WVU Women’s Soccer relying on teamwork early

No. 22 WVU Women’s Soccer is off to its first 3-0-0 start since 2017, and already have a top 25 win to tout. For head coach Nikki Izzo-Brown, leading her team during its 30th season, one of the Mountaineers’ biggest strengths is teamwork. Read more: WVU Women’s Soccer relying on teamwork early. 

WVU has outscored its opponents, 6-1, through three matches.

Related: WVU Men’s Soccer respond with shutout win against St. Bonaventure

Beyond having consistency by way of scoring two goals per game thus far, the team works together to make plays happen.

Return to WV Sports Nation Tuesday for an additional, exclusive interview with Izzo-Brown.

Spreading the wealth

Four of the Mountaineers’ six goals have come assisted, and another one was marked as a team goal. That shows a lot about the set pieces and passing ability of players on the squad.

Izzo-Brown brought this to light when speaking during Monday’s media availability;

“You never want one target on the team,” Izzo-Brown said. “So when you have some versatility, I think you make your team a little harder to defend.”

Coach also mentioned being able to spread the wealth offensively makes it more difficult for opponents, which has rang true through three outings.

“With us having multiple areas we could score [from], that maybe makes it a little harder for opponents to scout us.”

Three players have scored the five individual goals so far, excluding the team goal against Dayton. Of course, Sophia Nickel has been the x-factor, finding the back of the net three times already. The best part about that for WVU is the fact Nickel is the top scorer on the entire team, and has scored all three as a substitute. That does not happen every day.

Depth goes beyond Nickel, though, as four different players have collected assists and two others have individual goals.

Rounding it out on the other end

It helps when the Mountaineers have consistency on the back end and in goal, too. Bailey Herfurth has kept things quiet as the lone keeper with minutes this year.

After all, this is a defensive-minded squad.

Izzo-Brown said more in-depth statistics are helping analyze what is happening defensively, since most of those traits do not end up in the box score.

“Analytics are really big now,” Izzo-Brown said. “We look at loose ball duals, I think that will recognize a lot of the grit, what we are doing with that… first and second ball duals, so there will be a lot of things we look at depending on which line we’re talking about.”

One could say all is quiet on the defensive front.

Carrying momentum

With three wins under their belt, the Mountaineers are set to hit the road for the first time this season. WVU plays Princeton on Thursday, before heading to Army later this weekend. The team will stay in the New York/New Jersey reason to reduce travel.

Now with momentum and grit on their side, the old gold and blue can aim to carry it through the remainder of the season. There is but a small sample size to analyze, but WVU Women’s Soccer seems to have quite a bit of potential in the early stages.

First touch from Princeton, New Jersey, is set for 7 p.m. Thursday and will be streaming on ESPN+.

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