Virginia Women's Soccer: Ella Carter Saves the Cavs

This is the game that head coach Steve Swanson needed to get back on the schedule, especially as House settlement payments are presumably eating up non-revenue sports travel budgets.  The Mountaineers are a consistent top-30 program as coach Nikki Izzo-Brown has won 402 games in her 30 years at the helm.  After a two-year absence, the teams re-initiated the series.

For those who might be wondering if Swanson was going to roll out a different formation or try playing faster or even press more in the final third of the field, the answer was a resounding no.  The women came out in their vanilla 4 – 3 – 3 and tried to play the ball deliberately out of the back.  It could have been disastrous as the women were careless with the ball.  In the first two minutes, both Kiki Maki and Tatum Galvin each misplayed passes to an otherwise wide-open Laney Rouse.  Ella Carter was twice pickpocketed 25 yards from the goal.  Had WVU had any teeth, the Hoos would have gone down early.

Later in the first half, Swanson brought in Meredith McDermott, last year’s starting central striker (who had been held out in favor of Addison Halpern, who was the Player of the Year and who has been on grounds since January), and the team started pressing a bit.  It wasn’t particularly effective, but the change of pace and orientation was a good situational option.

The game was mostly a stalemate in midfield as both teams were desperately trying to hit on the quick counter.  Virginia’s midfield, featuring Carter, Lia Godfrey, and Jill Flammia, was bossed for much of the game.  Godfrey and Flammia are so much better than their WVU counterparts, but neither player looks like the player they were prior to their last injury.

The half ended with the score knotted up at gooseggs, but the game opened up in the second as McDermott got the start for the half, and Liv Rademaker (left back) and Carrie Helferich (midfielder) got their season debuts.  Rademaker, a Dutch national with professional experience, was much more aggressive getting down the sidelines, and Helferich just beat players on the ball.  Repeatedly.  Rademaker also showed that she had the speed to go step-for-step with WVU’s Taylor White, which answers some of my concerns about team speed.

The game turned as Maggie Cagle and Lia Godfrey found acres of space down the left on repeated attacks.  (Hats off to WVU’s Jacey Rase who found herself isolated three times 1v1 and held her own, thwarting the attack.)  The breakthrough came when Cagle finally was able to get baseline on Rase and earn a corner in the 63rd minute.  Carter met a lovely driven corner at the near post and headed home the only goal of the game.  Although Virginia had started slowly the first 7-8 minutes of the half, the Cavs had taken control and this goal was very much along the run of play.