Despite falling behind early in its last game before the ACC Tournament, the Virginia women's lacrosse team made a gradual comeback to defeat George Mason at home last night, 17-11. It was the seventh win in a row for the No. 3 Cavaliers (12-2).
The Patriots (5-7) definitely raised their level of play against the Cavaliers and did not look like a team that had lost four consecutive games prior to last night's meeting. It's no secret that George Mason has had some very bright spots this season, including a March 27 victory over No. 11 James Madison, so Virginia knew not to take its opponent lightly.
The Patriots "came in with a great game plan, and they were able to execute it pretty effectively in the first half," Virginia coach Julie Myers said. "They definitely made us work for every possession that we had, for every goal that we scored."
George Mason attacker Katie Ruch scored the first two goals of the game, the first coming with just over four minutes gone by and the second on an assist from midfielder Shannon O'Donnell just minutes later.
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It was junior midfielder Lauren Aumiller who got the Cavaliers on the board, scoring the first of her four goals with 22 minutes to play in the first half. George Mason countered with another goal only half a minute later, but Virginia freshmen Amy Appelt and Cary Chasney answered back by scoring within 16 seconds of each other at the halfway mark of the first half.
Just nine seconds later, Patriot attacker Jill Toomey caught a static Cavalier defense off-guard and ran in for a goal, and George Mason was up 5-3 after an O'Donnell goal two minutes later.
Appelt got the Cavaliers back in the battle with a little over 11 minutes to play and scored the third of her career-high six goals a little over a minute later to tie the game. Appelt's previous high of five goals came in the Cavaliers' March 23 victory against No. 4 North Carolina.
Appelt "is certainly a dominant player," Myers said. "Everyone talks about how great she is as a first year, but I think nationally she's among the top 15 attackers. It's nice to have a player like Amy that, when we need some goals and we need somebody who's just going to suck it up and get the job done, it's great to have her on your team."
With just over seven minutes to play in the first half, Aumiller scored on an assist from senior midfielder Molly Cangemi to give the Cavaliers their first lead. The teams traded goals again, and with just under three minutes to go until halftime the game was tied at 7-7, a kind of score the Cavaliers hadn't encountered in almost one month.
Chasney broke the tie on a Cangemi assist, and Appelt gave the Cavaliers a 9-7 lead with just over a minute to play, making it four first-half goals for the freshman.
Virginia was much more consistent on defense in the second half, only allowing four goals and keeping the offense flowing.
"Being down early, I just felt like if I stepped up, everyone else would," Appelt said. "I think that the defense saw us kind of pull together and start converting on goals, so they started to pull together and convert on the defense."
George Mason pulled the deficit to two on a goal by Ruch, but then Virginia took over the game with a 4-0 run that involved scoring from Cangemi and a freshman duo of Appelt and Chasney that combined for 10 goals. George Mason put in three goals in the last five minutes, but by then the deficit was too large and the Cavaliers prevailed.
"I think it was a perfect game going into the ACC Tournament," Cangemi said. "Any time a team gets the first goal, it's tough, but I never doubted that we were going to come through"
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