SAN JOSE, Calif. — WVU’s women’s soccer team extended its already historic season Dec. 2, taking down perennial juggernaut North Carolina, 1-0, in the Women’s College Cup semifinals, at Avaya Stadium.
Junior forward Michaela Abam scored in the 74th minute for the Mountaineers, who relied primarily on their trademark stingy defense to reach their first College Cup final. In the process, WVU shut down college women’s soccer’s answer to the New York Yankees — North Carolina has won 21 NCAA titles in 27 College Cup trips under legendary head coach Anson Dorrance.
“This team has played some big powerhouses all year — Duke, UCLA, Ohio State,” WVU coach Nikki Izzo-Brown said. “No team’s going to faze this team — they’re just going to go out and do their job to the best of their ability. They haven’t worried about the name on the [front of the jersey] all season, and they didn’t do it tonight, either.”
Now, WVU has a chance to put an exclamation point on the best record in school history (23-1-2) by winning Sunday’s College Cup final. WVU will face Southern California (18-4-2), which beat Georgetown, 1-0, in Friday’s other semifinal. Georgetown was the only team to pin a loss on the Mountaineers this season.
Dorrance had high praise for WVU’s back row — senior defender Kadeisha Buchanan in particular. It’s a testament to the Mountaineers’ defenders that freshman goalkeeper Rylee Foster didn’t have to make a single save.
“Our default when attacking the goal is to whack everything into the box, and the problem with whacking everything into the box is that there’s a girl back there (Buchanan) who’s an incredible player in the air,” Dorrance said. “Everything we whacked into the box, she cleared with her head.
“They’re also very athletic and very hard to get in behind effectively. They’re also hard to beat 1-on-1 effectively.”
Not that Buchanan could take all the credit.
“We’ve been working on getting on our rope,” Buchanan said. “We use a rope in practice to help keep us tight and compact, and we did that tonight. Our midfielders also helped deny the spaces in between.”
After managing just two shots on goal in the first half — and giving up no shots of any kind — WVU pressured North Carolina early and often in the second. WVU ultimately outshot the Tar Heels, 13-8.
It wasn’t until the 74th minute, however, that the Mountaineers broke through on Abam’s team-leading 12th goal of the season — and that goal was a thing of beauty. After crossing the ball behind her back to shake free of her defender, Abam lifted a shot underneath the crossbar and over the outstretched hands of leaping UNC goalkeeper Lindsey Harris to put the Mountaineers up, 1-0.
“I saw one of their defenders come out, and she overcommitted,” Abam said. “I just moved to the side and put it in.”
North Carolina’s best chances to tie the score came in the 77th and 79th minutes, when freshman forwards Bridgette Andrzejewski and Madison Schultz each sent a shot high.
That was as close as the Tar Heels came to forcing an overtime.
“Our players did an excellent job screening, especially on the back line,” Izzo-Brown said. “They squeezed space so well. We did what we had to do to beat a huge, huge offensive powerhouse like North Carolina.”