After a subpar effort against Notre Dame that resulted in their first loss of the season, the Virginia Knights return to the friendly confines of Kloeckner Stadium as they try to get back on track. The opponent could not have been picked better as Virginia has never lost to the Cardinals. And, following a rare loss, UVA released coach Steve Swanson’s 61-8-13 record following the loss. So the signs did not bode well for Louisville.
The last three games have been interesting for the ‘Hoos. Virginia has struggled to maintain its usual midfield dominance in a three-game stretch tied with VCU. The next game was a spectacular second half comeback against the Tar Heels 2-0. It was a great and great win to be sure, but don’t let it overshadow the fact that the ladies ran away from home in the first half. And midweek, UVA played the Fighting Irish in Notre Dame and fell 1-0. Still, Virginia couldn’t dominate the midfield.
Against Louisville, Swanson made two changes. He brought Maggie Cagle back into the starting lineup. It has gone back and forth all season as to who is taking the corner kicks, and today it was Alexis Thioret. Cagle and Alexa Spansta flipped wings. This is not very common but they switched sides after 10 minutes which is rare. At one point, Lanny Rouse and Samar Guidry appeared to swap sides the same way, which was very unusual, but could have been based on them positioning themselves for a corner kick.
But most impressively, the Knights dominated the game and moved Swanson Theoret (normally a right midfielder) back to centre-back to make up for the loss of Rebecca Jarrett’s speed on the wing, with Lacy McCorman out wide. . That pushed Lanny Russ well into midfield. I don’t know if Roos is really fast, but she has learned how to use her speed better on the sideline and has been more effective on offense this year.
It’s been a great journey for a team that has lined up in at least a vanilla 4-3-3 lineup for the past 5-6 years. Unfortunately, the results are mixed at best. For the fourth straight game, Virginia struggled to contain a middling, mid-table Louisville team. The team is not aligned with the ball. Twice in the first 20 minutes of the game, the announcer said, “The thought was there. It wasn’t the murder. I had to agree with him.
In a symbolic play of the first half, Magee-Cagle split the ball past Louisville’s back line ahead of Haley Hopkins. She was on a full run, matched up with a Louisville defender for a footstep and her second touch on the ball was too hard and rolled into the keeper before Hopkins got off the shot. A two-time All-American and one woman closing in on 50 career goals was a touchdown. It was a substitute touchdown that summed up the Cavaliers’ first-half performance. A different average.
The clouds moved in within half an hour and within 15 minutes of restart it was raining. It seemed like perfect style. No amount of halftime pep talk Swanson tried to give his team had the same effect it did last weekend at North Carolina.
The game changed in the 73rd minute when Hopkins went down 10 yards outside the box. Leah Godfrey had gone down just five minutes before, so Alexis Theoret came out. I think Thiorette is a fantastic dead ball striker and I wanted her to take all angles this season. I was happy to substitute Godfrey in my mind, and prove the theorem correct. Louisville keeper Erin Floyd gave her no chance and finished to the left side of the top of the goal.
The game was basically at that point. Swanson iced the game. With 8 minutes to go, Talia Staud received a free kick 10 meters from Theoret. She found Hopkins and the wreckage parted like the Red Sea. Hopkins was one-on-one with a defender, and gracefully buried the ball into the back of the net. She was 8Th Goal of the season and 50Th In her career.
All the fight went out of the Cardinals and the Wahoos made several plays to ice the game.
Next: Virginia travels to Durham to take on the Duke Blue Devils this Friday. Game time is 7:00 PM and the game will be telecast on ACCN Extra.
