At the beginning of the 2011 women's soccer season, many eyes were on freshman phenom Morgan Brian. After all, she had just been named the 2011 Gatorade National Female Athlete of the Year. On top of that, she had her first career goal in her first career game in the first game of the season against West Virginia.
But things had sort of trailed off after that. Even though she's taken the most shots of anyone on the team (60), she has only four goals to show for it. Instead, Golden Girl Caroline Miller has been the story of much of the season. Miller has taken fewer shots (54) than Brian, but has more goals (12) than anyone on the team.
There was little doubt in anyone's mind that Brian was going to come around and continue her early successes. It was a question of when, not if. And perhaps we got a peek at the answer last night.
Playing in their final road game of the season, the Cavaliers took to the pitch against the Wolfpack of N.C. State last night at 7pm. As has become an all too familiar scene for Cavalier fans, the score at the end of regulation was a tie - 0-0. But just as the fans are used to seeing that happen this season, the ladies on the team are used to being in the middle of that situation. And once again, they prevailed.
This time it was Morgan Brian who had the golden goal. In the 100th minute (the final minute of overtime), Lauren Alwine pushed a through ball ahead to Brian who beat the goalkeeper and scored on an empty net. Coincidentally, it was Alwine who had the assist on Miller's game-winning goal against the Seminoles.
Virginia (10-3-2, 4-2-1 ACC) returns home this weekend to start a three game home stand to end their season. They face Clemson (5-9-0, 0-7-0 ACC) on Sunday at 1pm before consecutive Thursday night (7pm) matches against Virginia Tech (10-4-1, 2-3-1 ACC) and Miami (8-4-1, 2-4-1 ACC).