Sunday was a familiar scene for coach Dom Starsia and the Virginia lacrosse team, as it defeated rival No. 8 Johns Hopkins in overtime for the third consecutive year. The Cavaliers (4-5, 0-2) won 13-12, in their first victory against a top-20 ranked team all season.
“It’s been extremely humbling. We’ve been working for a good win against a great team, and we finally got one,” sophomore attackman Mike D’Amario said.
D’Amario scored the winning goal against the Blue Jays just 19 seconds into the overtime period, his 12th of the season. Senior midfielder Greg Coholan was the hero in Virginia’s last two wins over Johns Hopkins, scoring the winning goal in both games. Coholan sent Sunday’s game into overtime with his game-tying goal, his third of the evening and tenth of the year.
Virginia overcame another slow start to the game to pull out the hard-fought win, going down 4-0 early. Yet the Cavaliers remained resilient, and through a combination of ground balls and face-off wins remained the more aggressive team.
"I think it all started off with ground balls for us. Just getting those second opportunities is big for us and it just gets us flowing," Coholan said.
Virginia picked up 46 ground balls, while Johns Hopkins only snatched 24. The Cavaliers also won the face-off battle 18-10. The face-off X has been an area Virginia has succeeded in all year, as sophomore midfielder Jason Murphy has won 64.3 percent of his draws. The Cavaliers will continue to find success if they keep playing aggressive and win the ground-ball and face-off battles.
"We just need to never stop fighting. We need to not let our heads get down and keep being optimistic," D’Amario said.
Virginia — which received votes to be in the top-20 — will not face another a ranked team until it faces No. 17 North Carolina and No. 11 Duke in consecutive games in mid-April.
The Cavaliers will remain at Klöckner Stadium for their upcoming game against in-state foe VMI Tuesday. The Keydets (1-9) are a familiar opponent for Virginia, as this will be the 23rd meeting between the schools. Thus far the Cavaliers have dominated the matchup, going 22-0 and having an average margin of victory of 17.6 goals.
The Keydets only win on the season came in a 10-7 victory against the New Jersey Institute of Technology in late February. Since then they have lost seven straight games. Virginia and VMI share two common opponents this year — Saint Joseph’s and Richmond. Virginia beat Saint Joseph’s 9-7 in Charlottesville, while the Keydets lost to the Hawks in their season opener 5-15 and to Richmond 6-11 in early March.
The Keydets may not be the same level of competition that Johns Hopkins presents. However, they will be sporting a new team look under first year coach Jon Birsner. Birsner was previously an assistant coach at Furman.
The Keydets are led by sophomore midfielder Wesley Sanders, who has 19 goals and 22 points on the season. No other VMI player has more than 10 points on the year.
Senior attackman James Pannell leads the Cavaliers with 17 goals and 25 points. Junior midfielder Zed Williams, D’Amario, junior attackman Ryan Lukacovic and Coholan are the other players with 10 or more goals on the season. Coholan also leads the team with 10 assists.
The goalies for both teams have performed similarly this year. For Virginia, junior Matt Barrett saves 44.8 percent of shots, while posting a 10.63 goals against average. Sophomore Joe Riccadonna saves 47 percent of shots, but allows 14.12 per game for VMI.
2016 marks the 11th consecutive season the two teams have played, with the series starting in 1949. Starsia is 15-0 against the Keydets.
The game is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday night at Klöckner Stadium.
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