UVA Men’s Soccer Loses Heartbreaker to Notre Dame

A draw is often an unsatisfactory lead to soccer. For the Cavaliers, although, it felt like an unlimited victory as they scored the tying objective with only a minute and 22 seconds left in regulation to seemingly forestall a loss and salvage a tie with the Combating Irish. 

As a substitute, Notre Dame countered rapidly after UVA tried to place collectively one closing scoring alternative within the waning moments of the match. The Irish gained possession and located that the Cavaliers had overextended themselves on the offensive finish, leaving only one backline defender close to midfield. Notre Dame freshman KK Baffour broke free with the ball and streaked towards the UVA objective with lower than ten seconds left. Holden Brown tried to make the save, however Baffour beat him and deposited his shot at the back of the web to retake the lead for the Combating Irish with simply three seconds remaining. 

The Cavaliers received grasping, making an attempt to attain twice within the closing 90 seconds, and left themselves uncovered on the again finish. The Irish made them pay, as Notre Dame handed Virginia a heartbreaking 2-1 loss on Friday evening at Klockner Stadium.

Regardless of holding a 20-8 benefit in pictures, together with an 8-3 edge in pictures on objective, Virginia was held scoreless for the primary 88 minutes of the match because of an unimaginable efficiency from Notre Dame goalkeeper Bryan Dowd, who made seven saves. The UVA offense, which got here into the match having scored 9 objectives in its final two matches, had scoring alternative after scoring alternative, however simply could not capitalize on their possibilities. 

The Combating Irish, in the meantime, needed to wrestle simply to maintain the ball out their defending third of the sector. It was a bodily battle with each groups getting whistled for 13 fouls and 4 yellow playing cards every, with six of these eight whole yellows coming within the second half. 

After blitzing Notre Dame by way of the primary 60 minutes of the match, the Combating Irish started to regain floor on the Cavaliers, who noticed their momentum slip away, changed by frustration and fatigue. Holden Brown made a few saves on harmful Notre Dame possibilities, however it was a fluke objective that gave the Irish the lead. Within the 68th minute, Notre Dame was awarded a nook kick. The ball landed near the objective line in an especially crowded field and deflected wildly into the again of the web. It was unclear who the ball bounced off of, however evidently, it was not a Notre Dame participant however quite a UVA defender who received the final contact. Formally, the primary objective of the match went down as a Notre Dame “group” objective. 

The Cavaliers went into desperation mode and aggressively tried to search out an equalizer. The scoring possibilities got here, however Bryan Dowd and the Notre Dame protection continued to disclaim the Hoos. There have been a number of set items for UVA within the closing minutes, together with a wild sequence within the eightieth minute by which Mortiz Kappelsberger rocketed a shot that struck the crossbar, sending the ball again to the foot of Philip Horton who despatched in a shot that was saved by a diving Dowd. With the alternatives and pictures the Cavaliers have been getting, it was changing into an increasing number of unbelievable that they’d but to interrupt by way of. 

Then, within the 89th minute, a free kick resulted in one other hectic sequence proper in entrance of the objective by which a number of UVA pictures have been blocked at point-blank vary. Dowd could not discover the ball and ultimately Kome Ubogu was there to scoot the ball into the again of the web, sending the Virginia bench and the gang at Klockner Stadium right into a frenzy, celebrating the equalizer as if it was a game-winner. 

Virginia received one other probability to maybe steal the victory on a nook kick with 37 seconds left on the clock. The cross was pushed out by the Notre Dame protection and KK Baffour did the remaining, monitoring the ball down racing the size of the sector untagged, scoring to ship the UVA crowd into surprised disbelief. 

The painful defeat offers Virginia its first convention lack of the season because the Cavaliers fall to 4-3 on the season. UVA will look to bounce again at residence in opposition to American on Tuesday at 7pm. 

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