I promise the backlog of game recaps is on the way… eventually.
Detroit dropped to 0-3 on the year with its first truly bad loss – to Mercer – Saturday. Can a traditionally better Southern Conference team (albeit one that looks pretty bad this year) get them off the schneid?
Jacksonville
Fear Flipper!
Feb. 23, 2017, Noon EST
Ultimate Soccer Arenas
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Detroit preview. Jacksonville preview.
@UDMLax. @JU_MLax.
Dolphins
Jacksonville has regularly been one of the better expansion/southern teams in recent years… but that appears to be aggressively not the case in 2017. They lost to Marquette by a staggering 17-1 margin last time out, a far cry from just a couple years back when they were regularly competing for a MAAC Tournament bid.
They’ve fallen off a cliff in the past couple years, going 4-8 and 3-10, and potentially headed for something just about that bad this year. Detroit may (unfortunately) be one of the teams at risk of providing one of those couple victories on the year.
Offense
Three players have separated themselves statistically at this early stage of 2017. Sophomore attack Will Hendrik (or is it Hendrick? The official website spells it both ways – not a great week for crappy SIDs who don’t want me to call out their bad job performance) leads the way with six goals and one assist, junior midfielder McLean Chicquen has a goal and four assists, and big junior attack Chase McIntyre (6-5, 210) has a similar split – albeit with sample size confusion – as his linemate with three goals and an assist.
Two more attackmen – junior Sean Ewert and freshman Brett Reilly – round out the multi-point scorers so far this year. Midfielders Eric Applegate and Ryan Beville both have plenty of playing time and have launched a few shots each, with none on goal. It’s too early to say who will step up around the established performers, but they’ll need some help.
It’s worth noting that Hendrik puts almost every shot attempt on goal, and McIntyre has put literally every one he’s taken on-cage so far this year, but the rest of the team is varying degrees of bad. They aren’t failing to score due to lack of opportunities, necessarily, but rather because they can’t aim their shots.
Defense
Chase York is the dangerman for the Jacksonville defense, with four caused turnovers through two games this year (the rest of the team has combined for just nine, with only freshman pole Tommy Barnhorst and Ewert, the above-listed attackman, boasting a pair). Sophomores Max Hartong and Andrew Mitchell have started both games to date along with York, who is primarily an LSM. It appears Beville (who I listed with the offense above just because there’s so little going on offensively for this team) bay me mostly a short-stick D-middie, given his ratio of ground balls – six, highest among non-FO, non-D – to shots (just three).
Ben Gleichenhaus is performing well in a really tough spot between the pipes, saving .528 of shots faced… which means he has a ton of saves, given that JU has ceded 30 goals in just two games. Gleichenhaus has let in 25 of those, while backup Adam Baker has let in five and has yet to record a save (is that good?).
This team can’t prevent opponents from getting lots of opportunities to test the keeper. Despite being relatively even in possession (their stat display is garbage, so opponent clears aren’t listed, and it’s not worth the effort of doing more research with just a bit of time to get this preview up), the opposition has fired off half-again as many shots, with a slightly better on-cage percentage.
Regardless of Detroit’s available personnel, they need to be able to not turn the ball over. If they don’t give it away (a lofty goal), they should have their opportunities, and there’s enough talent at UDM to put some of those in the back of the net.
Special Teams
One area in which Jacksonville is actually decent is the faceoff game: they’re effectively at .500 on the year (23/48, with one loss for each of two backup guys). With Ben Gjokaj fading since the impressive opening performance against Ohio State, this should be an opportunity to get back on the right side of things.
Jacksonville has 10 EMO opportunities through two games (a pretty sizeable number) but has scored on only three of them, hardly impressive.
Jacksonville struggled to clear in a big way against Lehigh, but cleaned that up against Marquette. Detroit has been pretty passive on the ride so far this year, but especially indoors, there’s an opportunity to create an advantage.
Big Picture
Winnable non-conference games are all important for UDM right now. Sure, they’re ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme – it’s MAAC Tournament or bust for the Titans – but getting on the right side of the ledger and building up a nice little resume will certainly help build confidence going into conference play.
Predictions
Even though Detroit looks poised to under-perform my expectations (especially the way those were regimented upwards after the OSU game), Jacksonville is quite bad.
- Gjokaj has a nice day – something around .667 – on faceoffs, picking up a majority of the GBs himself. That helps him get his first point of the year on an assist from a clean faceoff win.
- The offense finally finds a bit of a serious rhythm. Yes, this is more because Jacksonville’s defense is bad than because I have any growing confidence in the Titans’ ability to not throw the ball away.
- Jason Weber has a good save percentage, but will be needed: Jacksonville is going to put more shots on cage than they have in either game so far this year (the high mark is 24 shots on goal against Lehigh).
Especially playing in the friendly confines of Ultimate Soccer Arenas – against a Southern team that doesn’t have to play indoors much – I like UDM in this one. It won’t be an easy game, necessarily, but as long as the offense isn’t actively undermining the team, it should be a 12-10 Titan win.