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Field hockey: No. 4 Virginia shuts out Pacific, 6-0

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The No. 4 Virginia field hockey team (9-1, 2-0 ACC) closed out its current homestand with a 6-0 victory over Pacific (4-6, 0-2 America East) on Monday (Sept. 25) at University Hall Turf Field in Charlottesville, Va.

uva field hockeyFreshman midfielder Pien Dicke (Den Haag, Netherlands) scored a hat trick while sophomore back Anzel Viljoen (Matamata, New Zealand) scored two goals with an assist.

The Cavaliers held a 24-9 shot advantage, though seven of Pacific’s nine attempts were on goal. Redshirt junior Carrera Lucas (Brooklandville, Md.) and freshman Lauren Hausheer (West Windsor, N.J.) split time in goal for the Cavaleirs with Lucas making two saves and Hausheer stopping five shots.

This was Virginia’s eighth straight victory and its third consecutive shutout.

“It was a really good defensive effort out there today,” said Virginia head coach Michele Madison. “We had so much emphasis on the attack through preseason, but the defense really grew as we played the game against different styles of play. I think the schedule really helped and the type of opponents we were facing. Pacific was playing a sagging defense, so that slows the game down a bit. To beat that press, we came out fast in the second half or after the timeout. I was happy with how we possessed the ball and we were able to get a lot of people in there and we put a team effort on the field. This team as a whole is really starting to gel. They really like playing with each other. They are able to find each other better and they are reading their leads. We’ll just keep working on it to build the game.”

Virginia scored its first four goals by taking advantage of penalty corner opportunities. Viljoen got the Cavaliers on the board 8:30 into the contest, scoring after finding a loose ball in front of the net after an initial save after a penalty corner. Senior midfielder Tara Vittese (Cherry Hill, N.J.) converted a penalty corner eight minutes later to make it a 2-0 lead. Dicke deflected in a shot from sophomore back Dominique van Slooten (Laren, Netherlands) after a penalty corner eight minutes later to put UVA up 3-0. Viljoen had the shot from the top of the circle after a penalty corner insertion with three minutes remaining in the first half to give UVA a 4-0 lead.

Dicke scored the Cavaliers’ two second-half goals, both of which were opportunities she created up herself. She drove into the circle and took a quick, hard shot from just inside the line at the 44-minute mark to make it 5-0 and then wrapped up the scoring with another hard shot after dribbling deeper into the circle 12 minutes later.

This was Dicke’s fourth hat trick of the season and her second in the last three games. The freshman is third in the nation in scoring with 15 goals this season.

The last time a team scored on the Cavaliers was a goal by Estelle Hughes 13:26 into the game against William & Mary on Sept. 15, giving the Cavaliers’ defense a span of 266:34 without allowing a goal.

Virginia played nine of its first 10 games of the season at Turf Field, but will be back on the road next weekend, playing at No. 11 Wake Forest (5-4, 2-1 ACC) on Friday, Sept. 29 at 6 p.m. The Cavaliers return to Turf Field the next weekend, hosting No. 6 North Carolina on Friday, Oct. 6 and Drexel on Sunday, Oct. 8.

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