By Jeff White ([email protected])
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE — Less than a month after starring for the University of Virginia men’s soccer team at the College Cup in 2019, Daryl Dike turned pro. That created a terrific opportunity for his understudy at striker, Philip Horton.
“We felt like by the time he was done here, he was going to be pretty good,” UVA head coach George Gelnovatch said of Horton, who’s from New Albany, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. “He was going to be a goal-scorer and kind of a mainstay for us.”
With Dike off to Major League Soccer, “I kind of felt like the next heir to the throne,” Horton recalled this week. “I worked really hard over that winter break and came back strong.”
In January 2020, the Cavaliers reunited in Charlottesville, and Horton “was the best player in training,” Gelnovatch said. “For the first three weeks of training he was picking up right where he left off [in 2019]and then he got hurt.”
Not long before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, Horton tore the medial collateral ligament in his right knee. He returned in the fall and started seven games, but in the spring of 2021, when the Wahoos completed their pandemic-extended season, hamstring injuries hindered him.
After he recovered, Horton played for the Columbus Crew’s second team last summer, and “coming into the fall of ’21, we were all ready to try to get him going again,” Gelnovatch said.
About a week before Horton returned to Charlottesville, however, he tore his right MCL again, and he played in only four games for UVA last season.
“That piece, the injury piece, has really, really been tough for him,” Gelnovatch said. “So this is the first fall in a couple years that I feel like he’s come in mentally and physically energized.”
A 6-foot, 185-pound senior, Horton has worked with strength and conditioning coach Peter Alston and athletic trainer Kim Hinton to strengthen his hamstrings, and he hopes his injury woes are behind him.
Horton totaled three goals in the Wahoos’ two preseason games this month, and he’s eager to finally live up to his potential. UVA opens the season, its 27th under Gelnovatch, against Xavier at 7 pm Thursday at Klöckner Stadium.
“Obviously, being out for almost two years now, I’ve got some proving to do,” Horton said. “I was healthy [in the] spring and that helped out going into this fall. But I still had a lot of questions about my health and stuff like that from the coaches. They know what I can do on the field. I know what I can do on the field. So I’m just making sure I’m ready, basically, and showing them that I can do it.”
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