It might not be obvious from the even record Virginia holds so far or the attitude of the team, but look a little closer and it's easy to see that, for the Virginia women's soccer team, the beginning of the season has been tough. From Aug. 26 to Sept. 4, Virginia had four games, two of them away. The set of games, which started with a 6-0 victory over Rhode Island, ended Sunday with a 2-5 loss at Penn State.
There are lots of explanations for the way the season has gone so far, and no one is shy about pointing them out. The first reason they'll give is that the team is new -- there are players returning from the World Championships in Thailand trying to readjust to the team chemistry, and the team graduated their entire defensive line last year. Linked to this is the fact that the team, faced with such a tough schedule, really has not had much time to work on playing together outside of game environments.
But the last reason is one that isn't evident in the statistics but still cannot be explained away fully. It was visible in the West Virginia and James Madison games and finally caught up with Virginia when the Cavaliers faced Penn State. Despite routinely establishing offensive dominance on the field, the Cavaliers keep letting too many opportunities to score slip through their feet.
In the game against West Virginia, it seemed that something was off on timing, that Virginia kept slipping up at the last minute. The Cavaliers routinely got up to the goal box only to wait a moment too long or center the ball a moment too soon.
At the JMU game, things looked better -- Virginia was using one of its key assets, speed, and playing at twice the pace it played against WVU. Even after giving credit to the JMU goalie, however, something in the offense was still off. In both games, despite out-shooting its opponents by 50 percent, Virginia still won by only one goal, scored toward the very end of the game.
When Virginia traveled to Penn State, the full magnitude of the problem became clear. Despite having out-shot Penn State 11-3 in the first half, Virginia was down 3-2.
"We've got to finish better," Virginia coach Steve Swanson said. "I think the opportunities Penn State got, no disrespect to them, were mistakes on our part."
The positive side, however, is that consistent mistakes can be spotted easily and possibly fixed.
"They were things we can correct," Swanson said, speaking of errors he saw in Sunday's games. "Things we're going to have to correct."
Tonight's game begins a two-week home stand for Virginia. This could be vital for a team whose main problem is, ostensibly, that almost half of its players are new. Home is comfortable turf, home is where the crowd is friendly but, most of all, being home is going to make it easy for the team to get in the practice time they so desperately need.
"I think us being able to train a little bit more will help us regroup," junior Sarah Huffman said. "We can work on the little things that haven't been clicking in the game. We're excited for this week."
Among all the statements that are getting thrown around week after week, there is one that seems to ring true most strongly: The Cavaliers are getting better and better with every game. They played a much better game at JMU than they had against WVU, and they scored twice as many goals against Penn State, a more talented team. Hopefully all that needs to click is one detail -- for example, learning to communicate better as a team, and then Virginia will take off like a shot, and never look back at where it was.
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