Emory vs. Case Western:  16th game for Case and senior day.  Case Western had chances they couldn't convert against a good Emory team. Emory 1, Case 0.

Case Coach shakes up defensive minutes again.  Benches Senior Back Washington for last 10 minutes of SENIOR day.  Plays new defender for 20 minutes, even though he had only seen a total of 49 minutes in 2 years.  Plays offensive minded left back Trosh spot minutes at center back at end.  Not a shock that Case Western gives up another goal on a corner kick missed defensive assignment.  Of course, if no goals are scored you cannot win.

This kind of shuffling should happen during preseason or the season's start, not in a must win game against a top conference foe. It seems as though Case coaching staff is searching for goal scoring by shuffling the defense and sitting back, which makes no sense.

Next year looks bright for Case as long as key players don't quit or leave and if they find a decent replacement of their great senior keeper Winter. I suspect many of their best players would get snatched up quickly by other teams if they wanted to leave; the talent is there. Of course, even if the good players return, they can't help if they are not played or if their psyche is destroyed by the kind of shenanigans that happened the last two years.

I have followed Case Western Reserve's soccer team for a few years.  It is extremely frustrating to look good early only to repeatedly underperform starting right before conference play.  I couldn't hold it in another year and had to vent.  Sorry for the long post.

This year eerily follows what I saw last year:  The team through 8 or 9 games looked good in 2024, while the games after the team looked like a totally different team.  It was a different team after the Coach started tinkering with the lineups, especially the defense. 

What happened this year is unbelievable.  The team was great at first.  Through 9 games, the defense gave up 1 goal and was statistically the best defense in the country.  Though the keeper, Winter, is one of the best around, he hardly had to make any saves in the first half of the season, because the defense was so stout.  Though underutilized, the left back, first year Trosh, played box to box, giving Case an extra midfielder and forward on offense while getting back for defensive duties.  The speedy junior right back, Vlastaris, mostly played on the defensive half of the field, but was very successful, shutting down his side defensively and has a very long throw.  The left center back, first year Eby, played great defense and was technically very good.

Though the team was very successful at first, a good coach could see some cracks that could be exploited.  Play was predictable.  The first year left center back had trouble passing/seeing left and predictably passed almost exclusively to the senior right center star back Phillip Washington.  Once it got right, the ball almost always stayed right while the midfield had a bad habit of dribbling into pressure and turning it over.  Finally, Case had trouble completing easy finishes.  Regardless, the team started out 6 wins, no losses, and 3 ties, looking like a playoff team.

Then, like last year, the coach decides to switch up the defensive players and the strategy.  Trosh was benched, going from playing 90 minutes to none.  At first, I thought he must have been injured, because to me (and the announcers of the games) he seemed like Case's best overall field player, I don't remember him turning it over, his passing was fabulous, and he had a great left foot.  Apparently, he was not hurt, just in dog house. 

Then the coach switches its best player Phillip Washington to the left back, where Case never plays to.  It also appears that Case started playing extra defensive midfielders, while the backs rarely went forward as Trosh had been doing (maybe going forward is what upset the coach).  So all of the sudden, Case turned into a team that sits back on defense while the other team fires shots.  This may work for a team with great counter attack speed, but Case doesn't really have that.  When Trosh came in during the Chicago game, it was at right back, where he sat back like a center back, clearly told not to go forward like he had.

The Case coach, as in previous years, tinkers too much and screws up a good thing.  I am not sure he understands how important chemistry is to a team.  Since his shake-up:  1 win against horrible NYU team on fluke goal, 3 losses, and 2 ties, all together with 3 goals for and 5 goals against.  Worse yet, if it were not for the amazing goalkeeping by Winter, who now is making a ton of saves, it would be far worse.
Hopefully Case gets it back together and wins the next two games and gets a playoff chance.