Virginia 2020

I scored an interview with head coach Steve Swanson: https://hoosplace.com/content.php?inc=2020040901

We had a nice conversation. And for me, it showed me that he had actually read my columns, so it was gratifying for me.

As an update: in the interview, Swanson mentioned that one of our players and her mother had presumably contracted coronavirus. They are both better and recovering, so that is the best news for the team this spring.

 

It was amazingly cool. But Swanson does know that I am the only guy on the planet covering his women. I gave them more coverage than the freakin' student newspaper.

Which is doubly sad because I worked on that paper.

 

Virginia "welcomes" the #2 incoming class, per TopDrawer, for 2020.

https://virginiasports.com/news/2020/5/4/virginia-womens-soccer-announces-2020-21-newcomers.aspx

Virginia lost 3/4 of their back line to graduation, which of course Swanson has known for years, and this class seems to address that. Sarah Clark, a transfer from Purdue, Samar Guidry, the #8 high schooler from McKinney, Texas, and Elaine Rouse, the #26 player from Cary, North Carolina, should give Swanson more defenders to work with.

In our interview, Swanson did say this was a large class, and when coupled with 21 returning players, means that he's going to have a squad of 32-33 players, which is huge and is large for him.

 

Virginia just released their schedule. Opening at home vs Virginia Tech on 12 September.

No fans for now. Only players' families and opposing coaching staffs.

 

As a rule, I don't do previews, just post mortems, but every season needs a kickoff. Here's the HoosPlace preview:

https://hoosplace.com/content.php?inc=2020090803

Amateurs talk tactics....

…while professionals concentrate on logistics.

This military aphorism, which predates Sun Tzu, has been very much on my mind as we approach the beginning of a fall season with the 2020 pandemic still roaring merrily along.

The biggest challenge for head coach Steve Swanson this year will not be figuring out to add highly rated freshman forward Lia Godfrey into the front three, nor will it be finding out just who is going to step up and replace the departed trio of Courtney Petersen, Zoe Morse and Phoebe McClernon in the back. No, Swanson’s tallest order is going to be the planning to keep his players safely ensconced in the bubble at home and to ensure that the bubble travels when the team is on the road.

Last week the NC Wolfpack announced that they would not compete in women’s soccer for the fall season because at least three players were caught overseas when the lockdowns hit and have been unable (or perhaps are unwilling) to return for the fall. The day that I am writing this, England announced that two young debutants for the national team playing in the UEFA Nation’s League were suspended from the team and sent home for violating Iceland’s coronavirus safety measures. Colleges and universities across the country have lurched from opening with in-person instruction to going all on-line. Several schools have suspended students for violating COVID-19 protocols, with Northeastern actually refusing to grant refunds.

Health always matters in sport – the teams that feature every player available during crunch time usually do the most winning – but this season, the coach who best maintains the team bubble will most likely to grab the brass ring.

And like everything else in 2020, it’s going to be a strange brass ring. The NCAA has announced, for now, that championships for fall sports will be played in the spring. The ACC will hold their conference championship, as always, at WakeMed Park in Cary, North Carolina in mid-November. The NCAA has allowed each team to play 20 games between the fall season and the still-hypothetical spring season, with schools allowed to schedule games as they see fit. Pittsburgh, for instance, is playing 15 games this fall while Florida State is playing just 8. The 8 is significant here because the ACC slate is just 8 games. Virginia’s schedule is 11 games, all of them versus ACC teams, presumably because all ACC teams will have very similar quarantine procedures. Virginia will play Virginia Tech twice, though both games are non-conference. Virginia’s 3rd non-conference game will feature the Cavaliers traveling to North Carolina as ACC schedulers for the 3rd consecutive year have chosen not to pit UVa vs UNC. Maybe Anson Dorrance is afraid of us? I am grateful that we will be able to play them this season – they have much to atone for…

Last season was surely one of Swanson’s most rewarding seasons of the 19 he has spent in Charlottesville. Coming off a wildly successful Women’s World Cup, Swanson, and his defense, engineered an 8-week stay at #1. Over the past decade Virginia has scored more goals than any team in the country but the defense caught up last season to the extent that I dubbed it a Pack Line. Basketball fans will get the reference. And the compliment.

Three underwhelming mid-season ties and the aforementioned scheduling failure, which meant we couldn’t take UNC down a notch, rendered Virginia a bridesmaid for the regular season title, but the ACC tournament beckoned and maybe Swanson’s ladies would secure him a third ACC tournament. We dispatched a pesky Duke and beat Florida State for a second time on the season (even if the Seminoles weren’t reigning national champs, this would still be a marker of a successful season.) Then, in the ACC final, Brianna Pinto happened. Late in the game with the score knotted at 1 – 1, Pinto launched into UVa keeper Laurel Ivory and crushed her jaw. It seemed a pretty egregious foul to me, but no card was given and Virginia fell in overtime to the Tar Heels.

(Swanson was a guest on our podcast https://hoosplace.com/content.php?inc=2020040901 and was more sanguine than I was about the foul, and Ivory herself proved to be a better man than me in this interview. https://virginiasports.com/news/202...cts-on-road-back-from-injury-and-looks-ahead/)

Virginia didn’t recover well and were knocked out of the NCAAs by upset-minded Washington State, who completed a successful season of their own by advancing to the College Cup. And just like that, a season that saw Virginia reside at #1 for 8 weeks and put themselves squarely in the national championship conversation, was over. Virginia’s streak of reaching the Sweet Sixteen was over at 14 and three fourths of the backline were drafted to the NWSL.

Thus, a new season beckons and there are new streaks to begin, and Swanson has a loaded team. This team is going to feature offense as Alexa Spaanstra, Diana Ordonez and Rebecca Jarrett offer wildly complementing skill sets. Spaanstra and Jarrett are both third year, and both were teammates at the CONCACAF U20 women’s world cup qualifiers. They share their experiences her: https://virginiasports.com/news/202...d-spaanstra-reflect-on-u-s-soccer-experience/ Jarrett is on the short list of fastest players in the NCAA and she’s spent the past two years learning how to play the wing. She is devastating on the counter, she can get to the end line, and her delivery is improving. She doesn’t dribble as well as I would like, but it is her speed that opposing coaches are going to game plan first.

Spaanstra is the best player on the team with superior vision and good speed of her own. She has a quick trigger and can make the killer pass two beats before the defense is ready. Opposing teams know this and an often-effective approach to defending Spaanstra was to play Hack-a-Shaq against her. While she possesses all the skills you would want in a central attacker, pulling the strings and controlling the run of play, she is slight and will probably stay on the left wing.

That brings us to Ordonez, who blazed across the college landscape, scoring 9 goals in her first seven games. Ordonez is a predatory finisher in that she shoots quickly and can score with both feet. She is tall and she is a competent aerial target. She sets up like a traditional center forward, often with her back to the goal. She needs to get stronger if she wants to post up ACC-caliber defenders, but if she can hold the ball and lay it off to Jarrett and Spaanstra, it will give the Cavaliers just another facet to their offense.

Third year forward Ashlynn Serepca will probably be the first forward off the bench. By her own standards, Serepca’s career at UVa started slowly as she fell immediately behind Jarrett and Spaanstra in the pecking order, but she had a successful season last year and she started to let the game come to her. The other forward of note should be freshman Lia Godfrey, part of TopDrawer’s #2 incoming recruiting class. She has played on many of the same national teams as Spaanstra and Jarrett, so hopefully her familiarity with the duo will speed her development.

The midfield starts with senior Taryn Torres in the middle. Torres began her career playing on the left, first at wing and then as a midfielder. After Montana Sutton left, the central role fell to Torres, who was always a central player for both her club teams and the national teams. Torres has a first-class engine, she reads the game well, and she turns away from pressure well. (I’m sure that playing alongside Phoebe McClernon for three years helped in that regard.) While central midfielder is largely a defensive position under Swanson, she possesses a fine shot and she is a threat to score. Torres simply doesn’t quit and is probably my favorite player to watch.

The other two midfield spots will most likely be helmed by seniors Sydney Zandi and Anna Sumpter. Zandi is emblematic of Swanson’s preference for players who can play across the field. As a sophomore she mostly played on the right but I thought she was most effective coming in from the left. Sumpter was probably last season’s most improved player and she is probably the player on the team with the best nose for goal. She attacks straight-line all the time, and at this level that’s still a good thing. Four star incoming freshmen Peyton Goldthwaite and Alexis Theoret may feature as well.

It is on defense that the question marks start popping up. The biggie is, of course, just how well Laurel Ivory is going to respond to contact. Will she hear footsteps? For now, she is saying all the right things. Ivory may be the most respected player on the team and it was easy to see her growth last year. In a way, it’s hard to develop when you play on a team as great as Virginia was last year. She may have only had to make a dozen true saves on the year, but make them she did. I was not impressed with her as a sophomore; I’ve come full circle as she enters her senior season.

This year’s back four won’t look anything like the defense of the past two years. Generational change is in the very DNA of collegiate sports and that change will be evident this year. Red-shirt senior Lizzie Sieracki is back after tearing her ACL in spring training last year and missing the entire season. I would presume Sieracki will slot in at left back. She is good in the air and she possesses a throw-in that is a weapon.

Sophomore Talia Staude will be one of the two central backs for the next three years. She had a very successful freshman season, one in which she ultimately displaced McClernon, and that takes some doing. Her distribution is fine and she played with a poise that belied her youth.

Our third defender is junior Claire Constant and I admit that I have no idea where she will play. She is a strong ball winner and she is decent in the air, which is a plus, because if there is a weakness in these latest iterations of Swanson’s Cavaliers, it is that we’re weak in the air. Constant might be injury prone, missing games last year from a pair of injuries, and she picked up at least one knock her freshman year. This time last year I was speculating that she might be a candidate for central midfield. I don’t know what her best position is, but she will be in the mix.

And then we have a pair of newcomers. First off is redshirt junior Sarah Clark who transferred from Purdue. A North Carolina native, she may have wanted to be closer to home. Clark had a productive first two years at Purdue, starting immediately and being named a captain as a junior before her injury. She is eligible to play this season and has two seasons of eligibility remaining. The second is fast-raising four-star Laney Rouse, another member of the soon (hopefully) to be fabled class of 2020

The season opener is this Saturday, September 12th, as the Cavs host the Hokies at Klockner Stadium in a non-conference game. If you’re not going to have a pre-season, then starting off with your in-state rival prior to opening ACC play is probably the best matchup we could hope for. Especially at home.

 

That is correct.

Still no release of the ACC Network tv schedule.

 

Virginia defeated Virginia Tech on Saturday 3 - 1. This is the first of a home - home series this season. Neither are ACC games, so this was just for bragging rights.

Since the game was not broadcast, and I spent most of the report ranting about it, I'm not going to post it here. You know, as a public service. But the column and what constitutes for highlights is here: https://hoosplace.com/content.php?inc=2020091302

Highlights: Diana Ordonez scored. Again. She's good at this. 5* attacker Lia Godfrey got off to a good start with a goal and an assist.

Lowlights: Taryn Torres was in a boot midweek and did not play on Saturday. This is possibly huge. And since Coach Swanson shares the same abject fear of other coaches learning about his depth chart, he hasn't commented. Redshirt senior Lizzie Sieracki, who I expected to slot in at LB and start, did not. She played scrubs minutes. Instead, two freshmen, Samar Guidry and Laney Rouse logged 83 and 46 minutes respectively. This is a surprise to me.

 

The HoosPlace editor is down -- we're migrating platforms -- so here's my writeup.


The overriding factor behind home field advantage is not the fans in the stands, but rather it is the wear and tear that the traveling team must endure just to play the game. Playing during the pandemic just exacerbates travel and places an ever more onerous burden on the visitors. That, plus the deluge, was too much for a never-in-synch Virginia team that drew Duke 1 – 1.

Virginia was the better team on the day and the team started brightly to begin both halves and the Cavs dominated the two-overtime periods and amassed a 16 – 3 shot advantage and a 9 – 3 advantage in terms of shots on goal. We had more corners as well; and if that was how we determined the winner, Cavalier fans would be singing the Good Old Song. But the team as a whole was off all game as several players kept the ball one or two beats too long before making passes, and too many times player were caught in possession needlessly.

Some of this may be a result of poor form – Anna Sumpter and Alexa Spaanstra had their worst games in recent memory – and some may be due to personnel losses. Central midfielder Taryn Torres was again absent and replaced by Sydney Zandi who lacks the temperament to stay home and shield the back four.

This will be the last time I will mention this because it is a new season, but the loss of ¾ of a back line is huge and we have too many players who are still not comfortable in their role on this back four. Talia Staude is going to be great, but last year she was steadied by Zoe Morse. This year she has to be the steadying force and if she lacks the poise of three-year starters Morse and Phoebe McClernon, well that’s not a knock on her. She’s still growing into the role. Claire Constant line up alongside her in the center of defense and played a fine game and won every ball she challenged. Sarah Parker lined up at right back and she was equally hard to beat, but she failed to attack until overtime. Hopefully she will grow into this role as well because Rebecca Jarrett needs better service than she’s been getting these past two games. The fourth starter was freshman Samar Guidry, and boy, it’s easy to see why she was the #8 recruit in the country. She possesses pace, is a fine dribbler, and she lives to attack. Think of a score first point guard like Alan Iverson. Or if you prefer your metaphor to be sport specific, think Dani Alves. She’s going to cause ACC coaches a lot of consternation. But as a defender she needs to focus on defense first. Both good shots Duke got came off her errors, including the goal when she let Caitlin Cosme get behind her off a free kick.

Virginia’s goal came relatively early in the second half as the Cavaliers came out on fire and Duke retreated into a shell. That shell cracked when freshman Lia Godfrey picked up a ball at half field and drove to just outside the penalty box. Duke had been on their back heel all half and inexplicably the defense retreated for most of 30 yards, which Godfrey exploited. As the defense stiffened, Godfrey hit a cracker from 25 yards out. After the Virginia Tech game, Coach Swanson said that Godfrey’s goal in that game was his favorite in recent memory. I suspect he will remember this one more.

Soccer’s a funny game, though, and that momentum that Virginia was riding evaporated within five minutes. First, Guidry failed to clear a through ball which fell to the feet of Karlie Paschall. Keeper Laurel Ivory made the save, but the ball should never have gotten that far. Did I mention that the game was played under a torrential downpour? Perhaps Guidry’s misplay could be explained away due to the rain. A minute later, Virginia had a break and Zandi, playing like the outside midfielder she usually is, vacated her spot in central mid to give support. It was a great run for a wide midfielder, but central midfielders do not have that same freedom. Duke got the ball and immediately attacked down the center. Taken together, those two miscues alone could have given Duke confidence they had been lacking. And a minute or two later, Anna Sumpter limped off the field and she didn’t return.

Duke started attacking, got a free kick, took it beautifully, and equalized. And that would be all the scoring for the game.

Or would it? Late in the half, Cam Lexow headed the ball past Duke keeper Ruthie Jones, but the ball was cleared off the line. The linesman called it no goal, but the ACC does have video review for goals and so the referee went to the monitor. Last year there were goal line cameras and this should have been an easy call, one way or the other. I have no idea what is going on with the ACC Network this season, but those cameras were MIA, the angle from the field was inconclusive (though if you at where the defender was standing, it would appear to have been a goal,) and the draw would be preserved. Duke is good at this: last year the Blue Devils had seven ties. Seven! Well, they are carrying on where they left off last year.

Some draws are victories, but this one feels like a loss. Overall, we dominated the game, but our first touch was poor across the board. It was exciting to see the speed that Guidry and Godfrey possess – Jarrett may have some competition as fastest player on the team. But there was a niggling feeling that we should have played better. Kind of like all those niggling jersey pulls that Jarrett had to withstand and that the ref never called. This team can play better. And they will get a chance when they travel to Clemson on Sunday.

We played the Blue Devils to a 1-1 draw tonight to open ACC play, but we promise the Lia Godfrey goal that put us on the board will be one we all remember. #GoHoos pic.twitter.com/PPY2y60YnU

— Virginia Women's Soccer (@UVAWomenSoccer) September 18, 2020

 

Re 3... That was supposed to be Torres. Who, as you know, is still out. Sheesh.

4.... I am simply stunned to see how far down the depth chart that Lizzie has dropped. She's played 37 total minutes out of 200. I had predicted that she would start (which is one of the reasons I don't do predictions.) Two years ago I thought she was the weak link on the team, but she worked hard and did a fine job replacing Petersen when she went down. I was gutted that she missed all of last year.

 

Finally got the game highlights done.

I need to get a soundtrack....

Edit: Two things. First, how fast is Rebecca Jarrett? Mia Gyau is running so hard to keep up with Jarrett that she sprawls.

And second, the Duke defender on the Cam Lexow non-goal had both feet behind the line and she cleared the ball with the far foot. I think it was a goal.