In its regular season finale Friday, the eighth-ranked Virginia women's soccer team took out Wake Forest, 2-0, courtesy of two second half goals by freshman standout Lindsay Gusick. With the win, Virginia (13-3-1, 5-2 ACC) clinched the No. 2 seed in the ACC and will face off against Duke in the first round of the ACC tournament at 2:30 p.m. today at Dennie Spry Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C. North Carolina earned the No. 1 seed.
"We're really excited to get out there and play," Virginia coach Steve Swanson said. "We are coming into this thinking that we're going to be playing on Sunday."
"Winning the ACC tournament is another one of our goals," senior co-captain Tammy Westinghouse said. "It'll be a great stepping stone" to the NCAA tournament.
To reach the ACC championship game on Sunday, the Cavaliers will have to improve on last season's ACC tournament performance.
Last year, Virginia played a tight match against Duke (8-8, 2-5), which ended with a scoreless tie after overtime. But the Blue Devils managed to advance past the Cavaliers with a 4-3 edge in penalty kicks.
"We think it'll be a tough game," Swanson said. "No matter who you draw in the ACC, it will be a tough game. You can sort of throw all the seeding out the window with the tournament because the ACC is such a competitive conference."
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The Cavaliers were victorious, 2-1, in overtime when they played Duke on Oct. 20. The Cavaliers won the game when Gusick fired a shot past Duke goalkeeper Thora Helgadottir 9 minutes, 36 seconds into overtime. The win pushed the Cavaliers to a 9-6-5 all-time edge over the Blue Devils.
"It was a great performance from" Duke, Westinghouse said. "Now we know what to expect."
Duke has "been sort of the hard-luck team in our conference," Swanson said. "They've been real close in lots of their games and have lost a few games in overtime."
The Blue Devils ended their regular season by winning four of their last five games to finish .500 overall.
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