Last night, with a 23-6 win against Mount Saint Mary's, the sixth-ranked Virginia men's lacrosse team successfully broke the curse of the orange uniforms.
The Cavaliers' (5-1-0) last outing in orange jerseys was in 2005 against Duke whenthe Blue Devils won 17-2. The Blue Devils claimed that year's ACC regular season title and left Virginia stunned. While the team has since agreed to don the uniforms for select photo shoots, last night was the first time the Cavaliers took the field in orange since that major 2005 defeat.
After scoring 23 goals, Virginia probably left the field with a little more confidence in those jerseys. Nevertheless, Virginia coach Dom Starsia felt that his team faced a quality Mount Saint Mary's team and noted that the lopsided final result could be misleading.
"It was not like the VMI game -- I felt like we had to work," Starsia said. "I thought this Mount team was a really feisty group, and they were battling out there the whole time. It never felt easy, but we were prepared to do the work we needed to."
In the first quarter, Virginia scored seven unanswered goals. Senior captain Drew Thompson led the assault on Mount St. Mary's by putting the Cavaliers on the board in the fourth minute. Thompson then shot twice more and found the back of the net once again before the game reached the fifth minute of play. An illegal pocket call on Thompson voided his goal, however, and landed him in the penalty box for a full minute.
"We wanted to come out and get on them early and get everyone a chance to play," sophomore Danny Glading said. "I think we all were moving hard tonight and everyone was alert and we really got on top of them from the beginning."
The remainder of the first half saw goals by senior Foster Gilbert, junior Ben Rubeor and sophomores Glading, Steve Giannone, Gavin Gill and Kevin Coale. Coale actually scored in the face of seven Mount St. Mary's defenders for which the Mount promptly received an illegal procedure penalty.
After pelting the Mount with 42 shots on goal, Virginia entered the locker room at the half with a 12-2 lead. When play resumed, as Starsia started substituting for his starting players, Michael "Bud" Petit replaced senior Kip Turner in the goal.
Indeed, given the fierce competition Virginia has faced recently from programs such as Syracuse and Princeton, last night's early lead provided a chance for many young Cavaliers to leave the bench and gain valuable experience. For their part, freshmen George Huguely, Mike Thompson and Ryan Burns each scored; it was Thompson's first collegiate goal.
Also in the second half, freshman Brian McDermott began facing off for the Cavaliers. As next season's probable face-off man, Starsia said experiences like last night will invaluable part of McDermott's development.
"This was a great opportunity for a lot of the young guys to get out and get that experience," Gladding said. "And for the team as a whole, we get to learn how to play with different personnel and with guys we don't get to play with in every game. It's really a good experience for the whole team coming together."
With 12 different Cavaliers scoring for Virginia and a solid showing by the defensive line, last night's result not only lifted a curse -- it provides confidence as the team heads into Saturday's tough matchup against Towson.
"A game like this, it can be a little messy or you can play hard and play well," Starsia said."I thought that for us, tonight was a step forward."
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