The Virginia field hockey team had two reasons to celebrate last night. Not only was it coach Jessica Wilk's birthday, but the team rebounded from a loss to No. 1 Maryland by surpassing Virginia Commonwealth, 6-0.
"We really were working on just trying to do the very simple, getting back to basics," Wilk said.
"We need to pass to a stick. We need to see our teammates right away. We need to talk to each other more," said junior midfielder Carrie Goodloe, who contributed three goals.
The No. 10 Cavs (5-4) started the game strong and cut off many of Virginia Commonwealth's passes. But in the latter part of the half, the Cavs could not complete passes or spread the field with crosses. However, VCU (1-8) could not take advantage of the Virginia lapse and had only one short corner and one shot in the first half.
Virginia came at VCU freshman keeper Anne Forrester with 12 shots in the half and scored on three. Junior midfielder Jessica Coleman had two goals, and Goodloe scored a beautiful goal with her reverse stick.
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At halftime the Cavs discussed several tactics for the second half of play.
"We decided to focus our game," Goodloe said. "We got really jumbled in the first half, and we were crashing defensively, and we just weren't playing tough defense."
"We let the backs know that they needed to be more aware, and we need to use switching the field more," Coleman added.
Virginia dominated the second half. The Cavs had eight short corners and 20 shots.
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VCU sophomore forward Tavris Parker gave Virginia a brief scare with her one-handed dribbling, but Virginia defenders denied the brief threat quickly. VCU took no shots in the second half. Meanwhile, freshman forward Katie Nicholson scored a goal for the Cavs and Goodloe scored two to earn her hat trick.
The hat trick "wasn't so much just me," Goodloe said. "It was a lot of our teammates. They were passing really well tonight, and fortunately I was able to get open in the middle. I was able to take a quick step and beat my defender."
To prepare for its trip to Philadelphia to play West Chester Sunday, Virginia again will practice the basics.
"We're going to keep taking one step up at a time," Coleman said. "Each day in practice we're going to just gradually get back up to the point where we need to be to be a top-five team"
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