Cavaliers Now

Virginia Women’s Soccer Outclasses Howard 4-0

Samar Guidry and Lia Godfrey have their strongest games of the season as the Cavaliers were never threatened

Val Prochaska

Virginia Athletics

While I’m sure that head coach Steve Swanson and his charges were all thrilled with the football team’s statement comeback over Wake Forest Saturday, the Cavaliers pounced all over the Howard Bisons from the opening kickoff as if seeking a statement win of their own.

In this season of injuries, Swanson has continued tinkering with the team, this time opening up with a three-back 3 – 5 – 2 as Alexis Theoret joined Kiki Maki and Moira Kelley in defense.  Freed from much of her defensive responsibilities, Samar Guidry was employed more as wing back than an outside defender and played her finest half in maybe two years. Howard had no one who could contain her and looked like the rampaging Courtney Peterson-replacement who walked into the starting eleven as a freshman.  Guidry looks faster than she’s been in years and she’s developing a nice partnership with Allie Ross.  Guidry has been getting behind the opponents’ back line with greater frequency and she’s developed a nose for goal, as witnessed in her first goal of the season which opened the scoring today:

Lia Godfrey got her second start this year and played a season-high 72 minutes.  This was the first game that she has looked anything like her old self.  At 5’ 4” Lia is not a big woman, and while defense isn’t her strong suit, she’s a willing and smart defender and this was the first time that she’s brought her defensive game to the table.

And that’s the reason top 10 teams, like Virginia, schedule the Howards of the world: so that Swanson can work out the kinks.  Earlier in the week, VCU held their own in midfield, a trend that I attributed to Virginia employing the 4 – 2 – 3 – 1.  Virginia overran Howard in midfield as the Bisons didn’t even try to control midfield.  They played a 1980s version of soccer: lots of big kicks out from the back and a very high line (though if I was being completely truthful to the spirit of the 80s, I would call it the offside trap.)  In the latter, Howard was particularly successful as the Hoos were called for offside a whopping 12 times.  That’s evidence of a lack of focus, teamwide, of the women, but on this day it didn’t matter.

Kiki Maki, after being dropped from the starting 11 for the past two games, was re-inserted into the starting rotation.  Maki is problematic in that she’s the worst defender of the Moira Kelley – Tatum Galvin – Maki trio.  The team is playing well and the non-conference slate has been underwhelming, so the team has only given up a single goal in the past seven games.  The Cavaliers are good.  But Maki has contributed to an outsize portion of the few chances that UVa has surrendered.

But…  Maki is the best passer out of the back and hits a nicely weighted ball behind the opponents’ back line.  The kind that I wished the team would drop more often in Rebecca Jarrett’s tenure here so that she could utilize her sprinter’s speed.  Maki is also genuinely disruptive in the opponent’s penalty box on corner kicks.  She scored on a corner against James Madison and she scored again on this day.  She also sent a second shot spinning off the upright.

Guidry’s goal made it 1-0 at the half and in the second, Swanson re-tooled the team back into the 4 – 3 – 3 with Theoret in the pivot (just in front of the back line.)  Virginia under Swanson has a strong history of coming out of the locker room on fire, so I don’t know if the better second half was a result of the Theoret Switch, or just another Swanson halftime pep talk, but the women took it up a notch, with Ella Carter scoring this goal just 10 minutes into the half.

Carter came to Virginia last year as Top Drawer Soccer’s #27 recruit in the country but she lost out to Yuna McCormack in the playing time derby.  These three games that Yuna has been at the Women’s U20 World Cup have been good to Carter.  She got table scraps last year, but the last three games she’s averaged about 60 minutes/game.  She’s neat and tidy on the ball, and this finish is as good as any we’ll see this year.

The women were also boosted by the return of Meredith McDermott after a two-game hiatus.  She wore a wrap around her thigh but she looked as fast as ever.  It’s good to see her back.

Virginia increased the score to 4 – 0 in the last four minutes of the game when the referee called a soft foul on a cross that took Allie Ross down.  Virginia has been pretty fortunate in the karmic struggle for penalty kicks this season, but it didn’t seem to matter to Ross who slotted home cleanly.  Allie’s very first goal for Virginia was a cleanly-taken PK a year ago, and while Maggie Cagle is the team's primary, it’s nice to see such a confident back-up.

Camryn Miller got the tactical start in goal for her first ever career shutout.

Next Up:  The “second season” begins as Virginia enters the ACC slate with a matchup in Florida as the women take on Miami on Thursday, September 12th at 7:00pm.  The game will be on ACC Network Extra.

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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.