Steele Stanwick dished out a career-high seven assists and Chris Bocklet and Rob Emery scored four goals each to pace the No. 1 Virginia Cavaliers (6-0) to a 16-10 triumph over the Vermont Catamounts (0-4) Tuesday night, inside Klöckner Stadium.
With the seven assists, Stanwick moved past Mike Caravana and Danny Glading into fifth place on the UVa career list with 111. The performance also moved the senior captain past Matt Ward and Kris Snider into seventh place all-time in the UVa annals with 215 career points. Bocklet’s day pushed the senior into a tie for No. 8 all-time at UVa in career goals with 116, tied with Chase Monroe.
“It was a little bit of a struggle throughout the night,” said UVa men’s lacrosse head coach Dom Starsia. “There were moments when I thought that we got on top of the game, but nothing really came to us easily tonight. We have played a lot of lacrosse and coming in 48 hours on top of what we did a couple days ago [Syracuse game], I was a little concerned that we wouldn’t be as sharp as what we needed to be and that turned out to be the case. At the same time, I am not going to turn my nose up at a win and it was nice to get everybody into the game and give them a chance to make a play.”
Vermont started the scoring on a Connor McNamara goal at the 10:11 mark in the first quarter. UVa scored four goals in a row, including three by Emery to take the 4-1 advantage. Stanwick found Emery at the 5:45 mark in the opening stanza to cap the run.
Bocklet scored two goals in a 4-2 UVa spurt going into the intermission. Stanwick assisted three of the four goals during the run, giving UVa a 8-3 lead at the break.
Virginia held a 5-1 advantage during the third period, pushing its lead to nine goals, 13-4. Starsia emptied his bench in the fourth quarter as Vermont finished the game on a 6-3 streak, but it wasn’t enough as the Cavaliers picked up the home triumph.
The Cavaliers won the ground ball battle, 56-32, the most ground balls by a UVa team since picking up 63 against VMI last season. UVa also won 22-of-30 faceoffs, the most faceoff wins since 22 against Duke in the 2010 ACC Tournament. Ryan Benincasa led the way, going 13-of-14 at the faceoff X, while Rob Fortunato saved eight in between the pipes through three quarters of play, picking up the win.
Carl Walrath and Taylor Michel scored their first collegiate goals in the fourth quarter for the Cavaliers.
UVa returns to action on Saturday in the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic against the No. 3 Cornell Big Red. The contest will be televised live on ESPNU from Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium, the site of UVa’s 2011 run to the NCAA title. Faceoff is set for 1 p.m.
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Chris Graham
