Women's soccer battles rival VCU to a draw

The University of Richmond women's soccer team fought through what the coaches called questionable officiating and two overtimes, scrapping its way to a 0-0 draw with cross-town rival Virginia Commonwealth University on Sunday at Sports Backers Stadium.

Spiders keeper Michelle Pecheco preserved the tie through 110 minutes of play, collecting 8 saves along the way, including a spectacular diving save with 5:00 minutes left during the first overtime.

"We got some great saves from [Pacheco]," said head coach Peter Albright. "We've been struggling as a team recently. We seemed to only be playing parts of games. Today was about proving to ourselves that we can play hard through the entire game and I think we did that."

Pacheco was beaten only once at 2:25 during the second overtime on a shot off the foot of VCU forward Lauryn Hutchinson, but the ball was deflected and tricked just past the right post, prompting a sigh of relief from the Spiders bench.

The game was physical with a lot of hard tackles and shoving, but the referee was hesitant to call penalties, even when freshman forward Shondel Archer appeared to be tackled from behind in the box at 27:50 in first half.

But the officiating was questionable for both sides, including an offside call against VCU at 6:15 in the second overtime.

"The officiating was shockingly bad," Albright said. "But it was bad on both sides of the ball. I mean girls were getting flattened out there, and no whistle. But for a tap they would make a call."

The Spiders played tough defense throughout the match, and even though they were out-shot 15-11, the Spiders forced the Rams to take most shots from well outside the box.

The Spiders walked away from the match satisfied to draw with their rivals from the Colonial Athletics Association.

"We're happy with a tie for now," said midfielder Kristin Runey. "We've been in kind of a slump recently."

Runey said that the difference in the game had been that Richmond had started more experienced players.

The Spiders will play Davidson College at home at Ukrop Park on Friday. With the tie, the Spiders moved to 2-4-1 for the season.

Contact reporter David Larter at david.larter@richmond.edu