Cavaliers Now

Virginia Women’s Soccer Falls Away at UNC 3-2

Despite taking 1-0 and 2-1 leads, the Cavaliers stumbled late against the Tar Heels

Val Prochaska

Virginia Athletics

While Helene is quite literally carving up large swaths of western North Carolina and east Tennessee, Chapel Hill was spared and the women were able to play their game under mostly clear skies.  UVa came into this game with their backs up against the wall having suffered consecutive losses to Wake Forest and Notre Dame and working on almost 200 minutes of scoreless soccer.

The team welcomed back midfielder Yuna McCormack, fresh off her bronze medal-winning stint with the women’s U20 national team.  In the World Cup, McCormack had scored the team’s inaugural goal of the tournament and assisted on the game-winner in the third-place game.  With Lia Godfrey coming off her most complete performance of the season against Notre Dame, the Virginia midfield was as whole as it has been in two years.

Virginia got off to a good start, controlling the pace of play and the midfield.  McCormack has good touch and gives Virginia the chance to build the attack in and around the other team’s penalty box, which is a dimension that has been lacking for this team.  Virginia even survived a Keystone Cops moment when keeper Viki Safradin slipped as she was trying to play the ball out.  17 minutes in, Maggie Cagle drew a penalty and her smooth conversion (she had missed her last PK attempt) gave the Cavaliers a deserved 1-0 goal lead.

Six minutes later, UNC’s most effective midfielder on the night, Princeton transfer Aria Nagai went to the bench for concussion protocols.  She looked every bit as comfortable in possession as Virginia’s Alexis Theoret and her absence should have been exploited by Virginia.  Except that the touch of almost everyone else in a Virginia uniform seems to have deserted them. We talk about teams winning (or losing) the 50/50 balls, but so many of the Cavaliers’ first touches turned what should be clean possessions into adventures.  Tatum Galvin, Lia Godfrey, Maggie Cagle, all of whom have very good control, more closely resembled my middle school team. 

Carolina worked their way back into the game and it was no surprise when Linda Ullmark converted on a lovely shot when the Tar Heels shredded the Virginia defense.  Thirty minutes in and UNC had taken control of the game.

But if I’ve learned anything watching the women over the past decade is that they don’t give up and a lovely Maggie Cagle through ball found McCormack behind the UNC line.  Playing more directly than she might have last year, McCormack drove right to goal and slotted home for the 2-1 lead.  Virginia has been remarkably unsuccessful in attacking teams behind their line, so this was a welcome development.

At this point, a North Carolina beat-writer would talk about how equally resilient the Tar Heels have been over the years, first under legend Anson Dorrance, and now, under interim coach Damon Nahas.  Three minutes later Kate Faasse equalized off maybe a more perfect through ball as she beat Safradin, who I think went low too early.  That was three goals in eight minutes and the game was knotted up at halftime.

Sophia Bradley, who had impressed during her stint in the first half got the starting nod in the second half, had a couple of fine driving runs early in the half but Meredith McDermott and Godfrey both failed to corral her passes.

On defense, the team seemed to be missing Samar Guidry (though she would enter midway through the second half) and Laney Rouse was pinned back defending Faase and Maddie Dahlien.  Virginia just wasn’t getting any wide play from her outside backs so the game was still ping-ponging around when Theoret went down in the 60th minute, off camera and seemingly away from contact.  She left the pitch limping gingerly; when she returned to the bench she was on crutches and was icing her ankle.

Virginia is a flawed team, but Theoret masks many of those flaws.  Virginia was doing a lot of bending – midway through the second half, UNC had a 13-2 shots advantage and 5-1 corners advantage – and in Theoret’s absence, the Tar Heels started pressing Virginia more.  The goal felt inevitable to me as the Virginia defense was able to stay in front of Ullmark. Nevertheless, Ullmark turned Maki and fired home the game winner. 

Virginia would throw the kitchen sink at UNC over the game’s last 10 minutes but they didn’t really create a single good chance.

Virginia is competitive and they are well coached, and they had chances to secure wins against both Notre Dame and, now, UNC, but the simple fact is they didn’t.  Head coach Steve Swanson, who lost three in a row for just the second time in his stint at Virginia (and the first since 2003) said, “We need to find ways to win games like these and right now we are doing the opposite.”  Virginia now sits 1-3 in ACC play, which is already as many losses as the women had last year, which was a pretty disastrous year in its own right.

The women have only two games over the next two weeks.  The Hoos travel to Durham next Thursday to take on Duke and then the following Thursday they host NC State.  There is time, and Swanson has been known to work miracles, but losses in either game will surely doom Virginia to miss the ACC and NCAA tournaments for a second consecutive year.  We’ll find out just how resilient the Cavaliers are over the next two weeks.

Published
Val Prochaska
VAL PROCHASKA

Val graduated from the University of Virginia in the last millennium, back when writing one's senior thesis by hand was still a thing. He is a lifelong fan of the ACC, having chosen the Tobacco Road conference ahead of the Big East. Again, when that was still a thing. Val has covered Virginia men's basketball for seven years, first with HoosPlace and then with StreakingTheLawn, before joining us here at Virginia Cavaliers on SI in August of 2023, continuing to cover UVA men's basketball and also writing about women's soccer and women's basketball.