Florida State Sports Notebook: Soccer Championship Edition FSU Seminoles women NCAA Tournament

Ten days ago Florida State finished a dominating season with a national title defeating Stanford in the Championship game 5-1. After such an amazing performance (the whole season not just the College Cup) it is time for another edition of the Seminole Sports Notebook.

These are real questions posed by real people in the sense that they are actual questions (they end in a question mark) and I am a real person. I have written all of the questions.

What are your first impressions about the accomplishments this team achieved this season?

Right after I published the national championship article, I went to our TN slack and posted the following message at 11:02pm.

This soccer team man. This soccer program.

They just went 22-0-1 against the third toughest schedule in the nation. They played six of their last eight games against teams in Massey’s top 12 and they outscored those teams 19-2.

They did this despite having three players drafted in the top 10 of last year’s NWSL draft and another player leave the team for a starting spot in the top league in England (and maybe Europe).

This happened two years after losing who most people thought was the best coach in the sport.

I’m not sure that I have seen a team where there was so much talent that fit together so well.

I really didn’t see this year coming (I knew that they were going to be good but this is crazy) but I didn’t know that there would be a freshman joining the team who would be a first team All-American.

I know that we are all hurt about how the committee screwed us but don’t sleep on this team that just brought home another Natty. This one is special.

That is how I was feeling about the team right after the game. I will expound on many of those points later in this article but it serves as a good jumping off point for a discussion about where the program is right now.

Speaking of where the program is right now, is Florida State right now the preeminent women’s soccer program in the nation?

I tackled this question in more detail in the last Soccer Championship Notebook. This time the answer is a lot easier. It is a simple “Yes”.

Florida State has a College Cup appearance and a national championship since that article was written. Of the teams mentioned in the previous article, Stanford did very well this year advancing to the title game but the Cardinal lost in the second round last year. UCLA won the national championship last year but the Bruins were upset in the first round this year. North Carolina got to the title game last year but the Tar Heels were eliminated in excruciating fashion in the Elite Eight this year and even though they have 21 championships their last one was in 2012.

Therefore, right now it is hard to argue against the proposition that Florida State is the top program in women’s college soccer.

The Seminoles were dominant this year going 22-0-1 overall and 9-0-1 in the ACC while winning the ACC tournament for the fourth straight year. What were some of the keys to the success this year?

There were too many to list here but I will try to hit some of the highlights.

The obvious starting point is that the roster was absolutely stacked. Florida State has had a loaded roster for at least the last five years and this year was no different. FSU lost some valuable players from last year’s team (Jenna Nighswonger, Heather Payne, Clara Robbins, etc.) but the depth of talent on this roster was more than enough to compensate even for the losses of such impactful players as the ones listed above. Newcomers like Taylor Huff and Mimi Van Zanten did an incredible job stepping in to replace the players that were lost.

The talent on this team is self evident but another reason that it all worked so well is that these players are not just talented they are also versatile. Van Zanten moved to a position (outside back) that she had basically not played before either in high school or club soccer. Here was the result:

You are probably thinking, “Prince just put that highlight in there gratuitously for fun.” You are correct! And I will do it again and again later on in this article.

Jordynn Dudley came on the scene and was scintillating from almost day one. In the season preview, I wrote the following about Dudley:

Freshman Jordynn Dudley has been quite impressive early in camp. It really seems that it is only a matter of time before she takes her place in the starting lineup. We will see if it happens sooner rather than later.

Well, it obviously happened sooner and to great effect as Dudley was the only freshman named as first (or second) team All-American.

Dudley’s emergence was a big key to the season but it wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if Beata Olsson wasn’t versatile enough to slide to wing or if Jody Brown wasn’t versatile enough to move into the midfield. FSU’s lineup later in the year wasn’t the same as it was at the beginning of the year but it was better. The coaching staff continued to tinker throughout the year to find the best lineup and they finally found the one that worked best with Van Zanten at outside back, Brown in the midfield, Dudley at the nine, Olsson on the wing and senior Onyi “Joe” Echegini moving from the midfield back to the wing where she played so impressively last year.

That is a great segue to discuss the next key which is coaching. It is true that this roster was loaded. There are probably many coaches who could have done very well with players this talented. However, Brian Pensky and his staff pushed the right buttons to get the most out of the team. We saw some changes from previous coach Mark Krikorian’s style last year. While the team last year was still mostly possession based they were certainly more direct than we saw under Krikorian. This year that transition amped up even more. The Noles were much more direct this year regularly going over the top to get the ball to their athletic forwards. We saw this even from the opening kickoff of every game. Under Krikorian the ball was always played back to the defenders to start to crank up the possession building from the back. Under Pensky, at the kickoff the ball was played back to holding midfielder Leilanni Nesbeth who immediately sent the ball over the top into the opponent’s defensive third. This personified the overall change in philosophy from the Krikorian era to the Pensky era.

Finally, this team really took off when the defense truly got comfortable. The spine of the defense was always stout with Leilanni Nesbeth at holding midfield, Lauren Flynn and Heather Gilchrist at center backs and of course the cheat code Cristina Roque in goal. However, the outside backs were a work in progress. Ran Iwai was a converted midfielder and as I mentioned before, Mimi Van Zanten was a true freshman who basically had never played outside back. Once Iwai and Van Zanten found their sea legs and truly got comfortable at their new positions this team really became unstoppable. The Seminoles won their last 10 games by a margin of 34-2. Those games weren’t exactly against creampuffs. The Noles beat the following teams in that stretch (final Massey rankings in parentheses): Stanford (2), Clemson twice (3). Pitt twice (7), Texas (12), Duke (25), Texas A&M (29), NC State (94) and Morehead State (220). Simply remarkable.

What, if anything, separated this team from previous Florida State teams?

FSU has made the NCAA Tournament 24 straight years. In 21 of those years the Noles have made the Sweet 16. In 18 of those years FSU has appeared in the Elite 8 and in 14 of those years they have made the College Cup (Final Four). The Seminoles were national runners-up in 2007, 2013 and (spring) 2021. The Noles were national champions in 2014 and 2018, (fall) 2021 and now 2023. The last time FSU was not in the top 15 of the coaches poll was 2011.

I use those facts to point out that Florida State has had a lot of good teams recently. The 2023 edition was obviously another in a pretty long line of good teams. Therefore, there wasn’t a lot that separated this team from the others but there was one thing that was a bit different.

This year’s FSU team team was the most clinical team that I can remember maybe ever but certainly in recent years. This team didn’t really create appreciably more chances than previous teams but they were more lethal with the chances that they generated.

The “shots percentage” statistic is calculated by dividing the number of goals by the number of shots. This year that number for FSU was .183, last year it was .162, in 2021 it was .171, in 2020 it was .166 and in 2019 it was .126. It’s probably not a coincidence that the two national championship years feature the highest shot percentages but this year’s team had the highest shot percentage. That matches my impression from watching this year’s team. They absolutely took advantage of every opening or mistake from the opponent. Here is some evidence:

Play a little too high and aggressive they could go over the top:

Play a little too defensively they could strike from distance:

Lose your mark (for an instant) on a player they will make you pay:

The passing in the final third was impeccable at times:

The team was absolutely deadly in transition (I’ll go with this highlight but there were so many examples that I could have chosen):

And in addition to all of that this team was lethal one on one:

They did all of that without sacrificing defense:

FSU was obviously great this year but what are the prospects for next season?

The Noles will have to replace departing seniors Onyi Echegini, Leilanni Nesbeth and Leah Pais. In addition, Lauren Flynn, Cristina Roque, Ran Iwai, Beata Olsson, Jody Brown, and Kaitlyn Zipay are all seniors but they have the option to use their Covid year to return. I should also mention that with the new transfer rules any player on the roster could theoretically transfer. If that wasn’t enough, any player can leave early for the pros (either the NWSL or overseas). I have talked with several of the six seniors who could return but they all basically said that they haven’t made a decision on whether to return.

Other than the players already mentioned, there is another player that could leave and that is Jordynn Dudley. The freshman was a revelation this year and has opened up eyes all over the soccer world. I have heard from an NWSL coach that Dudley would be the #1 overall pick if she were to declare for the draft this year. I have no inside information on her plans but her decision will be one to watch for this offseason.

Therefore, there is significant uncertainty regarding the roster for next year. However, the Noles will be welcoming one of the top recruiting classes in the nation for next year that features at least a few players (Solai Washington, Nina Norshie, Wrianna Hudson, Taylor Suarez, etc.) who will are capable of helping the team from day one.

I’ll obviously have a lot more on this in my season preview for next year. However, it is safe to say that Florida State will be really good again next year. The Noles aren’t going anywhere.

Finally, is there anything else to watch out for over the summer this year or for next season?

Just a couple of things.

The ACC will welcome three new programs next year (Stanford, SMU and California) which will raise the number of soccer teams in the ACC to 17. That is a huge number and will make the schedule even more unbalanced than it is now. I am told that the schedule will not change for next year although there are no guarantees for succeeding years. Therefore, there will be 10 regular season ACC games again with a six team ACC tournament. This format means that some teams will have significantly easier (or harder) schedules than others. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that the ACC has a few elite teams, a number of good but not great teams and a few poor teams. In other words, there is not a ton of parity in the ACC. The goal of the league is for as many teams as possible to make the NCAA Tournament. This year was disappointing from that standpoint as only five teams made the NCAAs. The biggest reason for that was that a few teams struggled this year. Even so, scheduling was a part of the reason for that low number.

The other thing to watch for is that the U20 Women’s World Cup will take place from August 31 to September 22 next year. Therefore, any player participating in the World Cup could miss as many as the first nine games of next year’s college season depending on how far their national team advanced in the World Cup. This World Cup schedule obviously has the potential to affect any team but it is of acute interest to a team like Florida State that features so many international players.

As always, the comments are yours.

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