The No. 8 UVa. Cavaliers (8-3, 1-2 ACC) were unable to overcome a late deficit, falling to the No. 4 Maryland Terrapins (8-1, 3-1 ACC) on a wet and windy Sunday afternoon at Byrd Stadium. Maryland limited the Cavaliers to only 10 offensive possessions in the second half.
“I thought Maryland carried the play to us on the ground in the second half and that was the difference,” said Virginia men’s lacrosse head coach dom starsia. “We were not winning faceoffs easily and Nikko [Amato] makes some saves there in the third quarter when we had a chance to stay in the game, climb in the game, extend our lead perhaps. I don’t think it was one thing today, but a few little things. I thought Maryland upped the ante in the second half.”
The game was scoreless until the 6:22 mark when Connor Cannizzaro found Bryan Cole to give Maryland the 1-0 lead. Zed Williams broke through for UVa with an unassisted goal at 5:34 to tie the game at 1-1. Williams’ goal started a 4-0 UVa run that gave the Cavaliers an early 4-1 advantage. Ryan Tucker, Rob Emery and Tyler German all scored goals during the spurt. German’s unassisted goal at 8:26 in the second quarter capped the UVa run.
Henry West scored back-to-back goals to bring Maryland within one goal, 4-3. West capped the Maryland run at 2:44. Nate Menninger won the ensuing faceoff for UVa and found James Pannell nine seconds later to extend Virginia’s lead back to two goals, 5-3.
Maryland came out on fire in the third quarter scoring four consecutive goals to take a 7-5 lead. West capped the run with his third goal of the game at 5:49. Williams found Owen Van Arsdale with 1:55 left in the third quarter to cut UVa’s deficit to one goal, 7-6. UVa didn’t get any closer.
Maryland scored the only two goals of the fourth quarter, the first an extra-man score by Joe LoCascio after Joseph Lisicky was charged with a pushing penalty. Matt Rambo finished the scoring with a goal at 3:37 on a pass from West.
Maryland won the battle of shots (33-24), ground balls (35-22), faceoffs (14-5) and had more turnovers (17-10). UVa’s Matt Barrett had 11 saves to Amato’s 10.
The Maryland defense held UVa to only nine second half shots after the Cavaliers totaled nine shots in the second quarter alone.
Mark Cockerton failed to score a goal for UVa, snapping his streak of 24 straight games with a goal, the second-longest active streak in the nation entering Sunday. Williams led UVa with two points, one goal and one assist. West led Maryland with five points on a career-high three goals.
UVa returns to action on Saturday when the Cavaliers travel to North Carolina. Faceoff is set for 3 p.m. and the game will be televised live on ESPNU in HD.
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Chris Graham
