Four Hokies with a brace during 2019 seasonFour Hokies with a brace during 2019 season
Women's Soccer

Four Hokies with a brace during 2019 season

BLACKSBURG - During the 2019 season, four Virginia Tech women's soccer players scored a pair of goals, ironically, all occurred at home, and three of them were scored during the regular season. Recently, the HokiesWSoccer twitter account highlighted those three braces, along with other Top Goals from 2019, and is now asking fans to vote on which was the most impressive. So, here are the nominees in chronological order.

HOLLY ROSE WEBER - AUGUST 10 (no video) - link to story
The Hokies opened the 2019 season with a home scrimmage against Marshall and the two teams played to a scoreless first half. Just 1:42 after the break, freshman Holly Rose Weber found the back of the net off a pass from Mikayla Mance for goal No. 1. Just 83 seconds later, Emily Gray set up Weber for her second of the night and Tech rolled to a 3-0 win. The brace for Weber came in her first competitive soccer action in more than a year, as she was previously sitting out to recover from her first ACL injury.


NICOLE KOZLOVA - SEPTEMBER 8 - link to story
The unbeaten Hokies faced their first deficit of the 2019 season against the Yale Bulldogs, but redshirt freshman Nicole Kozlova buried a pair of second-half goals to give Tech its first comeback win since Oct. 15, 2017. Kozlova tied the match in the 65th minute on an assist from Emily Gray and then tallied the game winner with under seven minutes left in the contest. Kozlova, who sat out the 2018 season due to an ACL injury, would be named the ACC's Offensive Player of the Week for her effort.



EMILY GRAY - SEPTEMBER 21 - link to story
A game when goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn tied the school record for career shutouts, Emily Gray helped No. 18 Tech remain perfect on the season at 9-0 and win its ACC opener 2-0 over Miami. Gray gave the Hokies a 1-0 lead on a free kick in the eighth minute and then sealed the victory in the 86th minute with another tally. The game ended a stretch in which Gray scored three straight game-winning goals - last accomplished by Murielle Tiernan, who scored in five consecutive matches and had four straight game winners (Sept. 19 through Oct. 8, 2015). It was bittersweet as that was Gray's last match of 2019 as she suffered an ACL injury the following match at Virginia.



KELSEY IRWIN - OCTOBER 24 - link to story
Facing another 1-0 halftime deficit in the team's final home regular-season match, and possibly her final game ever at Thompson Field, Kelsey Irwin blasted a pair of free kicks past Boston College goalkeeper Maddie Murphy, to the almost identical spots, to give the Hokies a 2-1 win. For Irwin, a defender, it was her second career brace (at Villanova, Sept. 7, 2018) and gave her eight goals in her career. And to continued the trend, yes, Irwin had also suffered an ACL injury early in her career and sat out the entire 2015 campaign.