BLACKSBURG – The Long Island connection of Olivia Vergano and Kayla Downey carried the Hokies to a 10-5 season-opening win over VCU on Saturday at Thompson Field.
In her Virginia Tech debut, Downey scored three goals and assisted two others, accompanying Vergano's three goals and three assists. Caroline Little and Claire Schotta added two goals themselves to wrap up Tech's fourth win over VCU in as many attempts.
The Hokies came out with an explosive first quarter performance with five goals, only conceding one in the process.
Virginia Tech's fourth goal summarized the whole day in a sequence, as Jocelyn Torres made a stop on a free-position attempt before the Hokies began to move in transition. With Vergano hauling down the field, the leg work was done, and Downey finished with flair after cutting in front of goal then dropping a behind-the-back shot into the net.
However, the Rams settled into the game in the second quarter with two goals of their own, while holding Tech scoreless. Ashley Karn's third of four goals on the day came at the halfway point of the third quarter and drew VCU within one goal.
Virginia Tech shut the door on any sort of comeback, as it rattled off five unanswered goals, starting with Little's unassisted effort with 2:28 remaining in the game.
To start the fourth quarter, graduate transfer Mackenzie Beam made a mark in her debut for Tech by feeding Schotta for her first goal. Beam gained possession of the ball within Tech's own 12 meters then carried the ball nearly the distance of the field before finding Schotta coming around the crease for a point-blank goal.
Little and Downey added a pair of goals before Schotta wrapped up the Hokies' scoring with 1:10 remaining in the game.
A big factor in the Hokies' ability to stay out in front was an 11-save performance by sophomore goalie Jocelyn Torres. Eleven saves stand as Torres' third-highest mark of her career and the most for her in a non-conference game.
Virginia Tech assisted on nine of its 10 goals, which is its highest single-game tally in assists since March 18, 2023 at Akron.
The Hokies will hit the road next for a Wednesday matchup with top-10 side JMU, which defeated No. 3 North Carolina on Saturday.
Skiera on overall performance:
"For starters, VCU gave us all we could handle today. Their goalie got hot and played exceptional. [She] made it so hard for us. Their zone defense was nice and they made the correct adjustments. They gave us a really tough time on the draw. It was great! I think to start the season, your weaknesses get exposed and you have to learn from it quick. We certainly have to learn from it quick because we head into next week and get a crack at two NCAA Tournament teams. It definitely wasn't perfect, [but] I'm happy we're 1-0 and we certainly have a lot of work to do."
Skiera on the team's nine assists on 10 goals:
"I guess that's a great takeaway; I didn't even know that! We were playing against a zone defense, so you're mainly going to assume that we're probably going to have more assisted looks than unassisted looks. This should be a good, fun offense to watch. We've got to grow and learn from this. Moving forward it should be a fun offense to watch because we have a lot of dangerous threats out there and everybody has become more of a feeder in the off-season. Hopefully, we can continue that trend and really keep working to set each other up."Gallery: (2-10-2024) LAX: Opener vs. VCU