Missed the week that was in college soccer? Don't worry; while we await the game of the year between No. 1 UCLA and No. 3 Stanford on Thursday, we've got you covered with five developments worth knowing from the past week.
1. Virginia beats Notre Dame, loses Morgan Brian
When a person stands all of 5-foot-3 and plays alongside a superstar who casts a metaphorical shadow far beyond her own 5-foot-7 frame, well, going overlooked all too often falls under the heading of job hazard.
But this was a little on the nose for Danielle Colaprico.
Down the line the public address announcer went before Sunday's game between No. 4 Virginia and No. 14 Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, each Virginia starter's name announced in ascending order of jersey number. From Megan Reid (No. 3) to Campbell Millar (No. 20) he went, then paused as he readied to introduce the home team. One small problem: Colaprico (No. 24) stood in amused anonymity at the end of the line of Cavaliers. After protestations from her teammate came an "also starting for Virginia" addendum.
Colaprico didn't figure in the scoring in Virginia's 2-1 win. Morgan Brian, she of the Hermann-Trophy-sized shadow, opened the scoring with a solo effort, and after Cari Roccaro's wonder strike brought Notre Dame level in the 84th minute, Brittany Ratcliffe won it for Virginia with a goal just 21 seconds from the end of regulation. Colaprico nonetheless played a major part in what both she and coach Steve Swanson called Virginia's best overall performance of the season, a game in which the Cavaliers dominated possession through the midfield and held a 19-6 edge in shots.
That role is only going to grow with Brian the only collegian among 20 players included on the final American roster for World Cup qualifying and presumably absent for the rest of October.
"We're not going to have her, and that's a big loss for us," Swanson said. "But the positive side is we've been doing this for a long time now. This isn't the first time we've done this. I think the team has done a remarkable job throughout the time that Morgan's been here, when she's been in and out, of stepping up and making sure that we're not losing anything. Obviously it's going to be a loss on the field, but I think we have the personnel to overcome it."
Starting with Colaprico, who played on both flanks and even at forward Sunday but will now mostly occupy the vacant space in central midfield. Only four active Division I players have more career assists than she does. Only one of them plays in the ACC. Of course, it's Brian. That's the way it goes for Colaprico.
Until Ratcliffe's winner, Virginia had gone nearly 200 minutes against Florida State and Notre Dame without a goal from anyone other than its superstar. As much as it values possession, it needs goals to keep winning and remain in the running for home-field advantage in the NCAA tournament. It needs a special playmaker.
"I think it's still the same game plan," Colaprico said. "It's obviously disappointing that we're not going to have her, and she helps us a lot, but we're going to play the same style of soccer. We're going to play Virginia soccer."
Which is to say, overlook the Cavaliers and their midfield engine at your own peril.
2. Florida builds a case for the SEC
Landon Donovan had never played in a World Cup, let alone been snubbed for one, the last time the SEC sent a team to the College Cup. Alex Morgan was not yet eligible to attend PG-13 movies. The Ivy League has visited the semifinals more recently than the SEC. You get the idea. If that streak is to end this season, it seems most likely that it will be the doing of one of the teams that met in College Station this past Friday in the SEC's biggest game of the season.
On its own merits, No. 6 Florida's 1-0 win against No. 9 Texas A&M doesn't automatically make the former a better bet to do so. The game was a fair fight for the full 90 minutes, Florida eventually making goalkeeper Taylor Burke's eight saves count for something when Savannah Jordan scored at the other end in the 84th minute. It's the cumulative evidence that is beginning to weigh heavily in Florida's favor. The Gators have wins against Florida State and Texas A&M on the road and lost at Stanford only after a dubious penalty in overtime. They also beat Georgia and Missouri, the only other teams in the SEC with as many as four conference wins at the moment. In fact, after Sunday's win at Arkansas, Florida's five SEC opponents are 16-1-4 in their other conference games.
Florida still depends on Jordan for finishing, but senior Tessa Andujar looks more and more dangerous, and less like any kind of secret weapon, each week. Playing at times this season as an outside back, a midfielder or a wingback in a 3-5-2, she assisted on the winner at Texas A&M and had a goal and an assist at Arkansas. When she and defender Christen Westphal work in tandem, the right side of the field becomes Florida's playground.
3. Another Seattle reign in the works
Even if you were glued to the weekend results in college soccer, you would be forgiven if you glossed over those from the WAC amid a crowded schedule. Yet Seattle University appears intent on doing to that conference what Seattle Reign FC did to the National Women's Soccer League in the regular season.
The Redhawks extended their conference winning streak, including conference tournament games, to 17 games, the longest such streak in the nation, with road wins at Grand Canyon (2-1) and Cal State Bakersfield (6-3). Senior Stephanie Verdoia is due consideration for weekly national honors after totaling three goals and three assists in the wins, in addition to drawing the penalty kick that led to the lone goal she didn't score in the win against Grand Canyon. She has 25 goals and 17 assists since the beginning of last season.
The WAC, with just three teams ranked in the top 250 of the RPI a week ago, is what it is, but two of Seattle's three losses this season came against Kentucky and Washington, and each was by a single goal. As if to underscore that it is looking to continue building something in the shadow of Washington and Portland, Seattle drew 1-1 against the Pilots in a far more competitive game than its NCAA tournament debut at Portland a season ago.
4. The little team (with 21 NCAA championships) that could
This season might not end with North Carolina's Anson Dorrance adding to 21 NCAA championships, but it is unlikely he will have done 21 better coaching jobs by the time the campaign concludes. Minus another in a long list of starters after Brooke Elby's season-ending injury (the same Elby who made the most recent title possible with a clearance off the line in overtime of a quarterfinal against BYU in 2012), No. 8 North Carolina beat No. 5 Virginia Tech 3-2 for its second win of the season against a top-10 opponent and its fifth win in four weeks against a ranked opponent.
No big deal, right? That's what the Tar Heels are supposed to do. But they are not supposed to do it on the backs of players such as Sarah Ashley Firstenberg, Danae O'Halloran and Annie Kingman, two sophomores and a freshman who began the season with 43 minutes of college experience between them.
North Carolina's second goal against Virginia Tech was the product of interplay between the aforementioned trio of substitutes, Firstenberg starting the sequence with a composed pass in tight quarters and finishing it with a textbook header after O'Halloran fed Kingman for a cross from the left flank. It was a goal Crystal Dunn, Kealia Ohai and Heather O'Reilly, three former Tar Heels in the crowd at Fetzer Field, would have been proud to call their own.
Even with the three-goal outburst, which provided just enough cushion to withstand Virginia Tech's second-half surge, the Tar Heels have scored 14 goals through 10 games. The longest it had ever taken them to score 14 goals before this season was eight games. They are one of only two top-10 teams this season that don't have at least two players with four goals, and the other team, Florida, has Jordan scoring enough for two people.
If the Tar Heels somehow win the ACC, it's anything but business as usual.
5. Back to normal in the Big Ten
It didn't come easily, but No. 7 Penn State asserted its control of the Big Ten race with a 2-0 win at No. 13 Wisconsin on Sunday to wrap up an eight-day stretch in which it also won at Minnesota and beat Illinois. The Nittany Lions still have to travel to Michigan, which trails by just a game in the standings after a prolific scoring weekend of its own, but that trip to Ann Arbor is one of just two remaining road games in the regular season.
That the wins at Minnesota and Wisconsin were shutouts is notable. Penn State allowed multiple goals eight times a season ago and not coincidentally lost as many as four games in Big Ten play for the first time ever (matching the number of conference losses from the previous four seasons combined). It has allowed multiple goals just once this season. Penn State freshmen have accounted for 14 goals (38 percent of team's total) and 12 assists (43 percent), but the mix of young and old in the back, freshmen Elizabeth Ball and Maddie Elliston alongside seniors Whitney Church and Kori Chapic, is also key.