Nov 19, 2016 By Jacob Meyer for The 5 min read

MORGANTOWN — The goal seemed smaller for the No. 1 women’s soccer team in the nation Friday night. In West Virginia’s first 24 shots, only three were on goal, none of which went for scores, causing the NCAA second-round matchup against unranked Ohio State to go into double overtime.

With a penalty-kick shootout looming, senior midfielder Ashley Lawrence, who played right back Friday, hammered a shot from just outside the box that hit the crossbar. The ball bounced straight to West Virginia’s junior midfielder Carla Portillo, who passed it to junior forward Michaela Abam with about seven minutes left in the second overtime.

Abam then seemed to send a cross near the goal, but the lofting kick from nearly 30 yards out was just out of the reach of sophomore goalkeeper Devon Kerr and went through the top left pocket of the goal to send the Mountaineers (21-1-1) to the Sweet 16 and the Buckeyes (11-7-3) home.

Abam said the shot was not a cross, as it’s one she has had success with in the past. She practices the shot and scored with it last week in a first-round win over Northern Kentucky. The goal was Abam’s team-leading 11th of the season.

“I kind of just took a look and placed it,” Abam said. “We’ve been working on that all year when we have forwards club every single week. It’s something we’ve been working on and [it] finally came through.”

Head coach Nikki Izzo-Brown said she got to the point in the match where she was almost counting the “missed opportunities,” but that her team stayed resilient.

“I just felt that it was going to take something special or for someone to do something just a little bit more special or change something up,” she said. “But most importantly [I told them to] stick with their jobs and their soccer IQ.”

Both teams were without the goalie that started the season in net. West Virginia’s freshman goalie Rylee Foster is playing for Canada in the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, while Ohio State’s Jillian McVicker suffered a career-ending injury in the form of a lacerated kidney and a punctured lung in September. Both goalies had started a large portion of their team’s matches, though, and the match was an offensive struggle throughout most of the contest.

After not many scoring chances for either team in the first 25 minutes of the match, Ohio State had one of its best chances to score in the 27th minute, but senior forward Nichelle Prince’s shot was stopped by junior goalkeeper Michelle Newhouse.

The Buckeyes did not have another shot until the 80th minute, and the save was the only one Newhouse had to make in the match that lasted more than 103 minutes. On the night, the Mountaineers outshot the Buckeyes 26 to five.

Izzo-Brown said a big part to the defensive effort by the Mountaineers was senior centerback Kadeisha Buchanan, who neutralized Prince. The shutout marks a school-record 16th for West Virginia.

Kadeisha has anchored that back line to 16 shutouts, which is incredible,” Izzo-Brown said. “Our whole team defends, but without [Kadeisha’s] voice, it would have been a whole lot different.”

Buchanan said her and Prince are competitive with each other, going back to their days playing together in U-15 soccer. She said communication is key when dealing with a player of Prince’s caliber.

“She had a great game today, and I think it was a battle between the whole back line in general,” Buchanan said. “We did a great job of communicating on the pitch of where she was at all times. I think once we start to get complacent and I’m not worried about her, she becomes very dangerous. She’s a very pacey player, so we always have to be cite on our back foot and ready to win the race. I think we did just that tonight.”

Ohio State head coach Lori Walker was pleased with the defensive effort of her team.

“We really executed exactly what we wanted to do,” she said. “We were able to keep them in wide areas and really frustrate them. We had our chances. We had a few really good opportunities, you know, to break away, and all it takes is one as we saw in overtime.”

Several opportunities in the second half either started with a cross from sophomore forward Hannah Abraham or ended with a chance to score from the Fairchance native.

In a 2-1 win against the Buckeyes in early September, the Albert Gallatin alumna scored the first goal of her season — a game-winning header.

Despite nothing coming to fruition for Abraham, who played 47 minutes off the bench, Izzo-Brown was pleased with her performance.

“The one thing you can always control is your effort, and I thought Hannah did a great job controlling that effort,” Izzo-Brown said. “If I’m going to give her an ‘A,’ I’m giving her an ‘A’ for that and her performance. Obviously we want everyone to score when you’re a forward, but she did everything I asked of her and more. I was very proud of Hannah Abraham.”

The Mountaineers will take on UCLA for the first time in school history Sunday in the Sweet 16. Game time is set for 2:30 p.m. at Dick Dlesk Stadium in Morgantown, West Virginia.