As its season opens, the Virginia women's soccer team finds itself plagued by injuries, short two of its best players and barely able to field an eleven-person squad.
Enthusiasm, though, is not in short supply.
"Maybe it's because all of these challenges we have in front of us already, but I can't remember a season I have been more excited for," coach Steve Swanson said.
In the exhibition games against Notre Dame and Michigan, Virginia only had 12 field players. Two of the girls missing in those games were sophomore forward Jess Rostedt and sophomore defender Nikki Krzysik, both of whom are currently in Russia competing in the Women's World Championships with the U-20 National team. Virginia hopes that the girls remain there until Sept. 3, the date the championship match will be played. Nevertheless, Rostedt and Krzysik's absences leave two considerable holes to be filled and their return will require some adjustment for the team.
"We will have to insert them into the lineup pretty quick," Swanson said. "That is a challenge in and of itself. It is not easy to build your team for a month and then all of a sudden get two more girls and work them in."
In addition to the temporary loss of Rostedt and Krzysik, Virginia is facing more injuries than in recent memory. Senior midfielder Shannon Foley's knee injury will most likely cause her to redshirt the season. As Swanson pointed out, it is unfortunate in the short term for this season, but in the long run Virginia will be able to get her back for an entire season next fall.
Other medical redshirts include freshmen Megan Ashforth and Kristin Bowers; Ashforth tore her ACL and Bowers broke both her tibia and fibia bones.
Fortunately for Virginia, senior forward Kristen Weiss will be off the injured list this season.
"They held me out of the exhibition scrimmages just to preserve me," Weiss said. "But I should be ready to play by the first game this Friday. I have been working hard this summer to get fit and I just want to be healthy again."
The lack of depth this season forced the coaches to be smarter about how they conducted their pre-season training camp in Michigan.
"We couldn't bang each other and we couldn't have a lot of contact like we normally do," Swanson said. "We have to be fit, but in the past we could train right through our scrimmages and this year we had to taper so that our kids would be good and rested."
With so few field players, consistency will be key. There will be more pressure on each individual to perform on a daily basis. Players likely will have to take on greater roles then they have been accustomed to in the past. Virginia's strength will not be in numbers, but rather in how the girls work together on the field, both offensively and defensively.
"The short term reality is we are a little snakebit and hamstrung in the way we can do things," Swanson said. "But in the long term, all these kids are going to get experience, an amazing amount of experience, and that will be really beneficial in the future. That said, this team right now has the potential to be as good as any other team we have had here and I would not sell them short at all."
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