A year ago, Oregon sat stunned in the Casanova Center press room.
After finishing 12-6-2 overall and 6-1-2 in Pacific-10 Conference play, the squad was left out of the NCAA Tournament.
However, few were surprised this year when the Ducks were left absent from the list of 64 NCAA Tournament qualifiers.
“Our No. 1 goal was to make it to the NCAA Tournament and we failed in that goal,” coach Tara Erickson said. “There were some other good things that happened at times throughout the season, but I am disappointed just to see the overall end result.”
That end result – an 8-8-4 overall finish and 1-4-4 record in the Pac-10 – concluded with a 3-0 loss to No. 19 California on Sunday and speculation as to what went wrong.
“I just feel like we’ve been on kind of a roller coaster this year for some reason,” sophomore Danielle Sweeney said. “I don’t really know what the cause of that is. We just weren’t playing together as well as we did last year.
“I think we just kind of assumed that (an NCAA Tournament bid) would come and just give it to us this year and that we wouldn’t have to work as hard, but I just think it turned out a little differently than we planned.”
Erickson, who’s guided the program to a .500 record or better during her three seasons at Oregon, said some players on the team didn’t perform consistently.
“There is a lot of question marks when I put some players on the field,” Erickson said. “I don’t know what player from that personnel will show up that day. So I’m constantly trying to figure out if it’s gonna be the good player or is it gonna be the not-as-aggressive player. Is it gonna be the fast player or is it gonna be the player who jogs after things. So, if you are constantly questioning that, it is a tough thing to figure out your lineup, your rotations.”
Junior goalkeeper Jessie Chatfield became the school’s record owner in wins with 25. Allison Newton, Tiffany Smith and Teresa Bowns all finished with five goals this season, and Bowns recorded a team-high six assists. But Nicole Garbin, who owns or shares 21 school records and scored half of the Ducks’ 24 goals last year, wasn’t able to save the day this year when the Ducks needed a goal, confined to watching from the sidelines as an assistant.
Though Oregon’s offense scored 30 goals this year, Erickson said the team missed Garbin’s leadership.
“You lose somebody like Nicole Garbin and that factor went away from us,” Erickson said. “We just never seemed to discover that one person we always knew we could go to in a tough situation. … We didn’t have that individual leadership.”
The Ducks were a young team this year. Defender Dylann Tharp and forward Tiffany Smith were the only seniors on a squad with eight freshmen.
“I am hoping that there is some youth factor for sure, and hopefully we can learn from that,” Erickson said. “But I have to have some individual talks with players and try to figure out, ‘Hey, what can I do to get more out of you and are you able to perform at this level on a consistent basis. I think you can, and we’ve seen you do it, but it is a mental thing for sure.’”
Oregon, competing in one of the strongest soccer conferences in the nation, played against four teams that earned bids into the NCAA Tournament, including two of the four No. 1 seeds.
“I do think teams are much more prepared for Oregon now and they will continue to be,” Erickson said.
The Ducks fell to UCLA, which automatically qualified, 3-0 on Oct. 14. Stanford, an at-large No. 1 selection, tied 0-0 with Oregon after two overtimes.
Oregon traveled to Indiana earlier this season and lost 3-2 to Purdue, which was given a No. 2 seed in the tournament.
Portland, a No. 2 seed, defeated the Ducks 4-0 on Oct. 5; USC, seeded second, squeaked by the squad 1-0 on Oct. 12. California, Oregon’s final opponent this year, also received an at-large bid.
The Ducks also lost to unranked opponents, including Montana and Washington.
An optimistic Erickson said things could have been worse though.
“We definitely didn’t go 0-20 or anything like that,” Erickson said. “We aren’t falling off the charts completely.
“We were that Cinderella story last year. We’ll never have that chance again because we’ll always hopefully be on the radar of everybody now.”
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