The No. 8 Virginia Cavaliers (5-1) scored five goals in the fourth quarter to escape with a 12-10 victory over the Vermont Catamounts (1-4) on Tuesday afternoon inside Klöckner Stadium. The win was UVa.’s 32nd midweek triumph in a row, dating back to 2001.
“The effort and the preparation were not good enough,” said Virginia head coach Dom Starsia. “I told the kids afterwards that’s not how we want to be, not how we want to live our lives and play lacrosse. You can’t take these things for granted. You can’t mail in an effort. Give Vermont credit first and foremost, they played hard throughout the game. We had a little bit of grit that was able to pull us out. We’ve been good at the end of these games in the past couple of weeks. That speaks to who we are overall, it doesn’t matter who the opponent is. We’ve been playing a lot of lacrosse, but that’s not an excuse. A ‘W’ beats an ‘L’, but only by a little in this case.”
Though Virginia trailed most of the game, Tuesday’s contest did not start out that way. Virginia quickly grabbed a 2-0 lead. Owen Van Arsdale took advantage of a Vermont defender who fell down, streaking to the cage for the game’s first goal 54 seconds into the game. Roughly four minutes later, Van Arsdale found Nick O’Reilly for the two-goal lead.
Vermont scored the game’s next three goals to take the Catamounts first lead of the game, 3-2. Tim Yager, Andrew Buckanavage and Drew Philie all scored goals during the run to finish the first quarter.
Mark Cockerton ripped the nylon at 13:08 in the second quarter to tie the game 3-3, but Vermont reeled off three more goals to take a 6-3 lead. Thomas Martin scored and Yager scored back-to-back goals, the latter capping the run at 4:32 before the intermission.
Matt White reacted for UVa, taking passes from Rob Emery and Cockerton to bring the Cavaliers within one at the half, 6-5.
The Catamounts started the second half scoring at 8:49 when Graham Horvath scored on an A.J. Masson helper. Van Arsdale and Greg Coholan scored back-to-back goals to tie the game, 7-7, ending the third quarter scoring. Van Arsdale also assisted Coholan’s goal.
Horvath and Yager wasted no time in the fourth quarter, giving Vermont a 9-7 lead with 12:04 to play. Patrick Clark assisted both goals.
Virginia came roaring back, scoring three goals in a row to take a 10-9 lead, its first since the 3:44 mark in the first quarter. Ryan Tucker scored on an Emery pass, followed by a James Pannell goal via a Charlie Streep dime. Emery found Tucker again to cap the run at 5:26.
Philie dug deep at 4:45 and scored unassisted to bring Vermont even, 10-10. On the ensuring faceoff Andrew Muscara beat Mick Parks. Tanner Scales then stripped his outlet pass to A.J. Masson and Bobby Hill picked up the ground ball. Pushing the ball in transition, Hill found a wide-open Greg Danseglio just past midfield who streaked toward the cage and scored his first career goal in the unsettled situation. The goal coming with 4:14 gave Virginia the lead for good, 11-10. Van Arsdale found Emery with 1:31 remaining for the game’s final goal.
“They did a good job, when they turned the ball over, of getting back in the hole,” said Starsia. “We didn’t get a lot of transition and we didn’t have that quick step in the middle of the field that creates those situations. We had to come down, even though we were behind, and maintain our poise and patience on offense. We just weren’t going to throw it to the first guy that moved. That’s hard to do when things aren’t going well or you haven’t had the ball in a while. I thought we showed a little poise at the end of the game, enough so we could score a couple goals at the end and get the win. We’re happy about that. You learn a little bit from everything you do and I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned here.”
After being outshot in the first half 22-15, UVa won the battle for the game 43-30, holding Vermont to only eight shots in the second half. Ground balls were even in the first half (19-19), but UVa also came out on top of that battle in the final stat lines, 32-26. Vermont won the faceoffs 14-12, being called for seven 30-second warnings to UVa’s four. Virginia scored two of its goals off those warnings.
Van Arsdale led all players with five points (two goals and three assists), while Emery had one goal and three assists. Yager was Vermont’s top scorer with four goals.
Virginia returns to action on Saturday when the No. 3 Cornell Big Red invades Klöckner Stadium. Faceoff is set for 1 p.m.
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Chris Graham
