Most people may assume that as the defending national champions, Virginia would not have much need for improvement.
The Cavalier women's lacrosse team (3-1, 1-0 ACC) knows that scenario is simply not the case. After two fairly one-sided wins to open the season, the Cavaliers had a weekend of close games to bring them back down to earth. Virginia lost its first game of the season Friday to Penn State but was able to secure a six-goal win over Richmond Sunday.
The loss to Penn State was "a wakeup call," Cavalier attack Tyler Leachman said. "We definitely saw that we have to come to play every game. Everyone is going to want to beat us because we are the defending national champions. I think we proved that we can bounce back after a loss and show everyone that we can play."
The Cavaliers will get a chance to show just how well they can play this weekend when they travel to Chapel Hill to face conference rival North Carolina (6-1, 1-0 ACC). Virginia will be looking for its second conference win on the season, as the Cavaliers previously defeated Maryland March 8.
One aspect the Cavaliers would like to improve upon is the set attack offense, something they worked on during Sunday's game against the Spiders. In that contest, the Cavs were able to score goals quickly but struggled at times to run a consistent attack.
"We need to be a balanced team," Virginia coach Julie Myers said. "We need to be able to score quickly, but we also need to be able to be disciplined enough to get into a set attack and score that way. [Sunday] was about working on our set attacks and seeing what we could do there."
Leachman agreed with her coach that the team must slow down its explosive offensive attack. Despite having a career high seven goals against Richmond, she acknowledged that the offense needs to be more methodic.
"We tried to slow it down on offense after Friday night. It was a little hectic against Penn State," Leachman said. "We wanted to settle down and move it around. We definitely took a step in that direction."
Because the Virginia offense currently is able to work well in transition, the Cavaliers are finding that opponents are starting to use ball control to try to nullify their speed. Penn State was able to slow the game down and hold Virginia to only six goals. Richmond also tried to slow down the tempo in the second half Sunday but was not as successful as the Nittany Lions.
"We need to come up with a couple of different defenses that will rattle, that will strip the ball from some players," Myers said. "We need to make sure we are a little more solid in the back so we can take some of those chances."
The Cavalier defense has been strong so far in this young season. Junior goalkeeper Ginger Miles has saved 55 percent of the shots she has faced in her first year between the pipes. The defense has played well as a unit, grabbing up 100 ground balls. The offense, too, has played well for the Cavaliers, as Virginia holds a plus-18 advantage in goals scored, outscoring opponents 48-30 on the season.
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