The Virginia women’s soccer team finished its opening three-game home stand by defeating Liberty 5-0 and Virginia Commonwealth 5-0 Friday and Sunday, respectively. Virginia’s first home game was a 4-0 victory against Loyola Aug. 22.
Though the Cavaliers started off both games slowly — scoring only one goal in the first 61 minutes of the game against Liberty and only one goal in the first 56 minutes against VCU — they came alive toward the end of both games, blowing out and shutting out both teams.
“We like where we are right now, obviously,” Virginia coach Steve Swanson said. “But we also know we’ve got a long way to go.”
Though the Cavaliers sent Liberty home Friday with a 5-0 shutout loss, it seemed to be a struggle for Virginia to put quality shots on goal; the Cavaliers managed only one goal on 18 shots in the first half.
“Typically our games are like that — we have a lot of shots,” sophomore forward Meghan Lenczyk said. “I think we we’re just getting a little bit unlucky. We were taking our chances, but I feel like in the second half the flow was just better, and finally once we got one, it made it easier to score more.”
Indeed, it did seem like one Cavalier, Lenczyk, was finding the back of the net more easily than her teammates. Lenczyk came off the bench for Virginia — playing only a total of 50 minutes in the game — and scored the team’s second and third goals in rapid succession in the 62nd and 63rd minutes. Fourteen minutes later, Lenczyk scored the Cavaliers’ fourth goal, completing just the ninth hat trick in Virginia women’s soccer history.
“I attribute a lot of it just to my teammates playing me good balls and setting me up,” Lenczyk said about her career-best game. “And I guess I was just in the right place at the right time.”
The Cavaliers blew the game wide open in the second half, scoring four goals and putting the game out of reach for the Flames.
“We talked at halftime that we were settling for shots that were low percentage shots for us,” Swanson said. “I think there were times we could have gotten in a little closer, moved the ball a little better and generated a better chance. I think once we did that, we scored.”
Virginia’s momentum continued into Sunday’s match, when the Cavaliers once again managed to soundly defeat their in-state competition by shutting out VCU 5-0.
“I thought this was probably our best performance of the season from start to finish,” Swanson said. “I was really pleased with how hard we competed. I thought we did some good things in terms of a competitive mentality — a battling attitude.”
In addition to the competitive mentality, the Cavaliers improved the quality of their shots. It took the team only 16 shots to score five times, compared to the 38 it took them Friday to score the same number.
The competition Virginia has faced thus far by no means compares to the level of play the Cavaliers can expect for the rest of the season. Seven of the teams the Cavaliers are set to face are nationally ranked, including five of Virginia’s nine ACC opponents.
“We know we’ve got a lot of work to do down the road,” Swanson said. “We know our tougher games are probably ahead of us, but at the same you look at all the upsets going on around the country — [and you realize] these aren’t gimme games. Our sport can be a tough sport at times where you can come and dominate and not win. But we like where we are right now and we realize we’ve got a lot of work to do, and we’ve got to get better, and we’ll start that tomorrow.”
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