No. 22 WVU women’s soccer beats No. 23 Penn State for the 1st time since 2017
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MORGANTOWN -- West Virginia women's soccer’s last win against Penn State was in 2017. It's not like the Mountaineers haven't had talented teams. WVU's been to the NCAA tournament multiple times since then, just never had a team to beat the rival Nittany Lions.
But after nine years and in the 30th year of the program, WVU finally found a team to break the streak. The No. 22 Mountaineers beat No. 23 Penn State 2-1 Thursday night, breaking a nine-game winless streak.
"It means this team is special," head coach Nikki Izzo-Brown said. "This team wanted to make history. They wanted to leave something that hasn't been done, and we talked about it in the pregame. It's incredible that these young women can walk away from a game like that and break that terrible monkey off our back."
WVU is now 2-0 on the season and picked up its first ranked win of 2026. The Mountaineers have a quick turnaround and play Duquesne on Sunday, Aug. 23 at 1 p.m.
It wasn't an easy feat, and it shouldn't be breaking a long winless streak. Penn State scored in the first 11 minutes, making it look like history would repeat itself. The Nittany Lions' Anna Babcock found some space and slotted it right past WVU goalkeeper Bailey Herfurth.
"They're so good on the counterattack," Izzo-Brown said. "Obviously, we were out of shape. We weren't protecting our back line. Ava (Arnold) was a little too high. We felt they were trying to overload when we should have stepped out and made sure that wasn't such an easy ball."
But the Mountaineers quickly took over from there. WVU attacked but just couldn't get one to find the back of the net. That was until forward Olivia Shertzer decided enough was enough and took a chance on a deep shot from outside the area. The ball clipped the bottom of the crossbar and went in for the equalizer in the 34th minute. Shertzer scored the third goal of her four-year career with the Mountaineers.
Shertzer, a veteran, is one of the players on the team that Izzo-Brown gives the green light to take a shot like that.
"I knew we needed to get some offense going in that moment," Shertzer said. "Just rip one and why not?"
Shertzer's goal was a bit more difficult than WVU's game-winning goal. The Mountaineers were exerting pressure in the second half, and forward Jordyn Wilson whipped in a perfectly placed cross, where Sophia Nickel could just tap it in for the lead. The Mountaineers were up 2-1 in the 68th minute, staring down history. Nickel scored WVU's only player goal against Dayton in Game 1.
"Sophia has just come up with some big, big goals and big moments," Izzo-Brown said. "Off the bench, she's just incredible and such a spark plug for us."
After that 11th-minute goal from Penn State, WVU didn't panic, knowing the nine-game history, and scored two unanswered goals. The Mountaineers outshot the Nittany Lions 11-7 as well.
"I thought we were fearless after that," Izzo-Brown said. "Sometimes you just got to take risks. You got to get forward. I thought the girls had that mentality, that last sprint mentality just to push."
It's a mentality you need to have if you want to change history -- a special mentality. WVU hasn't made it to the third round of the NCAA tournament since 2019, so maybe, after ending the streak against Penn State, that streak could end down the road.
A win over a ranked rival will definitely provide some confidence for the rest of the season.
"This is definitely a confidence boost," Shertzer said. "They said in nine years, that's kind of crazy."