Women’s soccer: No. 11 UVA downs Louisville to advance to ACC semifinals

The No. 11 UVA women’s soccer team (15-3-0) defeated Louisville (12-7) by a score of 2-1 on Sunday (Oct. 28) to advance to the semifinals of the ACC Tournament. The Cavaliers are the No. 3 seed in the tournament, while the Cardinals are the No. 6 seed.

For the second time this season, junior forward Meghan McCool (Glenside, Pa.) hit the game-winner to lift Virginia past Louisville. Freshman forward Alexa Spaanstra (Brighton, Mich.) scored the other goal for the Cavaliers and assisted on the game-winner to McCool.

With the win, the Cavaliers improved to 6-0-0 all-time against Louisville. This was the first meeting between the two teams in the ACC Tournament.

Virginia will now face No. 7 seed Florida State on Friday (Nov. 2) at WakeMed Park in Cary, N.C.

“It was a great result for us,” said Virginia head coach Steve Swanson. “The work rate was good and the effort was there. The big thing for us was to try to link up the team and play some soccer and advance the ball. I don’t think we were as patient as we needed to be in the first half, but once we started to establish a rhythm we penetrated more and got good looks. It was great to come back from being a goal down. Give all the team credit today. The depth really showed today. We got a lot of contributions from a lot of players and we will need that moving forward.”

Louisville struck first with a header from Sarah Hernandez in the 10th minute. Virginia turned away a service off a corner by playing the ball back out wide toward the right sideline, but the Cardinals maintained possession. Emina Ekic sent in the cross to Hernandez by the near left post who headed it in for the 1-0 lead.

The Cavaliers found the equalizer four minutes later as Spaanstra drilled her seventh goal of the season. Rebecca Jarrett (Washington Township, N.J.) faked a defender on the right wing and dribbled in toward the box before sending the pass in to Spaanstra at the center of the box. The freshman forward, who was all alone in space, collected the pass and took the shot in past the left post.

Virginia took the lead for the first time on the afternoon in the 71st minute. After failing to get a good chance on goal, the Cavaliers sent a ball back out toward the top of the box where a Louisville player and Hana Kerner (Upper Saddle River, N.J.) converged for a contested ball. Kerner got there first, slipping in and poking the ball out wide on the right flank to Spaanstra. Spaanstra served a one-touch ball into the box where McCool was making a run to the near post. McCool slid in on the ball for the one-touch shot that slipped in past the near post for the 2-1 Virginia lead.

The Cavaliers finished the match with a 12-to-4 shot advantage for the match.