Virginia Women’s Soccer Fails to Impress v Georgetown

An uninspiring game ends in a 0 – 0 draw as the Hoos visit the Hoyas in the team’s last game before ACC play begins.

Kyra Koopman, in the most interesting aspect of the game, battles Abby Droner. | Georgetown Athletics

I’m writing this at 10:30 on Monday morning.  I was traveling over the weekend, so I got around to watching this game late anyway, but truth be told, I still haven’t yet thought of what to say about this game.  There was nothing wrong about the game, nothing glaring about the team’s performance.  There was also nothing particularly noteworthy about the game either.  I took three pages of notes, and half of my notes were just noting the substitutions.   This was a rather dour game.

Georgetown, for their part, had scheduled a heavy dose of the ACC for their non-conference slate, having already played Stanford (a 2 – 0 loss) and Virginia Tech (a 2 – 1 loss) before Virginia.  Georgetown’s best player, and probably the overall player of the match, was keeper Reiley Fitzpatrick who was successful in defending a pair of one-v-one breakaways.  Fitzpatrick was also very quick off her line snuffing out multiple long ball, over the back line, Virginia attacks.

And going over the top was clearly central to the Virginia game plan because Aniya Collier got the start at center forward in the absence of Sophia Bradley (who was nowhere to be seen). Collier does have speed, and she got two shots off of long balls, but most of the long balls played were just that- too long.  Long, over-the-top balls, even if they don’t succeed in springing Collier or wingbacks Carrie Helfrich and Liv Rademaker, can be useful if they can pull the defense out of shape, but that never happened.  Georgetown was, to borrow Steven Swanson’s favorite term when praising an opponent, “organized,” and the Cavaliers never really came close to breaking down the Hoyas.

Swanson made two changes to his starters entering the game: as noted, Collier got the start at striker, and Liv Rademaker replaced Faith Broering amongst the back three.  It is still early in the season, but both Helfrich and Kyra Koopman both seem more incisive on the right side, and with Rademaker playing centrally, both spent time on the left wing.

And that was part of the problem with this game; many players just seemed off.  Teams win games when their stars play like stars, their good players play above themselves, and their role players are impactful when they come in.  None of which happened yesterday.  Helfrich was ineffective on the left; Addison Halpern never got into a rhythm; Sarah Flammia and Kyndal Shuler, who both provided a spark when they entered vs Tennessee, were sparkless against Georgetown.  Jordyn Hardeman got her pocket picked on at least four occasions, and Allie Ross was largely anonymous.  Both teams struggled to get into a rhythm, as there could easily have been 25 throw-ins in the first 25 minutes of the game.

Georgetown closed out the first half on a trot, dominating play for the last 10 minutes with a high-degree-of-difficulty one-v-one from a wide angle and a lovely bullet cross that had it found a Hoya would have been in the back of the net.  But Georgetown is looking like a mid-table Big East team at the moment, and couldn’t convert.

Virginia, as is becoming a regular thing, came out on the front foot in the second half, and, well, they had their chances.  Hardeman had a lovely shot that keeper Fitzpatrick parried wide, and she got up quickly enough to deflect the follow-up shot.  A corner found Rademaker unmarked on the back post, but the ball got stuck between her feet, and she couldn’t convert.  Halpern had a one-on-one with the keeper, dribbled around her, but couldn’t get the shot off, and Georgetown’s defense covered up, denying her, and then Ross, what should have been an empty-net goal. 

Ella Carter, who is becoming the embodiment of a second-half player, twice led a couple of counter-attacks but would end up holding on to the ball for a dribble too long.  One of those times Ross was offside, and the other time Collier had to stop her run, or she would have been offside.   The ball simply has to be played much faster.  And Carter wasn’t alone.  On two other occasions, I found myself mumbling at the screen, “Now.   Now!”

There were really only two highlights for a veteran observer of the women’s team.  One was seeing the continued growth of Kathryn Kelly, who is, for the first time in her five years, getting real minutes.  She’s a solid defender who understands positioning and using her body, which she did repeatedly against the much faster Abby Droner.  Guile winning out over athleticism is one of the reasons why I watch sport.

And the second is watching Koopman when someone tries to dribble her.  Koop’s back leg is maybe the best foot on this entire soccer team.  It’s only been six games now, but I feel like she’s the best on-ball defender I’ve seen in my decade of covering Virginia women’s soccer.

So, when the highlights of a game are Kelly’s positioning and Koopman’s dribble stuffing, that is probably all you need to know about the game.

The Verdict:  One hundred and eighty minutes of soccer against Tennessee and Georgetown produced just a single goal.  Goals are going to be hard to come by, at least for as long as Gio Canali is in Poland for the U20 Women’s World Cup.

Next Up:  Virginia travels to Winston-Salem to take on Wake Forest on Saturday, September 12th.  Game time is 7:00pm and can be seen on ACC Network Extra.  Wake is on a roll: until defeating #21 Florida in Gainesville 2 – 1, they had not allowed a goal in their first six games.  There might be more room at the top of the ACC this year.  Notre Dame has had some injury issues and Florida State and UNC both seem “off” this year.  Wake is very much on an upward trajectory the past four years, and I know they know that.  Getting a win against Virginia in the ACC’s opening week would be a heck of a statement.  How is Virginia going to handle the pressure?