Sooner Women's Soccer: Bedlam in Stillwater tonight- OU in T8th!

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Women's Soccer Team travels to Stillwater today to play the Cowgirls in the final match of the regular season. The Sooners are currently in a tie with Baylor for 8th place with 11 points. OU and Baylor both holds a 3-4-2 record. (Each team get 3 points for a win and 1 point for a tie.) Oklahoma State sits in 7th with a 4-5 record. The Top 10 teams in the Big 12 standings advance to the Big 12 Tourney. The Bedlam Match is on ESPN+ tonight.

Coach Mott, in his first season as the Sooner Head Coach probably needs a tie to ensure that the Sooner finish int he Top 10 teams, but a win would make sure that the Sooners are in the Big 12 Tourney. OSU is probably in the tournament regardless of the outcome of the Bedlam match. A tie for OSU would ensure they are in the tourney.

Oklahoma is 1-3-1 in their last five matches while OSU is 0-5 in their last five matches. Four of the five team the Sooner have played in those five matches are above the Sooners are in the tourney. The tie was with Cincinnati who is in 9th place. OSU has lost to the same type of late season schedule with four of the five above them in the standings and a loss to Cincinnati.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the Bedlam matchup tonight in Stillwater at 7 PM.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/10/2 ... lar-season

Here is a link to the Big 12 Soccer Standings: https://big12sports.com/standings.aspx?standings=191

All of the Big 2 teams play their final Big 12 matches today. The top 3 teams, Texas Tech, BYU and TCU are locked into the top 3 positions for the tourney.

Texas Tech travels to Iowa State today for their final match. Tech (7-0-2) should be favored over Iowa State (3-6). A win by Tech eliminates I-State from the tourney and ensures that Tech finishes first in the Big 12. A Tech/I-State tie ensures that Tech finishes in a tie for the Big 12 title and keeps I-State in a hopeful way for making the tourney but probably eliminates the Cyclones.

BYU host UCF in a key match for 4th - 6th place. UCF is tied with Texas and West Virginia in 4th with 16 points and is 5-3-1. BYU is 6-0-3 with 21 points and needs a win to ensure a 2nd place finish. Both teams need a win but would take a tie I think.

TCU travels to Texas which is another key match. TCU is in 3rd with a 6-1-2 record and 20 points. With a win over Texas, they might vault over BYU if BYU ends with a tie against UCF. A TCU win also hurts Texas in a battle for the 4th place team in the conference.

West Virginia host Cincinnati. Again a win for WV helps them remain in 4th perhaps depending on the Texas and UCF outcomes. Cincinnati, on the other hand, needs a win to ensure their inclusion in the Big 12 Tourney. A tie helps them in that effort but might not ensure a 10th place finish if Iowa State upsets Tech.

Baylor plays at Houston. Houston is the final team to have a chance to make the tourney. They must defeat Baylor to do so and then they still need a favorable coin flip probably to make the tourney. Baylor needs to earn at least one point with a tie to ensure a berth in the tourney. But they are most likely in the tourney no matter their result today against Houston.

The two Kansas teams play each to not finish last in the Big 12. With a tie or loss, Kansas finishes in 14th place. With a win, Kansas finishes in 13th place.

The final match is the OU-OSU match. OSU can ensure a 7th place finish which has a favorable match against the 10th place team in the tourney. A tie in the Bedlam match may not keep the Cowgirls in 7th as Baylor can jump above them with a win against Houston. OU needs at least one point to ensure they make the tourney unless both I-State and and Cincinnati win their matches against favored teams. The only way for OU to ensure a berth in the tourney is to win at Stillwater today.

A key to the Sooners berth in the Big 12 Tourney is the game that starts at 6 PM CST. If Cincinnati, on the road, does not defeat West Virginia, OU is in the Big 12 Tourney.

It is a big final match for the Sooners. They could finish from 7th to 11th in the final Big 12 standings. They are 1-5-1 on the road. The win was over Houston and the tie was against Cincinnati. It would be a good time to win their second match this year on the road. I also think that Emma Hawkins has 49 career, it would be nice for her to pick up her 50th goal today in Bedlam with a meaningful goal.

Good luck to the Sooners tonight at 7 PM.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooners did not travel back to Norman last night with a win or a tie on their side of the ledger, but they are still playing and have qualified for the Big 12 Soccer Tourney. The key ingredient was that Texas Tech defeated Iowa State 1-0 last night. That closed out the possibility of OU not making the Big 12 Tourney after West Virginia and Cincinnati tied 1-1. But Cincinnati did pick up the 9th place seed in the tourney and OU slide to the 10th spot. That means that next Monday will be a rematch of Bedlam with OSU in the first round of the Big 12.

I watched the reply of the match this morning and the match was close throughout with both teams trading chances to score without success. Oklahoma had a 2 or 3 chances to score but could not put the ball in the goal passed the OSU GK. OSU was thwarted on several attempts to score as well until the 83rd minute of the match. Following a foul called on Weber in th Sooner offensive end of the pitch, OSU quickly moved the ball into their offensive end where Pineda for OSU moved the ball from the left side of the box out to the right half of the box about ten yards outside the 18 box. there Alex Morris was unmarked by an OU defender and she converted a nice goal that was just under the crossbar and over the Sooner GK's hands as she jumped to block the OSU shot. The goal by Morris proved to be the game winning goal.

There was good news for the Sooners as Andi Wolfe did play on the defensive end for the Sooners. She returned after not playing against BYU last Monday. The Sooners did shorten their bench last night as they only played 12 players with substitutes Galekhutle and Pak playing in addition to the 10 Sooner starters.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the Bedlam match last night.

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

"Obviously a tough result tonight," first-year head coach Matt Mott said. "I thought we had moments where we looked good, but we just didn't have enough to get the result we wanted. We'll get a rematch with them (Oklahoma State) on Saturday and have a chance to play to our standard where we'll hope to get it right in a big game."

From Coach Mott's comment, the Sooners (#10 seed) and Cowgirls (#7 seed) will play this Saturday at 3:30 PM at the Round Rock Multipurpose Complex in Round Rock, Texas. In the match before the OU-OSU match, Baylor (#8 seed) plays Cincinnati (#9 seed) at 1 PM.

Here are the Final Standings for the Big 12 regular season play.

1. Texas Tech - 8-0-2 = 26 points -Defeated Iowa State 1-0 on Monday night.
2. BYU - 7-0-3 = 24 points - Defeated UCF 3-2 on Monday night.
3. TCU - 6-2-2 = 20 points
4. Texas - 6-3-1 = 19 points - Defeated TU 4-2 on Monday night.
5. West Virginia - 5-3-2 = 17 points - West Virginia and Cincinnati played to 1-1 tie on Monday night.
6. UCF - 5-4-1 = 16 points
7. Oklahoma State - 5-5-0 = 15 points - OSU defeated OU 1-0 on Monday night.
8. Baylor - 4-4-2 = 14 points - Baylor defeated Houston 3-2 on Monday night.
9. Cincinnati - 2-3-5 = 11 points
10. Oklahoma - 3-5-2 = 11 points (I think the tie-breaker between OU and Cincy was the least losses between the two teams.)
11. Iowa State - 3-7-0 = 9 points
12. Houston - 2-7-1 = 7 points.
13. Kansas - 1-7-2 = 5 points - Kansas defeated K-State 2-1 on Monday night.
14. Kansas State - 1-8-1 = 4 points.

The OSU-OU winner plays BYU on the 30th (Monday) at 5:30 PM CST. The Baylor-Cincinnati winner plays Texas Tech at 2 PM CST.

Texas plays West Virginia at 11:30 AM CST on Saturday the 30th with TCU and UCF playing at 8 PM CST.

I will post more about the rematch of Bedlam before Saturday's match.

Boomer Sooner!