While March Madness might have just started yesterday for college basketball fans around the country, March Madness for the Virginia women's lacrosse team has come and gone.
Last week over Spring Break, the Cavaliers played four straight road games, three of which came against opponents ranked in the top 15. The outcome was three victories with the lone loss coming at the hands of No. 1 Princeton.
"You wish you swept," Virginia coach Julie Myers said. "I think we were in a position to win that [Princeton] game in the end. We take advantage of some of those key opportunities that we just didn't execute on, I think it's a different game. But you know, 3-1, it could've been a lot worse."
On their return, the Cavaliers were rewarded for their efforts by moving up in the laxpower.com rankings from ninth to fifth.
The key victory in the stretch came at then-No. 3 Maryland in which Virginia (4-2) picked up a crucial ACC win, 10-8. This Saturday at 1 p.m., the Cavaliers will try for their second conference win of the season when the 12th ranked University of North Carolina Tar Heels (4-2) visit. North Carolina is 0-1 in the ACC after a 7-6 overtime loss to Duke last Saturday. In their lone meeting last season Virginia defeated North Carolina by the score of 7-6 in Chapel Hill.
If the Cavaliers are to pick up the win against the Tar Heels, they will likely need to play with more consistency than they have thus far on the season.
"I think it's kind of been like this all season where we've gone on runs and we've gone uphill and gone on runs and gone downhill," junior attack Amy Appelt said. "I guess as a team our whole strong point is we just want to keep a steady pace for the game."
As of yet, the concept of a steady pace is something Virginia hasn't totally been able to grasp. Against Princeton, Virginia scored the first goal and played evenly with the Tigers until three minutes left in the first half when Princeton went on a three-goal run and pulled away for good. Yet in fitting fashion, the Cavaliers scored the final three goals of that game to lose only 12-9. Against Penn State last Friday, Virginia was up 10-5 before the Nittany Lions stormed back to score four straight goals in the final eight minutes. Although the Cavaliers hung on for the victory, it proved to be a major wakeup call.
Opposing defenses also have probably noticed another common theme when preparing for Virginia and Amy Appelt. In leading the team with 35 points on the season, Appelt forms the cornerstone of the Virginia offense, an offense that revolves around clearing out certain sides of the field and letting attack and midfielders go one on one with defenders.
"One on ones have always been our strong point," Appelt said. "Everyone on our team can take one on ones. We figure, stay with what's working."
While Appelt mainly acts as a goal scorer, she chipped in two assists against Princeton and was instrumental in clearing the ball into the offensive zone for the Cavaliers.
With North Carolina awaiting them, Virginia now enters a two-week home stay in which the Cavaliers hope to sort out their inconsistencies, pick up a second ACC win and return to their winning ways.
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