The Current

The Halfway Point

June 19, 2009 at 11:20 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

It’s been a long time without a post, and for that I apologize.  Just like that, we’re halfway through WPS’s inaugural season.  Let’s take a look at where we stand:

Lately, things haven’t looked too great. We spent the first third of the season hovering around second place, with early wins against St. Louis and Washington (this match, with a beautiful goal from Hucles and a PK save from Luckenbill, has been the highlight of the season for me thus far).  Earning four points in back-to-back games against first-place LA in early May was impressive, but after that, things took a turn for the worse.  Winless since May 2, 0-2-3 in their last 5, the Breakers have fallen into a slump and are looking to make some changes.

Resting a hurting Kelly Smith, the Breakers began Wednesday’s match against FC Gold Pride looking as they have looked for the past couple of games – disorganized and unimpressive. Starting Alli Lipsher in goal was the first of many changes head coach Tony DiCicco had in store for this match. At halftime, he moved Alex Scott (one consistently bright spot among a lot of mediocre play lately) into the midfield, taking out Stacy Bishop (who has since been waived, somewhat surprisingly) and bringing back Nancy Augustyniak-Goffi, whom we haven’t seen in a while. He also brought in Jennie Nobis for Christine Latham, and inserted Kelly Smith early in the second half. The moves paid off, as the team played significantly better in the second half, and Smith connected with Nobis on a corner kick to give the Breakers the tying goal.

And it looks like more changes are in store for this team. According to L.E. Eisenmenger’s article here, WUSA-era Breaker Mary Frances Monroe will be getting a shot with the team, perhaps to replace Bishop.

Will these changes be enough to put the Breakers back on track? I hope so. The Breakers’ biggest problem right now is scoring – they have just three goals in their last five games, and haven’t had a multi-goal game since May 2 (in fact, they’ve only had three all year, corresponding exactly to the team’s three wins). The three strikers who have been splitting the vast majority of the minutes (Schmedes, Rodriguez, and Latham) have one goal between them, and the team has proven to be utterly unable to score when Kelly Smith is not on the field, something they are going to have to learn how to do quickly, with Kelly and Alex due to miss some time playing for England later this summer.

Languishing in a tie for 4th-6th place in a seven-team league is not where I expected the Breakers to be a this point in the season. Will DiCicco’s recent changes give the team what it needs to turn around and play up to their potential in the second half?  Let’s hope that the tale of two halves that we saw on Wednesday is indicative of the season as a whole.