All losses are not equal.  This one hurts.  I’m not sure exactly when I became aware of the streaming of niche collegiate sports such as women’s soccer, but I’ve only been following Steve Swanson and the women for five years now.  Or in other words, as long as Laurel Ivory, Taryn Torres, Sydney Zandi and Lizzie Sieracki have been patrolling the pitch.  Five years is an eternity in the world of collegiate sports and I’ve been blessed to watch the progress and growth of that quartet.  It will be jarring to watch the Cavaliers next year without them, and to be honest, I’m depressed knowing that this was their last game for Mr Jefferson’s University.

Virginia         0
BYU               1

BYU has been the highest scoring team in the country over the past two years and it doesn’t take long, watching them on the pitch, to see why.  Their overall team speed is great, they counter with numbers and surgical precision, and they are very fast at changing the point of attack.  Virginia is more methodical, and while Swanson has been at Virginia longer than Tony Bennett, I would presume he approves of how Bennett’s Boys control the tempo and the clock on the hardwood.  Many teams have tried to press Virginia high and hard, seeking to disrupt Virginia’s control.  Most fail.  We’re really good, after all.  But on this night, Virginia never got comfortable bringing the ball up and the women had to work harder just to get the ball to midfield.  It was a strain all night long.

The half started brightly for Virginia as they quickly advanced the opening kickoff and it led to a fine Lia Godfrey shot.  After missing the Milwaukee game, it was good to see Godfrey back on the pitch and she looked none the worse for wear.  She would lead Virginia in shots, notching 6 on the night.  But 12 minutes in, Sydney Zandi was lost for the game when her knee was bent too far back (the extreme opposite of hyperextension, I would say) on a tackle.  Alexis Theoret came in, and she’s been a revelation this year, but much of the midfield depth that Swanson relies upon was lost and BYU is just too good to lose someone as critical as Sydney Zandi.

Virginia had chances in the first half, especially a side volley that came off Haley Hopkins foot following a corner.  To fans in the stands and streaming viewers alike, it looked like a goal.  BYU’s best opportunity came from Cameron Tucker, one of BYU’s two 16-goal scorers.  Laurel Ivory was beaten, but the shot just grazed off the upright. Midway through the first half, Swanson flipped Alexa Spaanstra and Hopkins, trying to figure out a way to create better chances, but I have to say, that the players of the match for BYU were their two outside backs, Olivia Smith and Kendall Petersen, who did a great job staying in front of Hopkins and Spaanstra all night long.  Neither were able to get to the end line, though Hopkins really tried, and as a result, Diana Ordonez logged just one shot for the game.  That’s a recipe for failure.

I noted in the first half that Virginia was losing many of the 50-50 balls, balls that they usually win.  Balls where two players arrive at the same time, or make initial contact at the same time.  The kind of plays where the ball squirts out, or one player goes to ground.  We weren’t winning those.  Tight game.  Quality opponent.  Every possession matters.

It didn’t take long in the second half for BYU to prove me prophetic.  On a loose ball that Claire Constant tried to send long, Cameron Tucker got there simultaneously and the ball squibbed forward maybe 15 yards to a BYU player.  Tucker was on her feet faster than Constant.  The ball was sent forward to Mikayla Colohan.  Torres was covering and had a better line to the ball, but they both hit the ball and it went directly to Tucker, who pounced, ran right at Talia Staude, drove into the box, and hit a perfect curling shot into the top right corner of the goal.  1 – 0 BYU and it was all they would need.

BYU advances and Virginia’s season is over.  64 teams make the tournament.  Only one of them is going home happy.  Last year it was BYU, this time it’s Virginia’s turn.  Such is the nature of sport.

Before giving the final word to Steve Swanson, I do want to point out the remarkable career of Laurel Ivory.  With this game, she started 100 games in goal for Virginia.  Usually, the only players who get a fifth year are red-shirts, and they got that fifth year because they were injured.  Ivory got her fifth year courtesy of COVID, and because she walked into the starting slot as a freshman, and because Virginia plays deep into both conference and NCAA tournaments, she gets more games.  100 starts for one team.  That’s one hell of an accomplishment.  Brava, Laurel, brava.

And because Swanson is the consummate coach, he’s going to say all the right things, even in a bitter defeat like this one:

“Congratulations to BYU. They played very hard and it was a very hard-fought game. It had the feel of a College Cup game for sure. There wasn’t much separating the teams and I felt similar last year when we played them. They have some very good offensive firepower and a good transition game. I thought for the most part we did a good job of minimizing it. You’re not going to stop an attack like BYU’s, but we did a good job of minimizing it. You have to give their player credit for coming down and finishing that shot. We had our chances. We needed to do a better job of controlling the tempo. That got away from us a little bit which played into their hands.

I’m incredibly proud of the team and the season we had. It’s hard now because the reality is our season is over and that’s sad because we won’t be together for a little bit. It’s always a tough thing when that ends.”