Cavaliers Now

Virginia Women’s Soccer Takes Down Virginia Tech 1-0

In a feisty match, Virginia scores early, holds on late, and positions themselves for the NCAA Tournament.

Val Prochaska

Virginia Athletic

On Halloween night, the Virginia Cavaliers made the short trip to Blacksburg to take on Virginia Tech as the Hokies sought to put the finishing touches on their most successful ACC season, like forever.  With a victory over UVa, Tech could finish second in the regular season and secure the first round bye in the ACC tournament.  Tech has already beaten Florida State and Notre Dame this year, teams that won out over Virginia.

Virginia, for their part, was not invited to the ACC Tournament – they would finish 8th on the season – but the NCAA Tournament is very much in the cards.  The Cavaliers have the 12th highest RPI and own the 14th hardest schedule played in college soccer this year.  They have two victories over top 10-ish competition -- #6 Penn State and these #12 Hokies – and zero upsets.

Both these teams will be going to the Big Dance; there was just the little matter of in-state pride that had to be settled first.

Virginia Tech got the opening kickoff and chose to just punt the ball away, out of bounds, over the end line.  Virginia Tech head coach “Chugger” Adair (and yes, he officially goes by “Chugger.”  How very… Tech.) has obviously deduced that Virginia struggles under a high press and he opted to prove that point from the get-go.  Sure enough, Virginia turned the ball over twice in the game’s opening minute as Tech brought a much higher level of intensity out of the gate.

Virginia’s release in the opening minutes was Maggie Cagle.  In an alternate world, I guess, Cagle could have been a Hokie.  Her mother was the head coach of the women’s team and Maggie spent part of the formative years of her childhood , I presume, roaming around the confines of Thompson Field.

Cagle was a terror down the left side, repeatedly embarrassing Tech’s Eden Skyers.  It was such a hapless performance for Skyers that Adair would shift his entire formation in the second half to allow her to escape the lashing she got from Cagle.  (Keep that thought a moment.) 

Also stepping up early in the match was Tatum Galvin, who started out at left back in place of Samar Guidry. Galvin has been something of a revelation in this, her third season.  Relegated to mop up minutes her first two years, she’s played across the back line and even got a midfield start first game of the season.  She turns on the ball well and has a left foot as good as her right, and she’s proving to be a better link-up partner with Cagle than Guidry or Chloe Japic.  All of Virginia’s success in the opening minutes came down the left side and the pair ultimately won the corner that led to Virginia’s goal.

12 minutes in, Cagle, as the kids would say, was breaking ankles and she won a corner.  Lia Godfrey stroked a nice ball that fell fortuitously to Meredith McDermott and she slotted it home.  Seriously, one Tech player on the back line actually ducked.  It was poor defending but McDermott made the Hokies pay.

Galvin, for her part, continued her stellar play, with a pair of timely blocks and a trio of interceptions.  Godfrey and Laney Rouse started finding space on the right that was equal to the space that Cagle and Galvin had found on the left.  Tech was playing without much focus.  In one particular egregious play with two minutes left, Tech was called for offsides.  On a free kick.  That’s hard to do, but someone was completely asleep at the wheel and it wasted a nice opportunity for Tech.

The Hokies were the team that needed the halftime break the most, but they responded in a very Cavalier way: they ramped up the intensity and for the last thirty minutes they were the team on the front foot.  Adair also made a lineup change, moving Skyers to the left and freeing her from Cagle’s torments.  He also went to a three-back defensive line, which counterintuitively, adds an additional defender vis a vis a four-back line.  The move worked, Skyers was much more comfortable on the left and netted out her abysmal first-half performance.  Tech’s Allie George dropped back on the right and stymied Cagle throughout the second half.

The game turned into a dogfight, every bit a rivalry game.  Five yellow cards were awarded, four in the second half alone.  Players on both teams were constantly chirping at the referee and he had his hands full keeping the lid on the game.

With 20 or 30 minutes left in the half, it was pretty clear that Tech’s Taylor Price had established herself as the best player on the pitch.  Her movement was sublime and she was threat on the ever-increasing Tech crosses and counters.  She hit the post with a shot and put a header just inches wide.

The increasing attention being given to Price, though, allowed Tech in the 65th minute to spring Natalie Mitchell on a lovely through ball behind the Virginia back line.  The ball was lovely, Mitchell’s approach to the ball was lovely, her touch around an on-rushing Viki Safradan was lovely.  With a wide open goal, Mitchell just missed.  It was bizarre, it was inexplicable, it was the kind of miss my middle school girls team might make.  Mitchell will never forget this miss.

Gifted a win, Virginia battened down the hatches and rode out the clock and claimed a point in the Commonwealth Clash, which the Cavaliers now lead 2-0. Getting to pose like this, on Tech’s pitch, is especially sweet.

Up Next:  Tech gets to play in the ACC tournament.  Fair play to them.  The ridiculous, nay scandalous, 6-team ACC tourney is a privilege for a season hard fought.  And Virginia dropped too many games this year.  But 8-10 teams from the ACC usually make the NCAA tournament, so there are always a couple of teams sitting out the ACC tournament.  This year it’s UVa’s turn.  The women will get basically a two-week break before their opening game.  In the past decade, both UNC and FSU similarly missed the ACC tournament and used the down time to prepare for a run to the College Cup (UNC) and the national title (FSU.) 

Stranger things have happened…

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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.