Virginia Women's Soccer Rallies to 2-1 Victory at No. 3 Penn State

UVa’s defense bent, and broke, against PSU but the resilient Cavaliers came away with the win anyway.

Maggie Cagle scored two goals to lead Virginia women's soccer to a huge road win over No. 3 Penn State. / Virginia Athletics

I am sure this season has not played out as head coach Steve Swanson initially diagrammed it.  Midfielders Jill Flammia and Emma Dawson have not dressed out.  Defender Aniyah Collier, who did dress out for the Georgetown exhibition game and against Towson, did not dress out for this game.  Freshman Sophia Bradley, who excelled in the Georgetown game, was wearing an ankle brace for this one.  Lia Godfrey is still only playing 35 minutes a game.  Oh, and Yuna McCormack is off with the women’s U20 squad.

Swanson’s response was to start Tatum Galvin, a defender, at midfield and the team lined up in a nominal 4 – 1 – 4 – 1.  It is Galvin who is that single defensive midfielder and it’s pushed Alexis Theoret, who is the metronome for the team at that role, into the midfield line of four.  When a team is missing as much talent as the Cavaliers are, and the most reliable player is well out of her favored position, it makes for rocky play.  And against the Nittany Lions, the Hoos looked very disjointed are frankly lucky to have walked away with the win.

Penn State started the season well, knocking off #8 Texas Tech 4 – 0.  Texas Tech was the Big 12 regular season champion as well as a College Cup finalist, and Penn State steamrolled them.  And with a full crowd in Happy Valley, the Lions jumped all over Virginia.

Speed has long been the Achilles' heel for Virginia, and with Collier out and Laney Rouse not looking as fast as two years ago, the women had no answer for Jordan Fusco and Kaitlyn MacBean.  It would make a depressing highlight clip to show you how many times Fusco and MacBean just blew by Cavalier defenders.  On the right, Oliva Damico had so much space it seemed more that the women were just trying to “stay in her area” than actually mark her.

To compound the speed issues, the women also struggled to advance the ball out from the back.  Every defender on the back line was victimized, every defender turned the ball over in the back third.  Maintaining possession and building from the back – the hallmark of the modern game – requires confidence and when that’s lost it makes it possible for the pressing team, in this case the Lions, to press with abandon.  The answer to beating the attacking team’s press is, as always, Alexis Theoret, who never turns the ball over and always turns away from pressure in the direction that a coach sitting in stands would diagram for her.  Only she’d been pushed forward and she might not have had a dozen touches in the first half.

It only took 15 minutes for Penn State to score.  Kiki Maki whiffed on a nice cross from Damico and MacBean coolly slotted the ball home.  Virginia was rather lucky that they were only down 1 – 0 at the half because either side of the goal, Penn State twice blew golden opportunities with a couple of surprisingly poor shots.  The defensive line has not looked set at all this young season, and Penn State was exploiting the individual matchups.

Eight minutes into the second half, MacBean again beat Maki in the penalty box, and at first glance, it looked like a penalty.  But as the referee waved play on, Penn State lost focus for just a second as the players complained to the ref and Virginia took advantage of the momentary lapse and Maggie Cagle equalized just 20 seconds later.  This is the hardest moment to coach.  We’ve all been taught to play to the whistle, but in this moment, the Lions failed.  They took their foot off the proverbial pedal and lost concentration while Virginia did that “easiest” of things.  They just kept playing.  And they were rewarded with an equalizing goal very much against the run of play.

Rewarded by the goal, Virginia shifted into high gear and their press became more effective. Theoret started seeing more of the ball.  Godfrey re-entered the game and showed a couple flashes of her former brilliance.  The script had been flipped.

Virginia took the lead for good when Meredith McDermott, who had been pretty quiet, was fouled on a breakaway in the box.  Cagle converted the penalty and Virginia was up 2 – 1 with 24 minutes to go.

Penn State will feel hard done by the ref.  The McDermott foul was the correct one, and the ref did go to replay to confirm, but there were at least two other fouls against Virginia that he did not call after Cagle equalized.  One would have been an equalizing penalty for PSU – that seemed 50/50 to me at best – but the last was with 20 seconds left just a foot outside of the box.  (That one was definitely on Rouse.)

This was the very definition of an ugly win.  Virginia’s back line is a mess, injuries are rampant, and the Swanson system – long a plus – looks very random.  And I don’t mean that in a good way.  But the women showed the trademark resilience of a Steve Swanson team.  They came from behind and beat a team that was better than them.  In front of a full house of angry fans.  I’m not at all confident about what a Florida State team could do to these Cavaliers, but you know what?  After seeing the Penn State v Texas Tech score line earlier this week, I wasn’t confident entering this game.  And yet the women won.   And that’s what matters.

Next Up:  The women host Utah Valley on Sunday.  Game time is 12 noon and the game is the ACC Network Extra.