When the Longwood Lancers (0-3) visit Charlottesville tonight at 7 p.m., look for a more confident Virginia field hockey squad to emerge as the Cavaliers look to build on their 2-1 record.
Coming off a weekend where Virginia suffered a loss to Princeton Friday, then bounced back to beat Drexel Sunday, confidence proved instrumental in each game.
In the Princeton loss, the Cavaliers scored first, but lost their confidence as the Tigers scored three unanswered goals.
"We played really well right after Allison Flynn's goal because it gave us some confidence," sophomore Katie Phillips said. "However, toward the end it seemed like we lost that confidence and we were really tentative, allowing them to beat us to the ball."
Against Drexel Sunday Virginia possessed the ball for much of the game, outshooting Drexel, 16-3, but still needed an overtime goal by junior Katie Jo Gerfen to secure the 2-1 win.
"Our mindset coming into Sunday's game against Drexel was confident," Gerfen said. "We came out with a much better defensive effort both individually and as a whole. There was more communication from the backfield from everyone and that helped the defense awareness on and off the ball."
Tonight against Longwood the Cavaliers look to apply lessons learned from the weekend set of games. Capitalizing on scoring opportunities and improving on individual defense seem to be the chief concerns for Virginia.
"We need to come out with an attitude," Gerfen said.
Longwood is coming off a heart-breaking home opener loss in double overtime to Virginia Wesleyan Sept. 7. In that game, the Lancers came back from a 3-1 deficit in the second half to force two overtimes before falling 4-3. Despite outshooting Virginia Wesleyan 16-11, the Lancers couldn't pull out the victory. While Longwood plays in Division II athletics, the Lancers have a solid goalkeeper in junior Julie Patterson, who has 25 saves so far this year in only three games.
However, Virginia is rolling on the confidence of the Drexel win and will pose more than a significant challenge for Patterson.
"We expect a good game on Wednesday," freshman Mia Link said, after notching a goal in Sunday's overtime victory over Drexel. "Nothing's going to come easy. We need to play our game at our speed and not let the other team set the pace for the game."
Returning home after a weekend in New Jersey and playing in front of a friendly crowd in Charlottesville should allow the Cavaliers to improve on their 2-1 record.
"It is great playing back home," Link said.
The Cavaliers need to establish the tempo of play early and show the Lancers they are the better team.
"If we take care of the ball, capitalize on our opportunities and control the tempo we should be able to come out on top," Phillips said in a display of much needed confidence.
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