Virginia women's soccer coach Steve Swanson has just one regret about this year's season: that the team's 12-8-2 record does not accurately reflect the talent and effort of his players.
"What I'll take away is how I thought the team improved and continued to improve from start to finish," Swanson said. "Unfortunately, sometimes the results that we got didn't reflect the way we played, and that leads to some frustration and disappointment. But I've been here six years, and I think we played some of our best soccer this year."
Indeed, despite being eliminated by Texas A&M in the third round of the NCAA Tournament, the Cavaliers had a strong finish to their season. The team proved it deserved its NCAA at-large bid by defeating two top-ten teams, West Virginia and Wake Forest, in the first and second rounds, respectively. Those victories were only sweetened by the fact that they came on the road in Winston-Salem, N.C. and allowed Virginia to finally demonstrate its prowess outside of Charlottesville.
"I think we learned a lot from our losses on the road this season," sophomore forward Jess Rostedt said. "We didn't win very many away from home at the beginning, and I think we definitely grew as the season progressed -- learned what we need to do to win when we don't have our crowd or Klöckner to play on."
While Virginia's third round loss and subsequent elimination was disappointing, Swanson is nevertheless proud of how the Cavaliers played and also how the women handled themselves and the intense environment in Aggie Soccer Stadium.
"I thought under the circumstances, we gave a tremendous performance," Swanson said. "I think the only thing we would have liked to take back was the three-and-a-half minute stretch in the first half where we gave up two goals. Nevertheless, I am very proud of the team, and I think that they did such a good job of not getting down and not getting frustrated and just kept working at it even though we were down."
With the season drawing to a close, Virginia stepped onto the field with its best possible game. That strong finish has already made Swanson and the team excited about next year's prospects. As the off-season commences, they will focus on making sure that Virginia opens the 2007 season with nothing less than the caliber of play which closed 2006.
Fortunately for the Cavaliers, only three of this year's starters definitely will not return for the 2007 season: goalkeeper Christina de Vries, forward Kara Frederick and midfielder Nikki Lieb. Also, following this year's injury-plagued season, the Cavaliers will be eager to welcome back from the bench midfielder Shannon Foley, midfielder/defender Megan Ashforth and midfielder Kristin Bowers.
From the outset, Virginia knew 2006 would be a tough season; but, their determination and effort turned it into a year that Swanson believes could be the seed from which a championship is grown.
"We all know where we want to go, it's just a matter of getting there," Swanson said. "I'm very confident in this group, and I believe in these women -- I'm very committed to them, and I'd like to think that down the road we will look back on this year and know that it was valuable, really valuable."
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