The No. 6 Virginia women’s lacrosse team (10-5, 3-3 ACC) earned a 17-9 victory over No. 11 Louisville (9-5, 1-4 ACC) on Sunday (April 12) in the first-ever meeting between the two teams.
Trailing 4-3, Virginia scored six-straight goals, including three from senior Casey Bocklet (South Salem, N.Y.), in the final 19 minutes of the first half to take a 9-4 lead into the break. Louisville went on a 4-0 run midway through the second half, making it a 12-9 game with 14:04 remaining, but the Cavaliers shut out the Cardinals the remainder of the game while adding five more goals of their own, including a hat trick from junior Kelly Boyd (Baltimore, Md.), to earn their 10th victory of the season.
Bocklet, one of eight Cavaliers to score in the game, contributed seven points with four goals and three assists. Boyd also scored four goals with an assist. Senior Courtney Swan (Vero Beach, Fla.) had two goals with three assists.
“I am really proud of how our girls played today,” said Virginia head coach Julie Myers. “It was a really clean game without a lot of mistakes. Having eight people score our 17 goals shows that we were being very efficient. Our defense did a nice job. They cracked a little bit, but then they came back together and got stops when they were really important. This was a great team effort that resulted in a big win.”
The Cardinals’ Hannah Koloski scored three goals on 12 shots.
Virginia outshot Louisville, 20-10, in the first half but the Cardinals held a 17-12 edge in the second half.
Virginia only had two turnovers in the game and was 11-of-12 on clear attempts. Louisville committed seven turnovers, including five in the first half.
Louisville’s Kaylin Morissette won 13 of Louisville’s 16 draw controls. Virginia won 12 draws.
Bocklet started Virginia’s 6-0 first-half run by scoring on a pass from junior Mary Alati (Glen Ridge, N.J.). Bocklet set up the second goal of the run, knocking the ball out of the Louisville goalkeeper’s net, picking up the ground ball and smashing in a shot into an open goal. After Swan scored an unassisted goal with 8:46remaining, Bocklet lobbed a pass over the goal to a sophomore Kelly Reese (Severna Park, Md.) in front of the net with 4:27 remaining. Virginia held possession of the ball in the final two minutes of the half, with Bocklet passing to freshman Kasey Behr (Northport, N.Y.) with 11 seconds remaining to give UVa a 9-4 advantage. Swan won the ensuing draw control, passing the ball ahead to redshirt senior Liza Blue (Butler, Md.) who scored on the fast break two seconds before the end of the period.
Alati scored the first goal of the second half less than a minute into the period to build the Virginia advantage to 10-4.
An unassisted goal by Blue with 11:34 remaining stopped the Louisville four-goal scoring run. Starting with a goal with 7:04 remaining, Virginia scored four goals each roughly 1:30 apart with Boyd scoring three of the team and assisting on the fourth.
Virginia closes out the regular-season on Friday, April 17 when it hosts Virginia Tech at 6 p.m. TheApril 17 game is sponsored by Virginia529, the official college savings plan of University of Virginia Athletics. There is one point at stake in the Virginia529 Commonwealth Clash, the new point rivalry series between University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. The Cavaliers currently lead the Clash by a score of 9 to 7. Learn more about Virginia529 and this new competition at TheCommonwealthClash.com.
Single-game reserved seats are available for all women’s home games for $7. Single-game general admission adult tickets for women’s home games are $5, while youth (18 and under), seniors (60 and over), and UVa faculty and staff tickets are $4 each.
The Cavaliers will also be hosting the ACC Tournament at Klöckner Stadium April 23-26. All-session tickets are $14 for reserved seats, $10 for general admission adult tickets and $8 for students and seniors. Single-session tickets are $7 for reserved seats, $5 for general admission adult tickets and $4 for students and seniors.
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