Four years ago, Virginia Tech women’s soccer welcomed a highly-touted recruiting class in the middle of the pandemic. That nine-woman group, now seniors, are set to lead the Hokies to another successful season on their last ride.
Alia Skinner, Riley McCarthy, Ayden Yates, Tori Powell, Victoria Haugen, Averi Visage, Taylor Bryan, Kate Bonshak and Ava Veith have witnessed success in Blacksburg. Entering their fourth season at Tech, they’ve made two consecutive NCAA tournaments and are 30-22-4 with four top-25 wins, and they’re prepared to make a deep run in their last chapter.
“I think our senior class is incredibly special,” Skinner told Tech Sideline. “This is our fourth season together as a group, we’ve been through it all together. … We’re inseparable, and I think nobody transferring from our class, nobody leaving, I think really tells what this program is about and how our group is so cohesive as a senior class, but also as a team.”
Head coach Chugger Adair has quite the group entering 2023. Tech returns 90 percent of its minutes and 84 percent of its scoring from last season’s NCAA tournament squad. What’s more, all nine players who started 16 or more of the team’s 19 games in 2022 are back. That doesn’t include Skinner, the veteran goalkeeper who missed the majority of the year after suffering a Lisfranc injury in the season-opener at William & Mary.
“We had really good freshmen coming in last year that now have confidence,” Powell said. “We’ve got some really good newcomers this year, and I know everyone says it, but everyone’s got the grit and that’s what our team is about. Everyone is buying into that this year, I think you can see it, and it’ll take us really far.”
“I think we’ve got a lot of experience combined with some youth, which always makes it fun and challenging at the same time,” Adair said.
The Hokies know consistency will be more important this season, though. Though last fall’s campaign culminated in a trip to the Big Dance, where they lost to West Virginia in Morgantown, their performances fluctuated.
Some of the highs were extreme, like knocking off No. 22 NC State and No. 3 North Carolina in a 10-day stretch at the end of September. It was just their third-ever win over the Tar Heels in 24 tries, the first since 2011. But then a 3-1 defeat at ACC bottom-feeder Miami brought them back to reality, and they finished 1-5-1 in their last seven games.
“I think we were inconsistent as a group and that’s pretty frustrating,” Adair said of last season. “We had big wins, a couple difficult losses, and we couldn’t put it together in the NCAA tournament, so that’s what stands out, but I think there were some really significant jumps that we took and some leaps with some great wins.”
That should come easier this year. It’s essentially the same core as 2022 — only six contributors from last season departed — which should provide stability, barring injury.
Having Skinner back in goal is a big plus. Lauren Hargrove was fantastic in relief last fall, recording six shutouts, which gives Hokies two comfortable options. Skinner’s experience and leadership, though — 37 starts, more than 3,200 minutes and 150 saves — is huge.
“She’s got tremendous upside in goal, good shot stopper, good playing out of the back, and just consistently solid all around,” Adair said of Skinner.
In front of her is a familiar back line that includes Visage and Haugen, who have each started 52 games for Tech. The pairing of sophomore Natalie Mitchell and junior Lauren Gogal, who started 16 games together last season, will patrol the midfield. Junior midfielder Emma Pelkowski, has 38 career starts to her name, is also back.
Up top, Price will look to follow up a stellar freshman season that included eight goals and three assists. She started off the 2022 campaign strong, scoring four times in the first five contests, and she notched the game-winner on the road in Raleigh in September.
“Last year, I was a freshman, so I was just kind of listening to what everyone else was saying and trying to learn from other players,” Price said. “Now that I have a year of experience, I’m trying to help the younger players and talk to them, the same ones that were in my shoes, and help them grow.”
She’ll be accompanied by Bryan (four goals, two assists in ‘22) and Sophie Maltese (four goals, one assist), two upperclassmen who have a combined 64 games under their belts. However, the Hokies will miss her partnership with Powell, who was responsible for six goals and four assists last year.
The senior from Haymarket, who has 21 goals and 14 assists in three seasons, recently had knee surgery. Though she’s recovering well, she received some blood clots from the injury, which clouds her timetable for return. But she knows she has a supportive group of sisters around her and is excited to cheer them on from the sidelines, similar to Skinner last year.
“Like Alia, it’s really cool because yes, I may be sitting out right now, but it’s awesome to see her being able to come back for this season, I’m so excited for her,” Powell said. “It’s cool to have the support where I was able to support her and now she’s able to support me, and our class is just so tight.”
The good news is Tech has plenty of depth. Its recruiting class ranked seventh in the country and a number of freshmen are expected to contribute right away. Combine that with the experience — 635 career games in a Tech uniform — and there’s plenty of reasons to be excited.
The schedule, too, is mouth-watering. The ACC is once again the best conference in the country with seven top-25 teams in the U.S. Soccer Coaches Poll, including five of the top six. The Hokies, who received votes in the preseason poll, play six games against ranked league foes and two more against ACC teams that made last year’s NCAA tournament.
That doesn’t include a tough non-conference slate with matches at No. 16 Georgetown, vs. No. 18 Northwestern and vs. Old Dominion, who each made the Big Dance in 2022. And Tech opens its season at Butler on Thursday night (7 p.m. ET), a program that won 15 games and made the NCAA tournament in 2021, before traveling to Indiana on Sunday (Noon ET).
“Obviously, the ACC is the best conference in the country so the only way to prep for that is to have high-level out of conference games,” Skinner said. “This year, we have quite a few of those, and I think it’ll really prepare us for it.”
Should the cards fall the right way, it could be a very successful season for the Hokies. They’ve got the talent and experience to make a deep postseason run, which wouldn’t be a first. Adair’s led the program to nine NCAA tournament appearances, seven in the last decade, and 11 wins, highlighted by a College Cup run in 2013.
“One of our overall goals for this team is to make the NCAA and ACC [tournaments],” Haugen said. “I think we definitely have a chance of doing that, … we just have to keep the same mindset, keep the same goals, focus on those goals that we have and keep that consistency. But I definitely think this year we can be very successful.”
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Tech Womens soccer has lost my interest because of off field antics.
Careful my first comment about what Digger did was deleted. 👀
Top 7 recruiting class…if those young women are not playing a huge role this year, then it is all on whoever is directing those young women. Glad the seniors have stuck together but maybe those young guns might be more productive.
“ But then a 3-1 defeat at ACC bottom-feeder Miami brought them back to reality, and they finished 1-5-1 in their last seven games”
Chugger isn’t a good coach. Best talent Tech has had on the team and pretty poor outcomes
Clueless
You can have different opinions but back them up sir. I’d wager I have more soccer experience and knowledge so probably a dose of humility would help as well.
Be better