The Virginia women's soccer team faces a significant challenge Thursday as they travel to Florida State for their first ACC road game. In the Cavaliers' first two ACC games, they downed Wake Forest 2-1 Thursday and Duke 1-0 Sunday. Both games, however, were hard-fought wins, with Virginia struggling to come out on top. This can be expected of all ACC teams that Virginia faces. The men's soccer team refers to the ACC as the "conference of death," and the women's half of the conference is much the same.
If Virginia hopes to beat the Seminoles without its home-field advantage, it will need to put forth extra effort and play aggressively from start to finish. In Sunday's game against Duke, the Cavaliers improved on this aspect of the game, beginning strong in the first half and improving gradually as the game progressed. Defense also performed strong throughout the entirety of the game.
"Now we need to show we can win on the road," Virginia coach Steve Swanson said. "We moved the ball well in our last game and got better as that game went along. It is a long haul from here on out."
Florida State is the only team in the ACC to have beaten North Carolina and never recorded a win over Virginia. The Seminoles, however, have come close to beating Virginia in each of the last eight years.
The last time Virginia beat Florida State by more than one goal in regular season was in 1996. The Cavaliers have also defeated the Seminoles in tournament play 2-0 in 1998 and once last season. In six of Virginia's 13 wins over Florida State, the Cavaliers have scored with less than 10 minutes on the clock, and four of these game-winning goals were in the last two minutes.
Thursday, the Cavaliers hope to extend their five-game winning streak for this season and their undefeated record against Florida State.
"We have played two difficult one-goal games against two very difficult teams," sophomore midfielder Jen Redmond said. "The rest of the ACC isn't much easier. It was great to get these under our belt at home before we head out on the road to Florida."
The winning goals against both Duke and Wake Forest this weekend were scored by Jess Rostedt, who will undoubtedly be an asset in the upcoming match against the Seminoles. Rostedt leads the team in scoring with five goals and two assists for 12 points, though she has only played in six of ten games this season. The four games that she missed were spent playing at the U-20 World Championships in Russia for the United States. Rostedt was named Co-ACC Player of the Week Monday. Additionally, she was awarded with two National Team of the Week honors. Both Soccer America and Soccer Buzz magazines selected the sophomore forward for their team of the week Wednesday.
The Cavaliers return to play Thursday at the Seminole Soccer Complex at Florida State with game-time slated at 7 p.m.
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