The No. 11 Virginia women's soccer team will begin its conference slate today with a face-off against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
The Hokies are coming off two gutsy overtime wins against Vanderbilt and James Madison. Ranked No. 15 coming into the season, Virginia Tech's performances have been inconsistent, losing to unranked Kentucky 2-1 and beating LSU 1-0 during the same weekend at the ACC/SEC Challenge. Given the rivalry between the two schools, however, the Hokies are likely to bring their best game tonight.
"I think it's going to be a lot like the West Virginia game," junior forward Lauren Alwine said about the team's sole defeat of the season last weekend. "They're going to come out hard against us. A lot of teams this year are going to come out hard against us, but we just need to make our chances count."
Virginia fell 1-0 at the hands of West Virginia, in a game during which it dominated every statistical category, save for the one that matters most: goals.
"Only in soccer, right?" coach Steve Swanson said. "I think in reality, we clearly had our chances, and we felt we were in control of the game, but we didn't finish when we could have and really, we kind of kept them in the game."
The loss, however, was good in one sense - it gave the Cavaliers a clear idea of what they need to work on going into the cage match that is ACC play.
To compete aggressively tonight, Virginia may have to be quicker off the bench, as the squad has been notorious for slow starts during its last four games. Of the 15 goals the Cavaliers have scored during that time, all but four of them have come during the second half.
"I told our players that we gotta be able to start a little bit better," Swanson said. "We have to be a little bit sharper, especially against teams that are dropping back and not giving us a lot of space behind them. And you know there were a few things here and there defensively that we could get better on. I think it was disappointing, but I thought overall, if we played that game nine more times, we're going to win all nine of them."
Nevertheless, the Cavaliers' offensive force has come through, tallying 27 goals to just two by their opponents. Senior midfielder Sinead Farrelly has provided a great spark, striking first against both Texas and Boston University. During the matchup with West Virginia, she also managed a shot past the keeper on an open net that was blocked off the line by a defender at the last second.
But notably absent from the scorecard recently has been senior forward Meghan Lencyzk. A "born goal-scorer," according to coaches, Lencyzk was off to the best start of her four seasons at Virginia, with seven goals during just five games. Her production, however, has stalled, providing only an assist during the last three games. If the Cavaliers are going to be successful in the competitive ACC, they will need Lencyzk's scoring prowess back in full form.
Nevertheless, at this point in the season, the team is pleased with its position.
"If you look at the non-conference portion of the schedule, including our scrimmages, we've had one result that didn't go our way, and in that result, we were clearly the better team," Swanson said. "I think we've done a lot of things well."
Past performance, however, certainly does indicate that the road ahead will be easy for the Cavaliers.
"We have 10 games in the ACC and not one of them, not one of them, especially the games on the road, are going to be easy," Swanson said.
Play is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
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