Highlight Hoos 2021-2022: Diana Ordóñez | UVA Women's Soccer

Ordóñez led the country with eight game-winning goals and was named the ACC Offensive Player of the Year

Matt Newton | Jun 21, 2022

With the 2021-2022 Virginia athletics season officially completed, we enter the college sports offseason optimistic for things to come for the Cavaliers next season. But with the fall seasons still a couple of months away, we have time to take a look back at some of the incredible athletic accomplishments achieved by UVA student athletes during the 2021-2022 sports year in a series called Highlight Hoos.

We begin with the Virginia women's soccer team and star striker Diana Ordóñez.

The Cavaliers entered the 2021 season with high expectations as they returned most of the roster from a team that made an unlikely run to the College Cup semifinals in the spring of 2021. Just a few months later, UVA returned to the field at Klockner Stadium looking to begin another run at the program's first national championship.

Virginia's performance in the regular season certainly lived up to expectations. The Cavaliers lost just once in the 18-game regular season, a 4-2 defeat to Penn State in the first few weeks of the season. Virginia and Florida State met as the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country in the regular season finale and played to a 1-1 draw, thanks to a second-half goal from Diana Ordóñez. UVA finished the regular season 15-1-2 overall and an unbeaten 8-0-2 in ACC play to clinch the program's third ACC regular season title and first since 2015.

Virginia went into the ACC Championship as the No. 1 seed, defeated Clemson in the semifinals, but then lost in the rematch to Florida State 1-0 in the title game. Still a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, Virginia beat its first two opponents High Point and Milwaukee by a combined 8-0 margin to advance to the third round, where the Cavaliers were stunned by BYU 1-0. UVA's season shockingly and abruptly ended short of the NCAA quarterfinals and the Cougars went on to advance to the national championship final, where they fell to, of course, Florida State.

It was certainly a disappointing conclusion, but 2021 was a fantastic year for the Virginia women's soccer program and especially for Diana Ordóñez.

Ordóñez led the ACC with 18 goals, second-most in the entire country, and was named the ACC Offensive Player of the Year and a United Soccer Coaches All-American. She led the country with eight game-winning goals, scoring the winners against West Virginia, JMU, Wake Forest, Duke, Boston College, Louisville, Clemson and Milwaukee.

In just three seasons at Virginia, Diana Ordóñez finished her career tied for third on UVA's all-time goal scoring list with 45 career goals. She is tied for sixth all-time at Virginia with 102 points, tied for fifth all-time with 15 game-winning goals, and has the second-most multi-goal games in UVA history with 11. Ordóñez was named to the All-ACC Second Team in 2019 and 2020 and the All-ACC First Team in 2021.

Ordóñez declared for the 2022 National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) Draft at the end of the season and was selected with the sixth overall pick in the first round by the North Carolina Courage.

The pick is in! She goes sixth overall!

Diana Ordoñez will be heading down the road to @TheNCCourage !#GoHoos 🔶⚔️🔷 | #ALLIN⚽️🔥 pic.twitter.com/P12uLF0mKq
— Virginia Women's Soccer (@UVAWomenSoccer) December 18, 2021

The National Women's Soccer League has held an annual draft for 10 years and Virginia has had a player selected in every single draft. Ordóñez became the 19th Cavalier to be selected in the NWSL Draft and the fourth Cavalier to be picked in the first round, joining Courtney Petersen, Emily Sonnett, and Morgan Brian. Ordóñez has started in six games so far this season and has recorded three goals.

On June 13th, Ordóñez was called up to the Mexico Women's National Team and will compete in the CONCACAF W Championship beginning July 4th in Mexico, which will serve as qualifiers for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup.

Stay tuned to CavaliersNow this week as we recognize more of the outstanding achievements of Virginia athletes in the 2021-2022 season.

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