Virginia Women’s Soccer Escapes with Draw vs Duke

It was an ugly performance from the Cavaliers, but they got the 0 – 0 tie against the Blue Devils and advance to the ACC Tournament.

Virginia's stout defense shuts out Duke's Mia Minnestrella. | Duke Athletics

The assignment was the same for both teams entering the final game of the ACC season:  win the game and secure a slot in the ACC tournament.  Lose and you’d need a lot of help to make the tournament.  With the draw, both teams advance with the Hoos heading to Tallahassee and the Blue Devils traveling to Wake Forest.

So, mission accomplished, I guess.

Yesterday, my middle school girls soccer team was thrashed pretty soundly 5 – 0 in their final game of the season.  But truth be told, in many ways they were more competitive in their loss than Virginia was against Duke.

Seventeen games into the season now and all the familiar Virginia bugaboos were on full display:  the needless turnovers, the misplayed passes, the complete inability to break the press.  This was as ugly a performance as I’ve seen in years as Duke bossed the midfield and controlled the tempo.  There was probably an 18 – 20 minute stretch late in the first half where the Cavs didn’t have a single sequence where they strung together more than five passes.  The Duke midfield came at Virginia in waves, and, especially in the first half, every time Duke got the ball into the final third, it seemed they had four and five attackers spaced out along the gaps of the Virginia back line.

And yet Duke was relatively toothless.  They had a 13 – 2 shots advantage in the first half but they lacked a cutting edge and only one shot gave Virginia keeper Vickie Safradin any trouble, a header off a corner that was nicely parried away.  The defensive play of Virginia’s back line is what kept Virginia in this game.  Time and again, three Duke players would target the corner of the Virginia box, and they’d show some nifty interplay, connecting on four, five, six passes before Virginia would knock the ball out of bounds.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

The past couple of games head coach Steve Swanson has shifted the team’s shape to a 5 – 3 – 2, dropping Addison Halpern back into a more traditional midfield role and moving Ella Carter out to the right.  Jordyn Hardeman has manned the center role.  It worked against Louisville, but that 3 – 0 result may be fool’s gold:  Louisville has lost three in a row.  Against Duke, the midfield trio, supplemented by Kyndal Shuler, was unable to maintain any semblance of midfield control.  Hardeman simply does not possess ACC-caliber athleticism and for some reason Sarah Flammia has only played 10 minutest the past two games.  Virginia’s struggles advancing the ball versus the press, compounded by Safradin’s increasingly poor distribution, coupled with these midfield deficiencies, allowed Duke to have what must have been a 60 – 40 possession advantage.  It’s now the third season, tournament season, and Virginia is most definitely not peaking at the right time.

As for the rest of the game itself, the two keepers were the star of the show.  Safradin had two more fine saves, which doesn’t include her best one, stuffing Duke star Mia Minnestrella point black when she got behind the Cavalier back line.  Minnestrella was offsides, but it was a lovely save anyway.

For Duke, Molly Vapenski was even bigger.  Despite Duke’s near-total dominance, the two best chances fell to Virginia.  In the 58th minute, Hardeman delivered a lovely through ball (which, it must be said, is the reason Swanson so wants her to play) for a wide open, fast charging Halpern.  Halpern got one-on-one with Vapenski, the ball was perfectly at her feet, she wasn’t being challenged by any Duke defender, yet Halpern just couldn’t convert.  It should have been a score, but Vapenski made the textbook save, coming out of the goal on the correct line, blocking the ball with her chest.

Twenty minutes later, Kyra Koopman had a lovely, looping header knocked by Vapenski onto the cross bar and away for the corner.  Either one of these could have been the game winner, so probably both teams are playing a bit of what-if.

The Verdict:  This game was hard to watch as Virginia looked like a shell of themselves.  The defense held firm, which is better than not, but it’s hard to be overly optimistic about Virginia’s chances of advancing far in either the ACC or NCAA tournaments.

Game Notes:  This was the last regular season game for Phoebe Goldthwaite, youngest of the Durham Goldthwaites who have sent three sisters into the ACC:  Phoebe at Duke, Baylor at Wake Forest and Boston College, and Virginia’s own Peyton, who was a very reliable depth piece for Steve Swanson.  Judging from just the three Duke games I have seen this year, Phoebe is the best of the trio.  I imagine family reunions could be rather… spirited.

Up Next:  Virginia plays long-time nemesis Florida State on Sunday, November 8th at 8:00pm.  The game can be streamed at ACC Network Extra. FSU was just defeated by Virginia Tech 2 - 1. So neither team will be coming in with any momentum.