WHEW, this has been a busy week. Two games already and another yet to come. All the while, school is getting ready to start back up again which is keeping me very busy. But we will definitely get some notes down about the week so far before the last game of this week at home.
Another notch on the belt
Wednesday was a historic win for us. Not just in that we really needed those three points. Or that the comeback really showed the first we can bring when necessary. But also in that it was our first win against Charlotte. That means that (depending on how you count), we’ve now defeated every team in League One at least once.
What do I mean by “how you count”? Well, that actually harkens back to the first game of this week, the draw with Northern Colorado Hailstorm. We’ve beat them in the US Open Cup, but have now drawn twice with them in the league. So it depends on if you are counting league wins or not as to whether we have truly met that mark.
Another thing about that draw with Hailstorm: it was our 10th of the season. That’s a lot of tie games. In fact, it is now the most we’ve ever had in a season, with 9 draws being the previous mark from last season. Hopefully this past game has shown that we can buck that trend and score some goals, turning those draws into wins instead.
Oh look, yet another 2020 comparison!
I know, I know. I do this a lot. But it’s one that I’ve been interested in looking at for a while now and this week’s games have made it more interesting to do so. It’s been mentioned prior that this team’s struggle to score, great defense, number of first time pros, etc. are comparable to the 2020 season. I wanted to look at a couple of players in particular to see how they might compare. And this past week, with his two goals, really made Noe the one I wanted to look at. We had a similar type of player the first season, who scored a good amount of goals but whose position wasn’t really settled that season: Evan Conway. So, here’s a look at some of the numbers between them:
| 2022 Noe | 2020 Evan | |
| Games | 19 | 16 |
| Minutes Played | 1,415 | 1,294 |
| Goals | 6 | 6 |
| Types of Goals | 3 right, 1 left, 2 headed | 1 right, 3 left, 2 headed |
| Were scored from | 5 inside the box, 1 outside | 5 inside the box, 1 outside |
| Shots | 22 | 31 |
| Shots on Target | 8 | 14 |
| Conversion Rate | 27.3% | 19.4% |
| Assists | 4 | 2 |
| Key Passes | 22 | 16 |
| Passes | 421 | 278 |
| Passing accuracy | 72% | 62.2% |
| Crosses | 13 | 29 |
| Crossing accuracy | 7.7% | 17.2% |
| Fouls won | 31 | 22 |
| Fouls committed | 32 | 14 |
| Yellow cards | 1 | 1 |
Some very close comparisons, especially in how the goals were scored. You can definitely see the different styles between the two: Evan shooting more, Noe playing more passes at a higher percentage and assisting more, Evan crossing more, etc. You could even drill these numbers down deeper and continue with the parallels and differences. But I think it’s a good case study, as we see what Evan did with these numbers in 2020, and what he then went on to do (with a similar amount of minutes) in 2021. Noe is more of a creator than the finisher Evan is, but looking at the growth we saw with Evan, if see similar with Noe next year, things are looking bright indeed.
Picking up points in hand
We are finally playing those games in hand and thankfully taking advantage of them! We are up to 3rd in the table, just 3 points behind Richmond with 2 games in hand on them. We actually have been in the top 3 in points per game (ppg) for much of the season, but now that we are finally playing them we finally can see if that projection will pan out. We are going to keep getting closer with our schedule this next month. We have another 3 game week starting next Saturday, which will leave us only 1 game in hand behind. Then we have our brutal 4-games in 11 days September stretch, which will catch us up to the rest of the league. If you haven’t looked at that stretch yet on the calendar by the way: Sunday night in Tucson, Wednesday vs Richmond, Saturday vs Greenville, Wednesday at Hailstorm. But by the end of it, we’ll be essentially level for the October home stretch.
So how we fare with this last game this week is going to be incredibly important, as it will be a bit of a bell-weather for how those next two runs of games could go. Rotation is going to continue being massive as well, so seeing how Jay has handled it this week will be a good look back to discuss next week so that we can see what we might expect during those next two stretches of games. Hopefully, we can keep pace and be solidly in the top three, fighting it out for a first round bye in the playoffs.
Who Gives A Hoot? 