After a 1-0 loss to William & Mary Tuesday, the No. 12 Virginia women's soccer team looks to bounce back against No. 2 Florida tonight at 7 p.m. at Klockner Stadium.
The Cavs (7-4, 3-1-0 ACC) will have to step up their level of play from their last game to compete with the Gators (11-0), who are on a 26-game winning streak.
"Having starting defender Brooke Stastny back in the starting lineup will help," Virginia defender Carryn Weigand said. "We were hurt in the first half against William & Mary before Brooke came back."
Stastny missed the first half of the William & Mary game when she was home sick with food poisoning, but came back and played for the entire second half.
Florida, which has four returning All-Americans, was the 1998 NCAA Champions. Senior Sarah Yohe leads the team in goals with 17, followed by sophomore Abby Wambach with 13. The team as a whole has allowed only five goals this season, while scoring 47.
"We're going to face a team that's very direct," Cav coach April Heinrichs said. "They accumulate a lot of fouls."
"They're very good in the air with their size, people like [5-foot-10 forward] Abby Wambach," Weigand said. "We need to put them away early, we didn't do that against William & Mary."
Despite Florida's impressive statistics, Heinrichs said she feels Virginia is prepared for the match.
"People forget that we usually play the defending national champion every year, often twice a year," Heinrichs said. "And the overall experience of playing the schedule we play will help -- period. I haven't seen my team step on the field with the so-called 'awe factor' yet this year.
"The most important thing is that we have had a myriad of games that have been worthy of lessons," she said. "We've handled teams easily and we've been in games that went down to the wire."
Although Heinrichs is confident about the Florida game tonight, she said she is less secure about the game Sunday against unranked George Mason.
She added that the Patriots, like all of the Cavaliers' in-state rivals, probably will be especially pumped up to play Virginia.
"George Mason is much like all of our in-state rivals," Heinrichs said. "We're probably the biggest game on their schedule."
Additionally, since the Patriots don't have a game tonight, they will be fully rested and she said she is worried fatigue and lack of concentration may affect her players.
"I'm going to sit back and enjoy [tonight's] game," Heinrichs said. "It's the Sunday game that I'm worried about"
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