova
Away: Cincinnati, DePaul, Marquette, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, USF

Women's Basketball:

Friday, November 2: vs. Indiana U of Pennsylvania, at Gampel, time TBD (exh)
Wednesday, November 7: vs. Holy Family, at XL, Time TBD (exh)
Sunday, November 11: vs. College of Charleston, 2:00 PM, location TBD (source)
Sunday, November 18: at Texas A&M, TBD
Thursday, November 22: vs. Wake Forest, 6:00 PM in Virgin Islands (Paradise Jam)
Friday, November 23: vs. Marist, 8:15 PM @ VI
Saturday, November 24: vs. Purdue, 8:15 PM @ VI
Wednesday, November 28: vs. Colgate, TBD
Monday, December 3: vs. Maryland, 7:00 PM (XL)
Thursday, December 6: vs. Penn State, TBD
Wednesday, December 19: vs. Oakland, TBD
Saturday, December 22: at Hartford, TBD
Monday, December 31: at Oregon, TBD
Monday, January 21: vs. Duke, 7:00 PM (loc. TBD)
Monday, February 18: vs. Baylor, 9:00 PM (loc. TBD)
Monday, March 4: at Notre Dame, 7:00 PM
Conference home games (Date TBA): Notre Dame, Marquette, DePaul, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Seton Hall, Villanova
Conference road games (Date TBA): Marquette, Cincinnati, Georgetown, Providence, Rutgers, St. John's, USF

A list of home games for men and women can be found on the last page of this PDF, although you will need to rotate yourself 90 degrees, and you may need to log in. (Ticket account creation is free) Dates are not listed, but in some cases were available elsewhere.