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The Virginia women’s soccer team enters the week with a 10-2-1 record (4-1-0 ACC) and a No. 9 national ranking. The Cavaliers visit Maryland Thursday in their final road game of the regular season before beginning a season-ending four-game homestand Sunday against Boston College. VirginiaSports.com caught up with senior defender Alli Fries to discuss the season thus far and to preview this week’s games.
Question: What has been the mindset of the team this week in practice after the disappointment of last week’s loss at Virginia Tech?
Fries: Obviously everyone was disappointed with the result, but you can’t dwell on it. You need to learn from it and put it behind you and move forward. We have some big games ahead of us in the next couple weeks. We have the potential to be very successful, we just need to prove it on the field. Everyone has been working very hard over the last couple days and we had good practices. Hopefully that will lead to a positive result on Thursday.
Question: Do you think it was an advantage to not have a game this past weekend and gave the team a full week to prepare for Maryland?
Fries: I definitely do. It was a good time to regroup and get our mindset back. We needed to put the Virginia Tech game behind us and we are ready for Maryland and BC this week.
Question: Has the schedule felt any different this season because of having so many ACC road games early and ending with four consecutive home games?
Fries: It has been different, but other than Virginia Tech, it has been good for us. We were able to get really good road wins, especially that Florida State-Miami weekend. It’s kind of nice to get those road games out of the way and be able to end the season here at Klckner.
Question: You mention getting back to Klckner. The team has only had one home game over the past month. How excited is the team to be at home for a while starting this weekend?
Fries: We love Klckner. We couldn’t ask for a better home field. The fans are great and we are comfortable here. It’s going be exciting to close out the regular season with games here against some great opponents.
Question: On Thursday, you go to Maryland, a place that hasn’t been kind to the Cavaliers of late, having been shutout in the past three trips to College Park. What does the team need to do to get a result this time?
Fries: These last couple days of practice have really helped us. We have worked on our ball movement and I think as long as we play our game, we should be successful. We don’t look at what as happened in the past, we are focused on having a good mindset on Thursday.