The goalkeeper gloves are always within reach. Mary Casey never knows when she might need them, so she keeps a pair tucked away in a corner of her equipment bag just in case.

On most game nights, Casey doesn’t ever pull them out. She’s spent virtually the entire travel season with the Northern Virginia Majestics U-23 soccer squad playing defense — a position she’s excelled at for three seasons at the University of Maryland.

 

And Majestics coach Jac Cicala would love to keep her there. The best team he can put on the field this summer would have Casey anchoring the defense and West Virginia University star Kerri Butler in goal.

 

Only Butler has a back injury that will likely keep her off the field until she returns to school in the fall, so Cicala has instituted a three-goalie rotation of Olivia Brown, Jackie DesJardin and Casey to take her place.

 

On Saturday it was Casey’s turn.

Her first start of the season coincided with the arrival of the best team in the United Soccer’s League’s Atlantic Division — the Atlanta Silverbacks — and, while the Majestics lost 1-0, the rising senior showed why Maryland coach Brian Pensky promoted her to starting goalie midway through the 2008 campaign.

 

“My whole career I’ve been playing half and half. I’ve actually played three different positions,” Casey said. “I think it’s always good to learn something new.”

 

She adopted that philosophy early in her career, moving effortlessly from forward to keeper as an all-state performer at Chantilly, where Casey was also the MVP of the Chargers’ indoor track sprint team.

 

“This is pretty similar to the ACC, pretty athletic and pretty competitive,” said Casey, who spent three seasons playing in the Washington Freedom player development program prior to enrolling at Maryland.“It’s a great opportunity for me to stay sharp in the summer.”

 

The first five games of the season have been a learning experience for a young Majestics squad that is comprised mostly of collegiate underclassmen. Many of their best players just completed their freshman or sophomore seasons so a program that is looking to contend for a postseason berth in 2010 made significant progress with a 2-1 victory over Richmond last week and Saturday’s loss to the Silverbacks.

 

“We’ve been getting better every game. I think this was our best game,” Casey said. “We played them hard and made them look like they aren’t the best team.”

Playing without sophomore Stephanie Hylton, who had a summer camp commitment at Virginia Tech this weekend, the Majestics (1-4-0) challenged the division’s only undefeated team from the opening minute.

 

Radford’s Ashley Johnson and George Mason’s Kimmy Moss combined for six of the team’s eight shots on goal and Atlanta keeper Michelle Betos had to make several acrobatic stops to preserve her team’s fifth shutout victory.

 

“We’ve really started coming together as a team. We’ve created so many opportunities,” Moss said. “In the first minute we were right in front of the goal. The chemistry is clicking finally.”

 

Casey was a big part of that chemistry on Saturday by coming up with six saves and limiting the Silverbacks (6-0) to their lowest goal total of the season.

Atlanta’s only goal came on a free kick in the 44th minute from 17-year-old phenom Alexa Newfield, a University of Georgia recruit and rising senior star of a St. Pius High School team that captured Georgia’s Class AAA state championship and was ranked No. 9 in the nation.

 

“It’s exciting to get all those opportunities and to play as well as we did, but it’s about winning,” Moss said. “It’s frustrating that in the end they still had us, but we feel good about how we played.

 

“I’m an optimistic person so I’d like to think that we could win every game the rest of the season. So I’m hoping for that.”

 

The Majestics hit the road next weekend for a Friday night meeting with the Charlotte Eagles followed by a Saturday night rematch with Atlanta. Northern Virginia returns home in two weeks on Saturday, June 27th, to face Charlotte at Hellwig Memorial Field in Manassas, Virginia. Match time is scheduled for 6:00PM.