In its second scrimmage of the season, the Virginia men's lacrosse team dispatched Washington & Lee 17-1 at the Turf Field last night.
Under the lights following an unseasonably warm day, the Cavaliers dominated throughout the contest, with freshman attackman Ben Rubeor leading all Virginia scorers with five goals in the first half.
"Of course I felt good about [the goals]," Rubeor said. "I'm not going to look too far into it, I'm just trying to improve. I'm playing with some great guys, and I'm just constantly trying to get better."
Rubeor, who hails from Baltimore, Md., was an All-American as a senior in high school last year and arrived at Virginia among high expectations. While the expectations have been met thus far amidst injuries to senior attackman Joe Yevoli as well as junior attackman Matt Ward, Rubeor has been thrust into a starting role quicker than anticipated. While he has provided plenty of talent, one thing he is not rich on is experience, at least not at the collegiate level.
"I don't know how much preseason really correlates with the regular season, but I think the team has a positive attitude," Rubeor said.
Ward, who has not played in either of the two scrimmages, sprained his ankle in practice a week ago. Coach Dom Starsia said he hopes to have him back for the season opener against Drexel on February 20th.
Another strength for the Cavaliers yesterday was the play of their goalies. Starsia flipped the script from Saturday when he started sophomore Kip Turner and instead started redshirt-freshman Michael Petit Tuesday night.
"They've both now come off the bench and played well in the second half," Starsia said. "If it's going to be so close, I'd hate to give one guy everything and one guy nothing."
Petit played for the entire first half, giving up the only goal of the game to the Generals. Turner came in at the start of the third quarter until he was replaced by junior Doug Brody with 10:14 left in the scrimmage. It was Brody's first appearance of the young season, and he entered to cheers from the crowd as well as from his teammates.
With the Virginia starters giving the team a 9-1 lead at halftime, the majority of them did not play the second half, allowing every Virginia player to gain valuable playing time.
While W&L is a Division III program, Starsia said they still were a formidable opponent.
"I think we've continued to make some steady progress," Starsia said. "We were a little sloppy in the first five minutes. I thought we played hard, especially the last three quarters. It was encouraging."
Virginia's final scrimmage before the regular season comes this Sunday when they play Georgetown at 1 p.m. at the Turf Field. The season opening face-off is a week later when Drexel visits for another 1 p.m. game.
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