Ten different Cavaliers scored goals as No. 6 UVA (3-0) rolled to a 20-13 victory over the visiting Siena Saints (0-3) on Tuesday night, inside Klöckner Stadium.
“I felt like we were fortunate to have some really great goalie play today,” said Virginia head men’s lacrosse coach Lars Tiffany. “I thought Will [Railey] really stepped up. We had gone into pregame thinking we’d split goalies, but at the half Will had played really well and continued to play really well. The team defense in front of him wasn’t as stellar. It’s something we still have to continue to find.”
Virginia started out hot, opening the game on a 9-3 run. Zed Williams started the scoring on a Ryan Conrad helper 1:02 into the game. Michael Kraus scored back-to-back goals to put UVA up 3-0 after only 2:59 expired on the game clock.
Siena responded with three-straight goals to even the score, 3-3, with 5:29 left in the first quarter. After Brian Prunty scored for Siena to tie the game, the Saints didn’t score again for the next 8:07 and by that time Virginia reeled off six-straight goals to end that early 9-3 run. Ryan Lukacovic capped the Virginia sprint with 13:00 left in the second quarter.
“We are pouring gas on the fire at this point,” said Tiffany in regards to the offensive pace of play. “They [UVA players] really love to play this fast, frenzied style. We wanted to step on the gas even more so tonight and you saw that when we moved the ball to the offensive end. We don’t want to settle, we don’t want to sub and we want to make the opposing defensive coach uncomfortable the entire 60 minutes, and I thought we did a great job there.”
Virginia closed the first half with a narrow 4-3 margin to take a 13-5 lead into the intermission.
Siena used goals from Eric Munn, Chris Robertson and Keenan Cook to outscore UVA in the third quarter, 3-2. The fourth quarter UVA outscored Siena, 5-4 to punctuate the victory.
“Their goalie saw a lot of shots from us,” said Tiffany. “He started making some saves in that third quarter, keeping that score close when we could have really pushed further ahead. We just telling the guys to keep playing and to keep shooting, they have to start falling eventually and fortunately a few more did start falling in the fourth quarter.”
Virginia won the battle of the shots (52-42), ground balls (60-44) and saves (14-11). Faceoffs were tied (19-19) and Siena had more turnovers (19-15).
UVA was led by Williams’ game-high four goals and six points. Kraus had three goals and three assists to also lead UVA with six points. Joe French also added a hat-trick and collected one assist. UVA received the first career goals from Milan Murray, who finished with two. Cameron Stafford scored his first career UVA goal after transferring from Vermont where he scored 24 over the last two seasons for the Catamounts.
Virginia returns to action on Saturday when they travel to Philadelphia to face No. 17 Penn. Faceoff is set for 1 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on ESPN3.
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Chris Graham
