Over the weekend, the Virginia women's soccer team opened its regular season by defeating two non-conference opponents, the Syracuse Orangemen and the Liberty Flames.
Last night, No. 7 Virginia won its match against Liberty, 1-0. In the 20th minute, Jen Redmond scored on a free kick from 19 yards out. The kick was awarded to Virginia after Liberty defender Suzanne Edwards received a yellow card for fouling Miskel.
For the remainder of the game, and particularly at the end of the second half, the Cavaliers continued to inundate the Liberty goal with shots, but ultimately failed to score again. The Cavaliers out-shot the Flames 17-2 but could not convert their opportunities into goals as easily as they did in their 6-0 win on Friday.
"Soccer is difficult game -- you can do well and dominate like we did tonight but the score doesn't always reflect that," Swanson said. "We certainly had the better of play today but you have to give Liberty credit, they made it hard on us and this is certainly the best Liberty team I've seen since I've been here. We just appreciate every win."
Friday night's season opener went much smoother for the Cavaliers, who defeated their first regular season opponent 6-0 for the second consecutive year.
"After our scoreless exhibition games, the best feeling was finally getting the ball in the back of the net," sophomore midfielder Jen Redmond said. "We had been working on finishing all week, in all of our practices, and so coming out with six goals feels really good."
Virginia's first goal came in the 16th minute of the game. Assisted by Caitlin Miskel and Kelly Quinn, Redmond shot and scored from 12 yards out. Just two minutes later, senior forward Kara Frederick out-dribbled two defenders to score unassisted from more than 12 yards outside the goal box.
In the 23rd minute of the contest, freshman Caitlin Miskel scored her first collegiate goal. Sophomore defender Alex Singer brought the ball up the field and gave Miskel the opportunity to put it straight into the net off the cross. Then, with 17:05 remaining in the half, senior midfielder Nikki Lieb scored off the joint assist by forward Sarah Curtis and defender Amanda Stewart.
During the first half, Virginia managed to score four goals in a span of only 11 minutes. What's more, the Cavaliers demonstrated tremendous accuracy -- of their final five shots of the half, four were goals.
In the second half, both Miskel and Frederick tallied their second goals of the game, in the 57th and 69th minutes, respectively.
For the third time in the past two years, Virginia held its opponent to zero shots on goal, out-shooting Syracuse 19-0. Syracuse did put the ball in the net in the ninth minute, but unfortunately for the Orangemen the goal was recalled by a late off-sides flag.
"Any time you can get a win like this in your first game, it certainly gives us confidence that we are on the right track," Virginia coach Steve Swanson said. "Tonight we did a much better job of penetrating the other team, getting in behind them, getting good service and getting good runs in the box -- things we hadn't done well until now."
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