People I should stop overlooking..

I hate myself right now.

I wish I would say more about how good Kacey Richards, Annie Yi and Courtney Wilkinson Maitland are.

Oh and Karen Gurnon was pretty good too. As a freshman she was third on the team in minutes. Coaches will only keep really good players on the field for over 1950 minutes in a season.

They get shortchanged when I talk about their team because well I only understand so much about soccer. I know what a good goalkeeper looks like...I understand what they have to do. I know that forwards are supposed to score.

I have to learn more about the game to completely understand and appreciate how good defenders and center/defensive midfielders really are...even though if I played soccer, I'd be a defender.

Richards has been recognized by the Big East both of her first two seasons. She also was the highest rated recruit in her class...Top 25 in country. She played the most minutes on her team in 2008. She was the only player to start every game. That speaks to her abilities much more than anything else that I could say.

I do remember her scoring from pretty far out against Syracuse. It was a pretty good goal if I remember correctly.

But more than anything she needs to be commended for her hustle in the Yale game. I am almost sure it was Richards that ran after a ball that was rolling on the opposite end of the field against Yale and kicked it up field to give UConn a chance. I remember thinking to myself as she was running hard after the ball "wow, I am absolutely in love with her hustle, too bad it won't effect the outcome of the game."

It did effect the game. It was one of the few times that I had given up on one of my teams late in a game...I mean really I still think my Cowboys can win if they are down by 17 at the two minute warning.

That hustle is what lead to the hand ball that lead to Cory Bildstein's great free kick...which lead to Annie Yi's game winner.

Annie Yi shouldn't remember that game. I remember her lying on the ground on several occasions that game. I don't know how she finished the game. It looked like she probably had a pretty bad headache going on.

Annie Yi doesn't get enough love, at all. I mean at all.

First of all, I remember going up to a couple of football players in 2007 and telling them how happy and proud I was that UConn was ranked in football...right in front of Yi. I knew women's soccer was doing well, but really had no clue what exactly they were doing in 2007. I wasn't at any of their games in either 2006 or 2007. I was all about football in 2007... I was caught up in that amazing season that seemingly came from the middle of nowhere.

Yi was the one who scored a goal in the game against WVU in the Big East Tournament. It was a nice goal. It was a really great pass from Ashley O'Brien to Yi. I was impressed. So was Kaili McLaren with O'Brien.

Yi has been the leading goal scorer for women's soccer the past two years. Leave it to me to not talk about the leading goal scorer on the team. Seriously, only I could talk so much about a team and not talk about the person who scores and not about the one who receives yearly recognition from the Big East (Kacey Richards).

Seriously only I could do this.

Don't feel bad, it's who I am. I bought a Joe McEwing baseball jersey. He is a career .251 hitter, with 25 career home runs and 158 career RBI's. He played in 754 games in his career. In an average year he hit 5 home runs and had 34 RBI's. I spent money on a jersey of his...and proudly wear it.

I also have bought a Richie Anderson jersey and Dexter Coakley jersey...you probably don't know who they are either.

From Richie Anderson to Courtney Wilkinson Maitland...only I can do this...I heard that Maitland was red-shirted as a freshman...because she's so good...and she'd be even more ridiculously good as a red-shirt senior than regular senior. I noticed that she came up with some good plays as a defender when the games were on TV this year. I could see what she was doing at those games.

I will have to change where I sit at games too. I need to see soccer games from where I can see the whole field well, rather than just one part well.

Maitland picked up an assist this year and she also was one of the leaders in minutes with 1733. That was 4th on the team.

Now when it does come to minutes I will have to do some investigating. As someone who has just begun to watch soccer I have begun to notice that teams typically sub-out attacking players much more frequently than defenders, so it probably pretty typical that Maitland, and Gurnon and the defenders play more minutes than the attacking players. But still playing that many minutes is a testament to good conditioning and hard work. You won't play that long if your not good.