The No. 4 Virginia women's lacrosse team moved into second place in the ACC after defeating No. 19 Boston College Saturday by a score of 12-6 and garnered its 10th win of the season against non-conference foe Harvard by a 14-9 margin yesterday night. The Cavaliers (10-3, 3-1 ACC) have now won eight of their last nine games.
Senior midfielder Brittany Kalkstein opened Saturday's matchup with a score after faking out the goalkeeper. Boston College tallied the next two goals, however, to put the Eagles (7-3, 1-3 ACC) up 2-1. Virginia's young talent then rose to the occasion as freshman midfielder Caroline McTiernan, who recently entered the starting lineup after sophomore attack Ainsley Baker tore her ACL last week, scored three of the next four goals to give the Cavaliers a three-goal advantage.
"We only had one practice before our first game after Ainsley went down and she was able to step up," senior midfielder Kaitlin Duff said. "She is definitely a threat and what we needed to replace such a great player like Ainsley."
The Eagles responded by winning two consecutive draws that led to goals by junior midfielder Kristin Igoe to close the gap to one. The game then slowed down as the Cavaliers maintained possession of the ball before scoring three goals to send the game to halftime. The Cavaliers wasted no time as the second period began, scoring two unanswered goals to give Virginia a 10-4 lead that it did not relinquish. The Cavaliers limited the Eagle attack to a mere 13 shots on the afternoon and six goals for the game, marking the third straight contest during which the defense has allowed seven or fewer goals.
"Our defense was tough," Virginia coach Julie Myers said. "We did a great job of limiting their opportunities."
McTiernan finished with a career-high four goals on the afternoon, followed by sophomore attack Charlie Finnigan with three.
Although the Cavaliers had a tougher time finding success both offensively and defensively for most of the game yesterday night against Harvard, they eventually prevailed 14-9. The Crimson struck first, netting the first goal of the game nearly five minutes into the match off the stick of freshman attack Jennifer VanderMeulen. The Virginia attack countered less than two minutes later to tie the score at one apiece. Duff and senior attack Caity Whiteley added two more goals for the Cavaliers to give their squad a slight two-goal advantage after nearly nine minutes of play. Following Whiteley's first of four goals on the night, the Harvard squad relied on speedy drives to the goal to score two unanswered goals and knot the score back up at three-all.
For the remainder of the first half, the two teams traded goals back and forth, knotting the score a total of six times during the first period alone. Whiteley found the back of the net during the waning seconds of half to give her team a narrow one-goal advantage heading into the intermission.
Whiteley began the second half where she had left off in the first, tallying another goal after making a strong drive from behind the net at the 28:42 mark. The Crimson attack cut the Virginia lead in half nearly four minutes later after a costly turnover by the Cavaliers allowed the Harvard attack to find freshman midfielder Nina Kucharcyzk upfield for the score. Following Kucharcyzk's goal, the Virginia defense, which had made a halftime change in defensive strategy, only surrendered one more goal to the Crimson squad, which fell to 4-6 on the season.
"I think the thing that made the difference in the second half is that we changed our defense," Myers said. "We gave [junior defender] Liz Downs a straight matchup, and we didn't send crazy doubles where we weren't covering. [That] really kind of frustrated the Harvard attack to the point where we were able to go down and get a lot of goals."
Myers added that she felt that the team felt a little flat on the night, probably partly because the Cavaliers have played a total of three games during the span of a week and might have been physically and mentally tired as a result.
"I think it was more of a mental game than a physical game for us," Whiteley said. "I think we were all definitely mentally tired because this was our third game since last Wednesday. I think it was important for us to get through it and just gut it out."
The Virginia squad has another quick turnaround as it prepares to face ACC and in-state rival Virginia Tech tomorrow afternoon in its final conference matchup of the regular season on the road at Thompson Field. The first draw is scheduled for 4 p.m.
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