2012 SEASON: MY SITE NEWS: WHERE OH WHERE HAS MY SLOT SHOT GONE?

Didn't we just do this? Perhaps acting in the spirit of the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, the Lady Comets decided to rehearse yesterday's double overtime scenario and slide into a 1-1 draw with Valley View. Deja vu all over again? One could say this, but there were some marked dissimilarities between yesterday's and today's game; and these dissimilarites are very informative. Yesterday, two teams attacked each other's goals in a back and forth rhythm--yesterday, two teams registered exactly 18 shots apiece--yesterday, two teams traded momentum and field position--yesterday, two teams shared time of possession--and yesterday, two teams were virtually equal in corner kicks and were exactly equal in goalkeeper saves. Today, not one of these "equalties" appeared.

As evidenced by its 8-2 corner kick advantage and its 20-3 shot differential, Abington had little trouble pushing the ball into the final third.  For the most part, the Lady Comets expressed themselves emphatically in the back, and generally won the battle of the midfield. The Lady Comets generated some outstanding shot opportunities as well, The plain fact was that the team could not hit the broad side of a barn with a shot.

Continuing a pattern we spoke about only yesterday in our Prep game story, the Lady Comets could not put the ball on frame--of the 20 Abington shots, only 5 were on goal. Twenty shots, but only five troubled the opponent's keeper.  

Without a doubt, Jessica Nguyen is a talented goalie and an all-conference player, but does that mean that you should not even try to make her work?  Putting the ball on target against a gifted goalie does not by itself guarantee success--in fact, on average, only one in four on-frame shots finds the back of the net. But 100% of shots hit high and wide fail to reach the goal!. After today, the Lady Comets' season shot-on-goal percetenage has fallen to an absolutely scary 397. While statistics can be misleading and have their limits, the above number is worth considering.  The Lady Comets have shown that they can move the ball well, but cannot drop the nickel in the bank when they get the ball into the final third.

There is something we should be sensitive to here. The team did only yesterday have a mammoth double-overtime tussle with a high-quality, physical team. Perhaps some of the poor quality finshing could have been attributed to fatigue. But since this habit of sending the ball off target has been manifesting itself all season, one has to wonder how much of the problem is due to lack of focus. poor shot selection, or poor technique.

Whatever the cause, this needs to be sorted out. On the up side, there is still plenty of time to set things aright.

Abbey Burke opened and closed the Abington scoring today by racking up her third goal of the young season, finishing her shot from the central box area. The junior midfielder is off to a solid start, and has, by herself, provided fully half of the Lady Comets' early-season scoring production. Valley View was able to effect only a few viable attacks on the Abington net, but did sneak one home in the 58th minute, when Carli Lucke used an ssisst from Colleen Martin to tie the score 1-1. Although Abington would make several more trips deep into Valley View territory, the Lady Comets could not register the telling goal. And even though Nguyen did make a couple of big saves, she wasn't particularly troubled by most of the Abington shots.

West Scranton is next. On paper, this game should not be much of a challenge. The game takes place on Thursday at Memorial Stadium.

We will see if the Lady Comets spend Wednesday going to finishing school.

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