Virginia Women’s Soccer Crashes and Burns in 2-0 Loss at Wake Forest

There is no sugar-coating this loss. This was the most anemic performance I have witnessed in seven years of closely watching this team. Wake Forest head coach Tony da Luz pulled off the double, as it were, with his team’s victory, garnering his 300th career win and his 100th ACC win. Congratulations to him, but Virginia head coach Steve Swanson if going to have to pull a rabbit out of his hat to right this season.

The book is out on how to attack the Cavaliers. Push your forwards high, without necessarily pressing, and flood the midfield with four midfielders. Da Luz apparently switched his 4 – 4 – 3 into a 3 – 4 – 3, presumably after watching UNC ping the ball around midfield mid week.

In a pair of games against middling Big Ten competition, and now three ACC games, the Cavaliers are having trouble playing with the width we’ve grown accustomed to. Chloe Japic is not comfortable playing right back and on the left, Samar Guidry has mysteriously lost the ability to dribble. In the modern game, width is provided by these outside backs, and I don’t think Guidry or Japic got forward once this game. On the forward line, neither Maggie Cagle nor Allie Ross have made much of an impact over the last three or four games. Last year Cagle was able to find her spots playing on a forward line helmed by a pair of first-round draft picks. This year, she’s being doubled up very quickly and she doesn’t have the burst to create separation. On the other side, Ross is just not a winger, I don’t think.

In this game, Wake came out and was on the front foot from the very first moment and Virginia was never comfortable. And that was with Jill Flammia well enough to start. The team looked sluggish from the get-go. The 50-50 balls that should be won, well, 50% of the time? Most of those went Wake’s way. Same with tackles in midfield that Alexis Theoret or Yuna McCormack would be able to advance with getting the ball? Virginia lost those as well. And Virginia had no answer for the speed of Wake’s wings. In the first half, Nikayla Small owned the right side. Nine minutes in she drove a lovely cross that was a half-step ahead of Caiya Hanks. On another occasion, she drove to the by-line, fell down (might have been a foul) but she got up faster than a pair of Virginia defenders and hit a vicious shot toward the front post.

For the half, Wake Forest held a 7-3 shot advantage and a 3-1 advantage in corners. It was all going Wake’s way. I was expecting the usual second half bump from Virginia, but it never materialized. Wake kept up the pressure, most notably from Caiya Hanks on the left. She got baseline on Japic four or five times, usually with time, leading to many an anxious moment in the box and a couple of corners. She had two plays back – back where she got an angle on her defender and tried to blast shots when she had very open teammates who would have had simpler shots, with better angles, had she found them. (Hold that thought.)

The defining play of the game for Virginia came about 20 minutes into the second half. Theoret had made a lovely run, getting more forward than she usually does, played the ball to Laughlin Ryan and wanted a give-and-go. She ran to right wing side and by the time Ryan played the ball out to her, Theoret was offside. Alexis was in acres of space; she had the mismatch, and she was offsides. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen Theoret called offsides before….

Virginia was surviving, though, as Wake Forest, which is not really a good team, was struggling to convert their ball dominance into actual goals. For a while, it looked like this game was destined to end in a draw and the goal post would be the story of the day. (In the first half, Wake’s Abbie Colton simply blazed a shot off a corner into the crossbar. Then in the middle of the second half, Virginia’s Maya Carter had a beautiful strike from distance that hit the same crossbar.)

Just as Virginia looked to be playing themselves into the game – a couple of Route One balls to Cagle and Sarah Brunner, and a great run and cross from Aniyah Collier – Wake hit Virginia on the counter. Nikayla Small had switched to the left, and she drove in from the corner of the penalty box. She took a wicked shot that completely knuckleballed on Virginia’s Cayla White and bounced off her hip to fall to Anna Swanson. Who made no mistake.

1-0 to the Deacons and I prepared for the flurry of a Virginia team that doesn’t give up. Except that it never materialized and Wake would drive the nail in the Cavalier coffin with just two minutes remaining. Caiya Hanks made up for missing open teammates when she blitzed in from the right, and rather than shooting, found a wide-open Hannah Johnson for the 2-0 lead.

It's hard to find any positives in this game. Freshman Aniyah Collier was the only player for Virginia to play well, and Swanson is simply going to have to insert her into the starting lineup. Talia Staude was ok. Other than that, every other Virginia player might very well have played their worst game in Virginia colors. This is not a good Wake Forest team, but Virginia made them look like world-beaters.

Virginia now stands 0-1-2 in the ACC. The women will most certainly drop out of the top 25 this week and they are going to have to work just to make the ACC tournament. The tournament gods may play the part of savior as Virginia avoids both Florida State and Notre Dame this season. Swanson gets a whole week off before hosting the visiting Duke Blue Devils next Sunday. This is the worst I have seen the team play in seven years, and there are no easy changes to make. Jill Flammia has already returned. Swanson is one of the best in the game. This week we’ll see if he’s going to earn his money.

Next Up: Duke visits Charlottesville on Sunday, October 1st. Gametime is noon and the game will be on the ACC Network.

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