The 2015 Virginia men’s soccer regular season is already one quarter complete. Still unbeaten and ranked fifth nationally, the Cavaliers are in a good place going into the season’s third week.
After just three days off following Friday’s game, the Cavaliers (2-0-2, 0-0-1 ACC) host in-state rival James Madison (0-3-1, 0-0 CAA) — a team that was leading at Klöckner Stadium last season until an 89th minute Virginia equalizer sent the game to overtime.
“Last year [they] put us in a tough spot when we had to tie the game with just over a minute and a half left,” coach George Gelnovatch said. “We don’t want to put ourselves in that position once again.”
Although Virginia holds a comfortable lead in the series over the Dukes — who have yet to win a game this season — the team cannot afford to let its guard down.
“We know JMU is going to be a tough matchup,” senior midfielder Todd Wharton said. “The out of conference games are always very important … because these teams, especially the ones from Virginia, give us their best shot because they know they have nothing to lose.”
Though Gelnovatch will continue to drill focus and preparedness, in Friday’s 2-2 draw at Duke, the team — the offense in particular — looked locked in. Generating numerous chances that yielded 19 shots, the Cavaliers’ five-headed monster on the attack was firing all cylinders.
“On Friday night, the way that we created chances was as good a job as we have done creating chances in years,” Gelnovatch said. “Those five guys all were dangerous. Instead of having the one or two guys getting all your goals, [having] the first five guys all be threats like they were against Duke is hard to deal with.”
The dynamic attack features Virginia’s first four goal scorers this season — junior midfielders Riggs Lennon and Nicko Corriveau and sophomore midfielders Pablo Aguilar and Jake Rozhansky — along with standout freshman forward Edward Opoku.
Opoku, who dominated his high school competition at the Millbrook School in New York, has captivated the Klöckner faithful with his lightning-quick play, inspiring the nickname ‘Speedy’. For all the excellent runs and dangerous chances he has been a part of, however, he has yet to get on the score sheet.
“We’re going to stay focused on those guys being dangerous because…[his] goal is coming, trust me,” Gelnovatch said.
As with any sport, especially soccer, an offense is only as good as the back line behind it. Thus far this year, the stout Virginia defense has suffered two injuries, one to junior Marcus Salandy-Defour — who missed all of 2014 — and the other to senior Scott Thomsen.
“Scotty being out is a big loss for us,” Wharton said. “Anytime you lose a guy like that, there is a bit of a readjustment period, but we have guys that are more than capable of filling in while he is gone.”
These setbacks have forced Gelnovatch to improvise, playing junior midfielder Patrick Foss at one outside back position and converted freshman forward Malcolm Dixon at the other.
“Paddy Foss is a pretty experienced guy, so we feel pretty comfortable with him in that position right now,” Gelnovatch said. “But we do need to develop some more depth … because we’re playing with reserve fullbacks, so we need to make sure that if something happens to those guys, then we have depth behind them.”
Virginia has weathered storms like this before in Gelnovatch’s 20-year tenure, and with James Madison — a team picked to finish just fourth in the CAA coaches poll — having scored only three goals in four games, Cavalier fans may be able to rest easy and peek ahead in the schedule to Friday’s upcoming ACC home opener against North Carolina State.
Kickoff for the 24th matchup between these Commonwealth foes is slotted for 7 p.m. at Klöckner Stadium.
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