I turned on the Women's Soccer College Cup just after halftime and North Carolina was up 1-0. Because it was a National Championship game, I was kind of curious as to how it would play out.
North Carolina went up 2-0 and I thought the score would hold up, UCLA was playing desperate, sloppy soccer.
With 10 minutes to go, UCLA clawed its way back into the game with a goal off a rebound. North Carolina Goalie Emmie Allen made a nice save, but UCLA knocked in the rebound.
Now, fundamentally, it is the goalie's job to make the save and the defender's job to clear out the rebound. If a goalie gives up a soft rebound that's on them, but the first goal for UCLA was simply bad luck for North Carolina.
Here is where the officiating became dicey. With 16 seconds left in the game UCLA took a corner kick and it appeared that a UCLA player pushed Allen into the goal as the ball flew by and a second UCLA player headed the ball into the goal from under a yard out. UCLA went crazy, but I couldn't help but think that if this was a college football game, with a dozen different camera angles, that the goal would have been disallowed.
In real time, the ref should have checked VAR to see how Allen ended up in the back of her own net. In the ref's defense, the camera work was terrible.
About half way through the second overtime, Emmie Allen made a world-class save, only for the rebound to fall to the foot of a pursuing UCLA player.
As Allen sat dejected in the goal mouth after the game, I couldn't help but think she played good enough to win her team a national championship.
It just didn't happen.
"Whatever, Fred Hunt, who cares about your opinion."
Uh, if you check out twitter, it wasn't just my opinion.
Yeah, the video in question is about as clear as a convenience store security camera.
