West Virginia Advances
November 15, 2002 10:23 PM | General
November 15, 2002
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University women’s soccer team got three first-half goals to cruise to a 3-0 NCAA tournament first-round victory over Loyola, Md., Friday night at the Mountaineer Soccer Complex.
The NCAA tournament win was the first for Coach Nikki Izzo-Brown after two previous tries.
“It’s starts becoming a little bit of a monkey on your back but the ladies knew what they needed to do tonight, and I think the UConn loss opened their eyes knowing that it’s do or die at this point,” said Izzo-Brown, now 89-40-9 in seven seasons at WVU.
Izzo-Brown noticed some tactical flaws in West Virginia’s attack after its Big East tournament loss to Connecticut last Sunday. She spent this week working on them.
“We had to work on a couple of things that we weren’t doing well at Connecticut and I think that the pressure Connecticut put on us was such a big factor for the coaches to see what some of our breakdowns were,” she said.
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| West Virginia celebrates Chrissie Abbott's first goal of the game. |
Her week's worth of tinkering worked.
West Virginia jumped on Loyola (12-6-2) early when Chrissie Abbott found the back of the net at the 6:17 mark. Abbott’s team-leading 20th goal of the season was a rebound off a shot attempted by Kambria Riggins.
“We always try to come out and get on top early,” said Abbott. “If you do that then it’s going to work in your favor.”
Just 20 minutes later, WVU made it 2-0 when defender Christen Seaman got off a powerful blast from 18 yards out that got past Loyola’s nationally ranked goalkeeper Erica Niemann.
“I just noticed the forwards on the other team had dropped in deep,” said Seaman. “I saw Abbott and she had her back to the ball. It looked like there were a lot of people around her and I just started screaming for it. I thought just stay over it, keep it low, and hit it toward the goal as hard as I can. Fortunately it went in.”
Abbott was credited with an assist on Seaman’s goal for her third point of the night.
Greyhound coach Joe Mallia believes Seaman’s second goal was the turning point in the match.
“We couldn’t afford against a team like this to go down early,” he said. “It’s a big enough task as it is, but to give away a couple of goals early in the game is just too tough a hole to dig out of.”
West Virginia kept up the pressure and added a third score at the 33:15 mark when Laura Kane hit the net off assists by Lisa Zanti and Marisa Kanela.
Izzo-Brown mentioned that West Virginia’s strategy going into the game was to spread Loyola out and attack from both sides of the field.
“Loyola is a very defensive oriented team and what we needed to do was spread them out because they really wanted to stay compact in front of their goal,” she said. “What we were trying to do was send our outside backs through to draw out some defenders and then get the ball in that critical space.”
West Virginia attempted 26 shots on goal and limited Loyola to just three shots. Mountaineer goalkeeper Laura Finley was credited with two saves.
Neimann turned away eight West Virginia shots including a several in spectacular fashion.
West Virginia held a 4-0 advantage in corner kicks.
“This is a big win for us,” said junior Lisa Stoia. “Two years in a row we lost in the first round. Now with this win we’ll look forward to the next game.”
With the victory, West Virginia (18-2-1) advances to face No. 23-ranked Virginia (12-6-2) Sunday at 1 p.m. The Cavs got three second-half goals to down Dayton, 3-2 in the first game Friday.
Earlier this year, West Virginia defeated Virginia, 2-1 in Charlottesville.
“Virginia is going to put a lot of pressure on us so we’ve just got to make sure that we’re executing the things that we need to do to be successful,” said Izzo-Brown.
MSNsportsNET.com’s webcast coverage of the match will begin at 12:50 p.m.
Scoring Summary
WV – Abbott (unassisted) 6:17
WV – Seaman (Abbott) 26:48
WV – Kane (Kanela, Zanti) 33:55
Shots: LO – 3; WV -26
Corner Kicks: LO – 0; WV -4
Fouls: LO – 11; WV -13
Goalkeeping: LO – Niemann, 3 GA, 8 saves, 90:00; WV – Finley 0 GA, 2 saves, 90:00.
