Cavaliers Now

Women’s Soccer: Virginia Takes Down Penn State in 2nd Round

Goals by Maggie Cagle and Lia Godfrey give Virginia a 2 – 0 victory over Penn State.
Val Prochaska|
Lia Godfrey drives on goal.
Lia Godfrey drives on goal. | Virginia Athletics

Eleven hundred fans braved a chilly fall night for a very long evening of soccer.  The game started late due to Washington and Arkansas going to overtime.  Then, for the game itself, there were six yellow cards given out (four for Penn State and two to Virginia) and the trainers came out on to the pitch a whopping eight times (twice for serious injuries and three times for players who had received a ball to the face.)  Yellow cards and trainers both necessitate a clock stoppage.  Fans who thought they’d be leaving around 8pm were dragging out of Klockner at 8:50, but they had been privileged to watch a chess match between Steve Swanson and Erica Dambach.

On the day, though, Virginia’s queen would be keeper Victoria Safradin.

Virginia came out of the gates, as they have for much of this season, on the front foot and ran PSU for the first 20 to 25 minutes, and the Cavaliers had a corner and four shots, but they weren’t particularly threatening.  Against the run of play, Penn State sprung Amelia White down the right channel.  It was a foot race that Tatum Galvin lost several times on the night, and White hit a driving shot to the far corner which Safradin deflected away.

Six minutes later, in an eerily similar run, Penn State had a second golden scoring opportunity, only for the shot to be skied over the crossbar.  Thirty minutes in and Virginia was dominating, yet it was Penn State with the two clearest scoring opportunities.

The game broke a minute later when Jill Flammia entered the game.  She’s been missing the past five games.  Flammia always goes toward goal when she gets the ball, so as she turns in, she drags the wide defender with her, leaving more space for Maggie Cagle to attack the wide spaces. It was good to see her back.

Lia Godfrey got the ball outside of the box, drove into the box, slotted it right for a sliding Flammia whose shot was nicely defended by Penn State keeper Mackenzie Gress.  Problem for the Lions, though, is that the ball fell to Cagle whose shot was fortuitously deflected up and over Gress for the first goal.

At this point, Penn State could reasonably feel hard done by this result.  For the most part, the Lions had absorbed Virginia’s pressure, created the two best chances in the game, and yet the score hinged on a deflection.

In the second half, Penn State, flipping the script on a Cavaliers team that had repeatedly come out of the halftime locker room on the front foot.  The first 20 minutes saw Penn State’s pressure start to cause problems for the Virginia backline and PSU repeatedly got faster players down the right and left channels.  Virginia’s speed on the back line is found in outside backs Laney Rouse and Liv Rademaker, so when they ventured forward, Kiki Maki and Tatum Galvin were left exposed. 

This is Virginia soccer: much of the width of the team is provided by the outside backs, so Swanson was sticking to the game plan, but it does leave a vulnerability that can be exploited.

After about 20 minutes, Lia Godfrey suddenly awoke.  Seriously, I thought she was out of the game and it’s only looking at the stat sheet that I see she played the full 90 minutes.  In fact, I checked double sources.  Once she worked herself into the run of play, it was game over.  Godfrey is the best midfielder in the country and she’s playing at MAC Hermann level right now.

At just about the mid-point of the second half, the Cavaliers won just their second corner.  All season long the short corner has been a staple of the Virginia attack.  Which makes sense as Virginia doesn’t really have much of an aerial presence.   The short corner changes the angle of attack and pulls defenders out of the six-yard box, thus giving Virginia’s attackers more space to maneuver.  In this case, the ball fell to Godfrey who pushed the ball to her left where she rifled the second goal into the far corner.  2 – 0 to the hosts and it should have been game over.

Except that this is Penn State, consistently one of the top 15 programs in the country.  The continued to press and it was Victoria Safradin who saved the day.  In addition to her 5-star save already highlighted above, she had two more exceptional saves.  PSU would only put four shots on goal, but three required highlight reel saves.  (It’s a pity that the Virginia social media presence is so lame, because these other two saves ought to be featured.)  Safradin came to Grounds as the #1 keeper recruit in her class and she is showing it this season.  She can singlehandedly keep her team in the game, as she did on this chilly night in Charlottesville.

Injury Notes:  Maya Carter, hero of the penalty shootout victory over Florida State in the ACC tournament, was part of a three-player collision late in the first half.  She was down a while and limped off very gingerly.  Early in the second half, Meredith McDermott, who is finally looking like her old self the past three or four games, left the game grabbing her hamstring.   There wasn’t a whole lot of post-game video, but I didn’t see either player on the field celebrating the win.

Next Up:  Virginia hosts #4 seed Washington, the Big 10 champion.  They went to overtime against a very physical Arkansas team before scoring a Golden Goal.  The game is on Sunday, November 23rd at 2:00pm.  The game will be available on ESPN+.

Published
Val Prochaska
VAL PROCHASKA

Val graduated from the University of Virginia in the last millennium, back when writing one's senior thesis by hand was still a thing. He is a lifelong fan of the ACC, having chosen the Tobacco Road conference ahead of the Big East. Again, when that was still a thing. Val has covered Virginia men's basketball for nine years, first with HoosPlace and then with StreakingTheLawn, before joining us here at Virginia Cavaliers on SI in August of 2023, continuing to cover UVA men's basketball and also writing about women's soccer and women's basketball.

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