Remember that New Mexico womens soccer player Elizabeth Lambert that displayed some 'roid rage a couple weeks ago against BYU?
Well she got all dolled up for a New York Times story in response to that game.
Pretty interesting stuff.
Now the links:

• Don't fart in the refs face.

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It's rare to see players fighting out on the field during a soccer match. In hockey it's almost expected, but in soccer it's almost unheard of. That's why this new video showing a Bringham Young University player elbowing, punching and pulling hair is making it's way around the internet like wildfire.

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Some WWF and some WTF moments in the BYU vs New Mexico match. These girls could whip Vinny Jones anytime. And Julie Foudy had to spin the indefensible. "Ponytail whiplash" like "tennis elbow " could become a recognizable sports injury.

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Taking cat-fighting to a whole new level This outrageous footage comes from the MWC Women's Soccer Tournament match between BYU and New Mexico. BYU won the match 1-0, but the main talking point was a performance of Norman Hunter-esque aggression from New Mexico's Elizabeth Lambert. Lambert dished out a series of full-on assaults throughout the match, culminating [. Click to continue reading...

ESPN ran a story about a recent match between BYU and New Mexico's women's teams which has become infamous for the elbows-to-the-ribs and ponytail-yank antics of New Mexico player Elizabeth Lambert. Fans of the sport are groaning, because this is what it takes to get a non-Olympics/World Cup/WPS Final into headlines - replays of bitchslap. Click to continue reading...

Video ansehen

Zugegebenermaßen sind die Fouls in diesem Frauenfußballspiel zwischen BYU and New Mexico längst nicht so brutal oder folgenschwer wie wir es im Herrenfußball gewohnt sind.Frauenfußball ist hart

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Soccer can be a tough game and it's especially so in the Mountain West Conference. Footage of the conference semifinal game in Provo, Utah where BYU beat New Mexico 1-0 has been making the rounds and not for the right reasons.

Why is it that the only times women's sports make the nightly news is when they cross the line?

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Elizabeth Lambert's demolition job on BYU's strikeforce is in heavy rotation on the intertubes today:
ESPN's coverage of the event appears to be pretty evenhanded, focusing on "Julie Foudy, tell us in your vast, infinite wisdom: how the fuck wasn't Lambert sent off?" Overall, not too different from ESPN's usual coverage of sports with a niche following - wait until something bizarre like this happens and put it in rotation. Click to continue reading...

I've seen the above game described as a "catfight", but that absolutely does not do it justice. Bringham Young University vs New Mexico in the Women's Mountain West Conference college tournament last night was more like the roughest game of soccer ever captured on YouTube, and it featured the roughest display of defending I've ever [. Click to continue reading...

ESPN is running a college soccer feature this morning.
But before the nice folks in the various BigSoccer forums concerned with such topics get too terribly excited about NCAA womens' soccer finally getting the serious recognition it so richly deserves, they might want to take a look at the segment:
YouTube- Cat fighting gets ugly during BYU vs. Click to continue reading...

Sao Paulo managed to hold on to a 1-1 draw against Gremio on Wednesday despite having three players get sent off in the final 15 minutes. Of the three tackles that earned early dismissals, I think the butt kick/head slap combo (15 seconds in) would have to be the most original.

But if you want to see something that will make the above video look like bingo night at the old folks home, check out this clip of the MMA battle between the BYU and New Mexico women's teams.

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Cat Whitehill's been blogging about college football lately. I'd love to comment but I'm too heartbroken about the stupid Buckeyes on the weekend (yeah, I got sucked into that, those people colonize your brain). Anyway, check it out:

So here we go.... The ACC went 5-7 the OPENING week.

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So what is Clint "Cleatus" Mathis up to these days? He was in and out at Ergotelis with the club avoiding relegation but his short contract not being renewed. Awhile back he popped up with some MLS reserve teams with the most recent of those being for Real Salt Lake in a reserve frinedly against BYU. Click to continue reading...

I wasn't able to watch the game live Friday night, but I did record the BYU-TV broadcast to watch on Saturday. I really wanted to see how the Vancouver Whitecaps Residency program looked. I've got to say that it's an impressive program.

For the most part, Vancouver owned the field last night coming away with a 2-0 win.

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Last night was a rarity in soccer, a big game in which the final score didn't really matter. RSL's reserves beat the BYU Cougars in the Coug's brand new Stadium at South Field in front of 3110 fans. Beat is probably too soft a word, RSL's Robbie Findley put the ball past BYU's Brandon Gillam twice in the stretch of two minutes midway through the first half, at which point RSL seemed to let off the gas.

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It's been a good weekend for the teams I follow. Both BYU and RSL won their games, with BYU claiming the season series over Ogden 3-0-1 and RSL climbing into 1st place in the (somewhat weak) west. RSL's U-17 team also won it's final round game against DC United's U-17 team, earning both the SUM U-17 championship and entry into the 2009 Trofeo Quixote U-17 tournament in Madrid, Spain.

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Tonight I've decided to try something new. I'm typing up this blog entry and will post it once I get home (I'd have posted it from here, but I can't get any WiFi signal here at Haws Field). Hopefully this goes pretty well.

After last weeks loss, BYU coach Chris Watkins talked about using the remainder of the season to get younger players some time as the Cougars build toward next season.

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Hey, it looks like the Deseret News has some coverage up from Thursday's game. It's not much, less than BYU's own press release, but it is something.

I'd love to see more regular coverage of the PDL (especially the local Ogden and BYU teams) in our local papers. If you'd like to help make it happen, drop a line to the Sports Editor, Kent Condon.

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Saturday night, the Cougars will visit the suddenly hot Cascade Surge. BYU has been playing well too, chalking up road wins at Ogden and Spokane. Zack De Francis is continuing to score with a goal in each of the last two games bringing him to a season total of 7 (check out my interview with Zack if you're a De Francis fan).

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Zack De Francis has been the most searched for name on my blog, and has played a big roll in BYU's success so far this year. Over the last several days, Zack has been kind enough to trade emails with me to create the interview below. Read on to learn a little bit more about BYU's star striker.

Right now you're among the statistical leaders in the PDL, despite having played fewer games than the other players.

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Just a short report for now, I'll post more on Monday when I have some time.

The Cougars got a big win (1-5) over the Cascade Surge last night. I was out camping with my scouts, so I didn't get to see it. It sounds like there were some injuries coming out of that game though.

Tonight, BYU took 3 more points in a 1-2 win over Spokane.

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I just saw a couple of articles that update my recent posts on SYL players training with West Ham and BYU's new soccer facility. In the interest of keeping people informed, here's what I found:

• First, a short interview with SYL Player Aaron Laing. This one is pretty cool, Aaron gives his impression of the ODP camps that the SYL puts on and looks ahead to his opportunity to train in England.

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Wow! You go away for a week to take a boring HP class (in beautiful San Jose, there are always upsides) and what happens? News of the new BYU soccer facility breaks, of course. On Monday, March 10th at noon, BYU is breaking ground on their new soccer facility. This is really just an expansion of the existing South Field, and will be used by the men's and women's soccer teams as well as the lacrosse team (for televised matches). Click to continue reading...

Coach Watkins stopped me on Friday evening and told me I didn't want to miss the Saturday evening (and final) session of the tryouts. He told me the competition was intense and there would be a lot of great soccer on display. With a teaser like that, how could I stay away.

The first two rounds of cuts took the pool of players from eighty-five down to fifty, and by the end of Saturday night, it would have to be trimmed to twenty-five plus six incoming freshmen.

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I ended up catching a bit of the evening session of the tryouts on Friday. At this point, the tryout roster had been trimmed by over 20 players (there are still some big cuts to go though). I was really happy to see that KC, Bryan, and Robert (the three keepers I'd noticed Thursday and Friday morning ) were all still on the roster.

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No pictures today, since I made an unplanned stop at the tryouts while dropping my son off for early morning seminary classes. I was only able to stay for 30 minutes or so, enough time to catch two rounds of 8v8 scrimmages. They play two scrimmages at a time, side by side on the indoor field, which makes it hard to pick out all the good stuff that's going on it's awfully fun to try though.

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My son and I hit the Indoor Practice Facility over at BYU at 6AM this morning to watch the first session of tryouts. It was really exciting to see 70-odd players there, everyone from returning players to high school students looking for a spot on the team.

After a quick briefing by Coach Watkins, the players were split into a number of teams to play a series of scrimmages.

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The PDL has released its schedule for 2008. I've extracted the BYU games here:

Date Day Visiting Team Home Team Time (MDT) May 16 Friday Cascade Surge BYU Cougars 7:30 PM May 17 Saturday Spokane Spiders BYU Cougars 7:30 PM May 23 Friday BYU Cougars Yakima Reds 8:05 PM May 24 Saturday BYU Cougars Tacoma Tide 8:05 PM May 30 Friday BYU Cougars Abbotsford Mariners 7:30 PM May 31 Saturday BYU Cougars Vancouver Whitecaps 4:00 PM June 13 Friday Yakima Reds BYU Cougars 7:30 PM June 14 Saturday Tacoma Tide BYU Cougars 7:30 PM June 17 Tuesday BYU Cougars Ogden Outlaws 7:00 PM June 13 Friday Yakima Reds BYU Cougars 7:30 PM June 14 Saturday Tacoma Tide BYU Cougars 7:30 PM June 17 Tuesday BYU Cougars Ogden Outlaws 7:00 PM June 26 Thursday BYU Cougars Spokane Spiders 8:00 PM June 28 Saturday BYU Cougars Cascade Surge 8:05 PM July 4 Friday Ogden Outlaws BYU Cougars 7:30 PM July 12 Saturday BYU Cougars Ogden Outlaws 7:00 PM July 15 Sunday Ogden Outlaws BYU Cougars 7:30 PM July 18 Friday Vancouver Whitecaps BYU Cougars 7:30 PM July 19 Saturday Abbotsford Mariners BYU Cougars 7:30 PM

This year, all of BYU's games are against conference foes (unlike last year when the Colorado Rapids U23 played at BYU).

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This time of year, it's hard to get a good picture without better equipment than my son was using, but I did like this picture of RSL taking the field at the beginning of the game. Hopefully we'll get some better pictures at next week's game against UVSC. Click to continue reading...

"We're on the march with Watkin's army ...", 850 BYU and RSL fans showed up to cheer for the two teams in last night's friendly. A lot of the fans were faced with the tough choice of which team to root for. A small pocket of RCB fans were there with RSL flags, but were on their best behavior noting that "We don't want to get kicked out of the game in the first ten minutes.

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My son and I tried to go to the UVSC @ BYU friendly tonight. Instead of the game, we got some lessons in the realities of PDL soccer.

The game itself was cancelled. I had a chance to talk to a couple of team representatives about the reasons. It turned out that there were two big reasons:

1. To protect the field: BYU is hosting a tournament on the field and with the bad weather they were concerned about it's condition with an extra game
2. Finances: The soccer team needs to pay for their use of the field, and with the poor weather, they didn't expect to draw a large enough crowd to cover their costs.

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I've gotten a little bit of information back from Coach Watkins about the relief game being played after the LA Galaxy RSL game on the 19th. One gem is that another BYU player has been invited to participate.

Chad Sackett invited Steve [Magleby], Hugh [Van Wagonen], and I to play in the game. We are looking forward to the game.

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RSL has announced that the Sep 19th game against the visiting LA Galaxy will be followed by a 30 minute friendly with 'Team South America' facing 'Team Utah'. Some of the gate receipts from the double header will be donated to Peruvian earthquake relief.

Two BYU Cougars will be involved in the game, Coach Watkins and Steve Magleby (who's played with RSL's reserves several times over the last couple of years) will be playing on 'Team Utah'.

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There's something I've been thinking about for a while, and it's finally percolated long enough that I wanted to get it out in front of everyone to see what you think. We've got two solid PDL teams here in Utah (and could probably support a third in Salt Lake City if it came to that). They play a pretty fierce rivalry (even if it's been a bit one-sided so far), but I think there's a way to get the clubs, and their fans, a bit more involved.

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While the season didn't end the way BYU wanted it to, a 0-3 shutout in the Western Conference finals at the hands of the Fresno Fuego, the team certainly has some things to feel good about after the 2007 season:

• The Cougars 13-1-2 season marks their best PDL campaign to-date.
• Two of their players were named to the all-conference team; Brock Trejo (M) and Hugh Van Wagenen (D)
• They had six Team of the Week honors (including a Player of the Week) during the sixteen week season.

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