UVA Women’s Soccer | Hoos Playing for More Than Themselves in NCAAs

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

The NCAA women’s soccer tournament’s second round found the Virginia Cavaliers in State College, Pa., where they defeated Xavier 3-1 on Friday afternoon.

The victory sends UVA to the round of 16 for the 17^th time in the past 18 seasons, but it was a bittersweet occasion for players and coaches, whose hearts were back in Charlottesville, some 300 miles away.

“Today was about playing for something bigger than ourselves and honoring D’Sean, Lavel and Devin, and playing for them, playing for the UVA community,” midfielder Lia Godfrey said, “and I hope we did that today with the win.”

The Wahoos are in the NCAAs for the 29^th consecutive season, and they opened the tournament by blanking Fairleigh Dickinson 4-0 last Saturday night at Klöckner Stadium. Little more than 24 hours later, UVa football players D’Sean Perry, Lavel Davis Jr. and Devin Chandler were shot and killed on Grounds after returning from a field trip to Washington, D.C. Two other UVA students were injured in the shooting, including running back Mike Hollins.

“It’s just such a devastating event, and there’s no question our team was very close to those three individuals and to Michael,” Virginia head coach Steve Swanson said Friday afternoon. “So it hit our team very hard, and we prayed a lot for the families of the young men that lost their lives.

“It’s just been a really hard week. I told the team before the game that we’re not going to be perfect today, but let’s give a perfect effort. As one of our players said, there was a little bit more emphasis on the ‘why’ this week. But I was really proud of the way the team responded to the tragedy. It’s really hard. It just puts life into perspective. You really have to come together and understand that life is so much more. It’s very precious, and you’ve got to hold on to all that you can.”

In the Sweet Sixteen, Virginia (15-3-3) will face host Penn State (15-4-3) at 5 p.m. Sunday. The Hoos are one of the NCAA tournament’s four No. 3 seeds, and PSU, which routed West Virginia 4-0 in the second game Friday, is a No. 2 seed.

On a frigid Friday afternoon at Jeffrey Field, where snow flurries fell periodically, UVA players wore armbands with the numbers 1, 15 and 41—those of Davis,…