Women’s Soccer Travels to Face #25 Virginia Tech

// THE OPENING WHISTLE
Fresh off a 2-0 season-opening victory, the University of Cincinnati women's soccer team returns to action on the road Sunday as the Bearcats (1-0-0) are set to face #25/rv Virginia Tech (1-0-0). Both teams enter the match with shutout victories from Thursday night with UC downing St. John's in Harrisonburg, Va., and the Hokies defeating visiting Liberty, 3-0.

// GOING LIVE
The ACC Network on ESPN, which launched Thursday, will stream Sunday's match live on ESPN+. Virginia Tech also will be providing live stats on its website, HokieSports.com.

// QUICK SHOTS
• Cincinnati is 1-0-0 on the year following a 2-0 win over St. John's Thursday night
• The Bearcats are playing in their 40th varsity campaign this year, holding a 388-286-64 all-time record starting in 1980 and including Thursday's match with St. John's
• The Bearcats were picked to place sixth in the AAC Coaches' Preseason Poll for 2019
• Individually, Vanessa DiNardo, a unanimous selection to the AAC All-Rookie Team last year, earned Preseason AAC All-Conference honors for 2019
• The 2019 schedule will see UC play nine home, eight road and one neutral site match
• In those 18 matches, the Bearcats are set to face four teams ranked in the preseason United Soccer Coaches Top 25: #10 Tennessee, #18 USF, #20 Memphis and #25 Virginia Tech
• Also on the schedule is the return of the Queen City Derby as Xavier will visit UC on Sunday, September 15, inside Nippert Stadium at 6 p.m., the first meeting of the two crosstown rivals since the 2015 season (0-0 draw)
• Heading into the year, the Bearcats need just three home victories for 200 in their career, a feat that would be more impressive as 2019 is the University's bicentennial (founded in 1819)
• UC also is now just 12 wins shy of recording its 400th career victory

// QUICK CAP • ST. JOHN'S
• The Bearcats battled through a 95 minute lighting delay early in the match to score two quick goals early in the second half and take a 2-0 victory over St. John's in the season opener
• Vanessa DiNardo scored the brace and did so in just 21 seconds, the fastest double in program history (back to 2001 so far), while doubling her career goals scored total after having 1 in 2018
• Madison Less picked up the clean sheet with two saves, her eighth career shutout

// KNOW THE FOE: #25 VIRGINIA TECH
• The Hokies opened their season with a 3-0 victory over visiting Liberty Thursday night
• Three different players scored for Tech, including Molly Feighan, Mikayla Mance and Mak Graham
• Mandy McGlynn recorded three saves on her way to a clean sheet in goal
• Similar to UC, VT played a deep bench with 24 Hokies seeing action in the opener

// NOTING THE SERIES: BEARCATS-HOKIES
• Virginia Tech leads the all-time series, 1-0-0
• The only other meeting in the series came in the opening round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament, a 4-0 victory in Blacksburg for the hosts

// TRYING TO BREAK STREAKS
The Bearcats will look to halt a few streaks heading into the Virginia Tech match, including defeating an ACC foe on the road for the first time in six matches. The last time Cincinnati won at an ACC school was August 19, 2012, in a 3-1 victory over North Carolina State. Since then, UC has lost five in a row, including a 2-1 setback at Notre Dame on August 30 and a 3-0 loss at #8 Virginia on August 19, both in 2018. The last time UC defeated an ACC team was in 2017 with a 1-0 home win over Miami.

// TAKING ON RANKINGS
Last year, the Bearcats faced four foes with national Top 25 billings, the second-most the team had played in the Stafford Era behind the six matches played in 2015. In 2018, the Bearcats lost all three matches on the road to ranked teams (3-0 at #8 Virginia, 3-1 at #10 Auburn and 2-1 at #25 USF). UC did however pick up one result as it was able play visiting #16 Kansas to a 0-0 draw. Back in 2015, the Bearcats were 2-3-1 in those ranked meetings with wins over #18 USF (1-0) and #10 UConn (3-2 ot), which came in the AAC Semifinals. The losses came to #21 DePaul (2-1), #18 UConn (1-0) and #12 Virginia Tech (4-0) while the tie was a 1-1 draw with #25 USF in the AAC Championship match, an event UC would win on penalties.

// REVIEWING & NOTING OPENERS
• Following Thursday's victory over St. John's, Cincinnati is now 27-12-1 all-time in its first match of the season and has won four in a row
• The match with St. John's also marked just the second time in 40 years the season opener was at a neutral site with the first coming in 2004, a 0-2 setback to New Mexico at Purdue
• With the win over the SJU, UC is now 15-11-6 all-time in its first neutral-site contest of the year
• Heading into Sunday's match at Virginia Tech, the Bearcats hold an all-time record of 21-15-3 and are coming off a 3-0 loss at #8 Virginia last year

// MAKING DEBUTS
Thursday night, five players made their debuts for the red and black, including four in the Starting XI, three of which were freshmen. Among the starters were true freshmen Kendall Battle (60 minutes), Ashley Barron (90) and Han Tang (57) along with sophomore transfer Morgan Jackson, who made her first career collegiate start (appeared in nine matches with Louisville last year) and played the full 90. Additionally, freshman Maddy Pittman also secured 24 minutes of work and posted an assist.

// BRACE YOURSELF!
After playing 16:09 Thursday against, ironically, the Red Storm, a lightning storm forced the teams off the pitch for 95 minutes. Once the storm moved on and play resumed, more lightning was seen, this time not from the sky, but from the quick scoring of the Bearcats. The lightning came early in the second half, starting with Vanessa DiNardo, a preseason AAC all-conference selection in 2019, finding the back of the net at 51:39 off a long pass from Sydney Goins. Then, 21 seconds later, at 52:00, DiNardo hit the back of the net again, this time after UC stole the ball and saw Pittman fire a shot that hit the post and deflected to DiNardo, who made it 2-0. Not only did that spark UC to a 2-0 win, it also gave DiNardo her first career game-winning goal and saw her double her college goal scoring output after she scored once last year.

// HISTORICAL HITS
Sifting through the archives dating back to the start of the 2001 season, the quick brace for DiNardo is the fastest found. As it stands, the next closest brace scored came from Danielle Rotheram in 2014 against St. Francis when she scored her brace 2:11 apart with goals at 66:18 and 68:29. In fact, prior to DiNardo's double, the quickest back-to-back goals scored by the Bearcats (since 2001) came in 2001 against USF when Ann Thomas (59:28) and Tasha Wagner (59:51) scored 37 seconds apart. Overall, since 2001, DiNardo's brace is the 10th time the Bearcats have scored back-to-back goals in under two minutes.

// QUICK ON THE DRAW
Three other instances since 2001 have seen both teams score quickly in a UC match, twice with the Bearcats pulling one back right away. Those instances include Mackenzie Grause scoring 8 seconds after Nebraska tallied in 2012 and Katy Couperus finding the back of the net 17 seconds after DePaul scored in 2014. UC has been on the other side of that once as well with Jae Atkinson scoring against UMass-Lowell in 2013 before the visitors struck 9 seconds later.

// HAPPY TO HELP!
Both of DiNardo's goal were assisted with both helpers being the first for each Bearcats player. Sydney Goins' pass led to the first goal of the night and the first career assist for the senior while Maddy Pittman collected her first collegiate point by being credited with the assist on the second goal.

// DOING LAUNDRY
Madison Less anchored the defense to a clean sheet, marking the eighth shutout of her career. Less, who stopped both shots she faced Thursday, now has 8.0 shutouts in her UC career, placing her 11th on the program's all-time list. Just ahead of her is Kristina Utley (2011-14), who is 10th with 8.2.

// GOING DEEP
Depth has not been an issue for the Bearcats in recent years and Thursday showed that as 21 players saw minutes during the match with the Red Storm. Included in that listing were three field players that logged a full 90 minutes (Barron, Goins and Jackson) while each starter played at least 50 minutes. Off the bench, four played at least 24 minutes as well.

For notes previously posted, click on the PDF link at the top of the page for the full notes package...

// UP NEXT
Next week, the Bearcats will once again play Thursday and Sunday. First, UC will remain on the road to face Missouri in a 7 p.m. local (8 p.m. ET) match in Columbia, Mo., Thursday night. Following three matches away from home to open the season, the Bearcats will play their first home match of 2019 when they welcome the Broncos of Western Michigan for a 6 p.m. match Sunday night at Gettler Stadium. The match with WMU will be the first of two in a row at home with Northwestern coming to town Thursday, September 5, for a 7 p.m. contest also at Gettler Stadium.