Virginia Women’s Soccer Outlasts Liberty

Steve Swanson collects his 400th victory at UVa as the Cavaliers defeat the Flames 2 – 0.

Yes indeed! This is how soccer games begin. | Virginia Athletics

A ninety-minute mid-game lightning delay probably wasn’t sufficient to dampen the satisfaction head coach Steve Swanson must have gotten from winning his 400th game at Virginia.  But a rather tepid second half, and continued challenges advancing the ball out of the back, may have muted Swanson’s post-game revelry.

Liberty, for a low-major program, is fun to watch.  They have won the Conference USA title two of the past three years, play a relatively unique man-marking defense, and refuse to sit in a low block, even when out-gunned.  And in Lauren Littleton, they may have had the best player on the pitch.

Virginia fans had good news right off the bat as Ella Carter returned to the starting lineup after missing the team’s opener vs Northwestern.  In Swanson-speak, he was “hoping she would return soon.”  Soon turned out to be three days. 

That was welcome, but what was worrying is how she was relatively ignored by the Cavaliers’ back five.  If I had the time, I would go back and count her touches in the first 10 minutes, but it probably was in the single digits.  For years, my marker for a rough Virginia outing has been the degree to which Alexis Theoret, operating in the same pivot role, was bypassed by the defenders.  Carter, like Theoret before her, is unperturbable on the ball, rarely makes a bad turn, and even more rarely, a poor pass.

If Carter, or fellow pivot Jordyn Hardeman, isn’t touching the ball, it means the Virginia backline is spraying longer balls out to the side or trying to go hero ball down the middle.  In boxing terms, that would be going for the knockout early, and when it works, it works.  But when it doesn’t, a Virginia team that should have controlled the midfield, didn’t.  And the game was a bit of a slog.

As for the game, the second-year burst continues from Addison Halpern.  Though early in the season, this game offers yet another data point that Halpern is far more comfortable in the space of midfield.  To be frank, she looks like she could be the #10 that I have never seen for Virginia in the decade that I have been watching.  She had two of the game’s first three shots, both from distance, that looked better than any of her longer shots last year.  She’s shooting the ball as opposed to just blasting it, and she was rewarded in the game’s 18th minute with a deft pass from Allie Ross which she converted into the bottom right corner for a 1 – 0 lead.

18' | UVA 1, LU 0

Addison Halpern strikes first for the Hoos!#GoHoos | #ALLIN pic.twitter.com/5D7igSn2Na

— Virginia Women's Soccer (@UVAWomenSoccer) August 16, 2026

Virginia was looking dangerous, wingbacks Liv Rademaker and Carrie Helfrich were finding space out wide, and Virginia’s top three of Halpern, Ross and Gio Canali were moving freely.

And then came the hydration break.  (C’mon, 84 degrees, 78% humidity?)  Snarky parenthetical aside, I am in favor of player health, but such breaks effectively turn soccer into a four-quarter game and Virginia did not come out of this break focused.  Which was a bit of a shock since last year’s team was stunningly great coming out breaks.  Liberty came out on the front foot, took over midfield, and while their press wasn’t exactly ferocious, their man-marking seemed to confuse Virginia.  Five minutes after the hydration break, Ella Carter and keeper Vickie Safradin combined to turn the ball over in the box, a miscue that should have resulted in a Liberty goal.

Aniyah Collier came on with 12 minutes remaining, and let me tell you, after two years standing on the sidelines with assorted injuries, she is ready to go.  She took three shots in her 12 minutes.  She had a lovely spin move 35 yards out that allowed her to drive to goal, all the way to the six-yard box.  She should have converted, but we are just two games into the Collier-as-forward experiment.  How well she develops her touch will go a long way to measuring how successful Virginia will be whilst Gio Canali is away with the Women’s U-20 World Cup later this fall.

Coming out of halftime, with Virginia leading 1 – 0 Liberty took control of the game and had Virginia on the back foot.  Virginia repeatedly turned the ball over in midfield and in the back third as Tatum Galvin, Pearl Cecil, Rademaker and Hardeman all gave the ball away.  The Hoos continued to not find Carter, so Halpern started dropping deeper and deeper, taking the team out of shape.

Virginia was up 1 – 0, and yet I felt that it was the Cavaliers who had the most to gain when lightning forced a 90-minute delay.  Liberty had “won” the first 15 minutes of the second, but I was confident.  Last year, after rain delays versus Penn State and Duke, Swanson’s locker room magic had the women fired up as they swamped the Lions and Blue Devils in the opening minutes of restart.

That did not happen this time around, however.  More turnovers.  Collier replaced Canali after the restart and the Cavaliers suddenly turned to hero ball mode, dumping lots of long balls that Collier was supposed to run on to.  It wasn’t working and Liberty’s Lauren Littleton was collecting everything.  After yet another turnover, Liberty’s Margaret Garner (a ten-goal scorer last year) got a one-on-one with Safradin that she should have converted.  She didn’t.  But had she, this would very likely have been a different write-up.

With 20 minutes remaining, Swanson had seen enough and brought back all his starters.  Still very much against the run of play, Helfrich earned a free kick 25 yards from the Liberty goal.  The resulting restart fell to Liv Rademaker whose blast hit the cross bar.  Allie Ross was there to send the rebound into the back of the net and Virginia had the goals to secure a 2 – 0 win.

The Verdict:  a win is a win is a win.  Liberty is going home playing the coulda-shoulda-woulda game: catching a keeper in no-man’s land and then a one-v-one with the keeper, and still no goals to show for it.  For their part, Virginia struggled to play the ball out of the back, continuing a problem from last year.

Player notes:  It looks like freshman Mackenzie Mize is ready to replace grad-transfer Faith Broering as a starter. In a tight game where Swanson didn’t empty his bench, Reese Mattern didn’t see any game time.  Based on her resume, I was expecting greater contributions.

Next Up:  Virginia hosts LaSalle, Thursday, August 20th at 4:00pm.  The early start is due to a men’s – women’s double header.  The game is on ACC Network Extra.