Home #4 UVA women’s soccer blasts #14 Kentucky, 7-0, in NCAA second round
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#4 UVA women’s soccer blasts #14 Kentucky, 7-0, in NCAA second round

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uva soccerThe fourth-ranked UVA women’s soccer team advanced to the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals for the third time in four years with a 7-0 victory over No. 14 Kentucky Sunday evening at Klöckner Stadium. The Cavaliers (21-2) will meet top-seed UCLA in the quarterfinals, while Kentucky ends its season with a 16-7-1 record.

Junior Makenzy Doniak (Chino Hills, Calif.) set the school record for points in a game with eight, recording three goals and two assists. Senior Morgan Brian (St. Simons Island, Ga.) added two goals and two assists in her final game at Klöckner Stadium, while junior Kaili Torres (Fleming Island, Fla.) and sophomore Alexis Shaffer (Cary, N.C.) also scored for the Cavaliers.

The result was the most lopsided NCAA Tournament Round of 16 game since 2003, when North Carolina defeated Purdue 7-0.

“You don’t go into a game like this, against an opponent as good as Kentucky, and expect a result like this,” said head coach Steve Swanson. “Kentucky deserves a lot of credit for a tremendous season. A lot of teams would have come in here and dropped back and played a lot of players behind the ball, but they deserve a lot of credit for coming out to play. That hasn’t always been the case for us. I thought, at times, we played some really good soccer. It was a good performance by a lot of players tonight and we are happy to be moving on.”

Virginia took the lead in the 17th minute as Doniak dribbled to the end line and delivered a cross that found Brian wide open in the middle of the area. Brian collected the ball and slotted home her first goal of the evening. She doubled the advantage in the 30th minute, scoring on a diving header off a cross from Doniak. The goals were the eighth and ninth of the season for Brian, who reached the 40-goal mark for her career and became the 45th player in NCAA Division I women’s soccer history to accumulate at least 40 career goals and 40 career assists.

Doniak closed out the first half scoring in the 36th minute as she intercepted a clearance and dribbled to the top of the 18 before placing a shot inside the far post to the make the score 3-0.

The Cavaliers wasted little time in the second half, extending the lead to 7-0 in the first 10 minutes after intermission. Torres scored her fourth goal of the year off a Brian assist in the 48th minute to make the score 4-0. Doniak tallied her second goal of the night in the 52nd minute off a long ball from Meghan Cox (Springfield, Va.) before the Cavaliers concluded the scoring with two goals, 30 seconds apart, in the 55th minute. Shaffer headed in a Brian cross for her sixth goal of the season before Doniak finished her hat trick off a long pass from Danielle Colaprico (Freehold, N.J.) seconds later. It was Colaprico’s 43rd career assist, giving her sole possession of the Virginia career record, and extended her season school record to 18 assists this year.

Doniak’s hat trick was the second of her career, both coming in the NCAA Tournament (last year vs. Saint Francis). The school-record eight points gives her 48 points for the season, setting a new Virginia single-season record. The previous mark of 47 points was set by Caroline Miller in 2012. Doniak’s 19 goals this season is one shy of the Virginia single-season record, set by Miller in 2012 and matched by Doniak last season. Doniak has scored in 10 of Virginia’s last 11 games.

With seven goals on the evening, Virginia has scored a school-record 83 goals this season, breaking the record of 78 goals last season. The Cavaliers lead the nation in scoring this season at 3.61 goals per game.

Overall, Virginia outshot Kentucky 22-3 and had a 7-0 corner kick advantage. Sophomores Morgan Stearns (San Antonio, Texas) and Jessie Ferrari (Fairfax, Va.) combined to post the Cavaliers’ third consecutive shutout and the 12th overall this season. Taylor Braun made four saves for Kentucky before giving way to Ayanna Parker.

The victory was Virginia’s 32nd consecutive home win at Klöckner Stadium, the longest active streak in the nation and tied for the fifth-longest streak in NCAA history.

The Cavaliers will play at top-seeded UCLA in the quarterfinals this weekend. The Bruins used a goal in the 88th-minute to edge Pepperdine 1-0 in their round of 16 game. The quarterfinal matchup will be a rematch of last year’s national semifinal, a 1-1 draw that saw UCLA advance on penalty kicks. This year’s match will mark Virginia’s fourth trip to UCLA in the NCAA Tournament in the past 10 years.

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