The No. 9 Virginia men’s lacrosse team earned a major 18-12 victory over High Point Wednesday night, bouncing back after a tough loss to No. 8 Penn this past weekend.
“It feels great to come off this win, bouncing back from that loss from Penn,” freshman attackman Michael Kraus said.
The Cavaliers (4-1) responded with a high-energy effort that coach Lars Tiffany lauded.
“What I’m really happy about was the energy we played with tonight,” Tiffany said. “We flew around, we played really fast and we were aggressive and we created a tempo that we were hoping for.”
Freshman midfielder Dox Aitken said having a midweek matchup as opposed to waiting a whole week before the team’s next game turned out to be a positive for Virginia.
“It was good to have a game midweek, so we didn’t have a week to kind of sit on the loss,” Aitken said.
Kraus said the focus on Wednesday’s match against High Point (2-3) allowed Virginia to put the loss behind them.
“You can’t harp or dwell on the mistakes that we made because you have to focus for the next game,” Kraus said. “So I think that kind of gives us an advantage to get over it quick and move on.”
Virginia came out of the gates on fire, especially dominating in the second period where they scored seven goals and allowed none. The Cavaliers took an 11-3 lead into halftime, and it looked as if they were going to run away with the match.
However, High Point came out of the intermission and put up a good performance in the third period, outscoring Virginia 6-3.
Aitken talked about how Virginia made some mistakes in the third quarter that allowed High Point to go on the run that they did. He said these mistakes could have possibly come from too much aggressiveness.
“In the third quarter a little bit ... we gave them a little run, we made some mistakes, but they were aggressive mistakes,” Aitken said.
However, Virginia was able to bounce back with a solid fourth period and finished the match on a high note and a win.
“I think in the fourth quarter, we kind of cleaned it up a little bit and played smart and aggressive as well,” Aitken said.
Virginia ended the game with 28 turnovers to High Point’s 23. The number of turnovers was high. Tiffany said that the high number arose because of the system that Virginia runs and the fast style of play that they run.
“We don’t usually work about turnovers,” Tiffany said. “Twenty eight might be an all-time high, but it’s part of this system.”
After the match, Aitken talked about the resiliency Virginia showed in coming out and playing the way that they did against High Point.
“I think we’re a very resilient team,” Aitken said. “I think we can attack you in a lot of ways.”
After last weekend’s loss to Pennsylvania, Tiffany told his team to continue to work and practice hard in addition to letting go of the loss. Now after a win, Tiffany said he is excited to continue to work with the team and see how they continue to practice and compete.
“I’m eager to keep working with this team,” Tiffany said. “I’m eager to see how hard we work the next two days of practice after a win.”
The Cavaliers will now get ready for their first ACC match of the season as they travel to No. 12 Syracuse this weekend to take on the Orange. That match is scheduled for Sunday at 12 p.m. at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y.
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