The Virginia women's soccer team will face two top-10 ranked teams in what may be the most important weekend of the season. The Cavaliers enter the heart of ACC play with matches at No. 7 Maryland tonight and against No. 2 Boston College at home Sunday.
The Terrapins are undefeated heading into tonight's match against the No. 9 Cavaliers (7-1-1, 1-0-0 ACC). The last two matches between the two teams were filled with drama. In 2008, playing in College Park, then-sophomore midfielder Collen Flanagan scored an overtime goal to give Virginia a 3-2 victory. In 2009, the Cavaliers trailed 2-1 during the late stages of the game but came back to tie the Terrapins with a goal in the last second of regular time. This year, Virginia is expecting nothing different.
"[They] play very hard up there, and I think they're obviously confident; they've had a good start to their season, so we expect a very difficult game," coach Steve Swanson said.
Maryland presents a specific set of challenges that Virginia has been practicing to try and combat, including a swarming Terrapin defense.
"We're expecting high pressure trying to keep us to one side," Flanagan said. "So what we focused on in practice this week is switching the point, moving the ball quickly, one- and two-touch kind of stuff like that."
One factor that might affect tonight's game is the weather - the D.C. area has been drenched with rain and several inches are expected before game time.
"It's kind of like American football," Swanson said. "If it's raining like crazy, it might affect your passing game a little bit, so we'll have to see."
Following tonight's match, the Cavaliers come home to Charlottesville for a 2 p.m. game against Boston College on Sunday.
Returning to the field so quickly after playing a top-notch opponent like Maryland could be difficult for Virginia, especially considering Boston College is the No. 2 team in the nation. The Eagles are coming off a 3-2 road victory against then-No. 1 North Carolina and have posted a 9-0-1 record so far. Their only tie came against Stanford, another top-five team.
For both matches, Virginia hopes to remedy a problem that has frustrated the team throughout the season: scoring early. Although the Cavaliers scored a first-half goal for the first time in four games during last week's 3-0 victory against Virginia Tech, their inability to gain momentum early remained present.
"I would say that as a team as a whole, we really didn't think that the first half was very good," Flanagan said. "I think that [tonight] we're definitely going to focus on playing a full 90 minutes, coming out hard from the beginning instead of having to look to our second half"
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