Mark Cockerton scored a career-high six goals and the Virginia Cavaliers (2-0) cruised to an 18-4 triumph over the visiting VMI Keydets (0-3), Tuesday evening at Klöckner Stadium. The win is UVa’s 30th-straight mid-week contest, dating back to 2001.
“I told the guys in the locker room that I was the most pleased with our attentiveness,” said Virginia head coach Dom Starsia. “VMI had the ball a little bit early, but as the game wasn’t being threatened so much, I said at one of the timeouts that I wanted VMI to have the ball because I wanted us to go through the exercise of it.
“I thought we were a lot more attentive tonight than we were on Saturday and that’s a step in the right direction. There were some things that we watched on film from Saturday that helped us prepare for this one, and we need to continue to get better as we move forward.”
VMI started the scoring after Bernie Mowbray scored a man-up goal at 13:07, via an Eric Groleau pass. UVa was man-down after Tanner Ottenbreit was charged with tripping.
After the early VMI goal, it was all Virginia. The Cavaliers held the Keydets scoreless for the next 44:08. When VMI scored its next goal at 13:59 in the fourth quarter, UVa had already reeled off 15-straight goals, including Cockerton’s six.
Nick O’Reilly and Cockerton took turns scoring the first four goals, finishing the early spurt with two apiece. Then Rob Emery and Cockerton traded goals twice to take the 8-1 advantage. After another Cockerton goal, Owen Van Arsdale scored twice to conclude the first half scoring. UVa entered the intermission with an 11-1 lead.
UVa scored four goals, while VMI tallied zero in the third quarter. In mop up time in the final stanza, the Keydets hit the nylon three times. UVa tallied three goals as well in the fourth quarter, including the game’s final two goals to cap off the victory.
O’Reilly added three goals and one assist, while James Pannell led UVa with three helpers. Nine Cavaliers scored goals against VMI, including the first career goals by Matt Florence and Greg Coholan.
Virginia won the shots battle (64-25), ground balls (57-43), faceoffs (14-12) and had 20 fewer turnovers (12-32). VMI goalie Matt Lindemann had 24 saves.
Virginia returns to action on Saturday when they travel to Long Island to take on the Stony Brook Seawolves of the America East Conference. Faceoff is slated for noon. The contest will be broadcast live locally in Charlottesville on WINA 1070 AM.
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