Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 12 No. 2 | October 2019

SAVING THE F our years ago, the Virginia Tech women’s soccer program found its superhero in Mandy McGlynn— and the record-setting goalkeeper has been preserving Tech’s chances at soccer victories ever since by Jimmy Robertson The Jacksonville Football Club squad—her club team—lost that regional championship match and also appeared to lose an opportunity to go to the United States Youth Soccer Association (USYSA) tournament. Yet shortly thereafter, the winning team was disqualified for using ineligible players, and that squad’s cheating led to McGlynn and her team receiving a berth to the national tournament being held at the Maryland Soccer Complex in College Park, Maryland. She and her teammates made the most of it, too—behind McGlynn, they won the national championship. It was the ultimate twist of fate for her, as she avenged that regional loss and made a national name for herself in the process. More than 80 college coaches attended the tournament that saw her team dominate—including those from Virginia Tech. In need of a goalkeeper, Chugger Adair, the Hokies’ coach, reached out to McGlynn to start what became a successful recruiting process. “I wasn’t really being looked at by colleges at that point at all,”McGlynn said. “I remember the first game.My outside backdrewaPK [penalty kick] in the box, and … there were a lot of coaches on the sideline, and I saved it. So that turned a lot of heads. We kept doing well in the tournament, and we ended up going to the finals. I was making some good saves and being consistent, and my team won. From then on out, I started getting a lot of looks from colleges, and Virginia Tech was one of them.” T he ball came bouncing lazily toward her, and she squatted down, preparing to make the type of save that she had made a thousand times before during her young, but burgeoning, soccer career. Then the inexplicable happened. She evidently looked away before corralling it—she isn’t quite sure—and the ball hopped between her legs, settling into the back of the goal. Dejected, her rare mistake ultimately cost her club team the regional championship. Reinforcing the truth that great athletes remember their worst plays more than their best, Mandy McGlynn vividly recalls every detail of that fateful soccer match. “That was a really hard game, and knowing that my team wouldn’t go on was a really hard fact,” she said. Unlike most, though, McGlynn got a second chance. That second chance has paid off astronomically, as it—without question—led her to Virginia Tech, where she recently broke the school record for career shutouts and continues to cement her status as one of the best goalkeepers in program history. Many of those in the know about Tech women’s soccer unequivocally claim her as the best. Behind the 20-year-old’s sturdy play in goal—and a balanced offense—the Hokies appear to be in great position for an NCAA Championship berth for the second consecutive year and for the 10th time in the past 12 seasons. Yet that they find themselves in this spot probably goes back to the second chance that fate gave McGlynn back in 2015. 38 Inside Hokie Sports