After beating Ohio 3-1 on Friday night, Virginia suffered its first loss of the season yesterday at the hands of No. 4 Old Dominion University. Despite the 3-2 defeat, the Cavaliers felt their solid performance in the second half proved they can play with the top teams in the nation.
"In the second half we started to believe and we just kept on going and kept on attacking and put pressure on them," sophomore Inga Sijpesteijn said. "It's just mental, we have to be positive and believe that we can do it."
The Cavaliers fell behind early in the game after senior Dana Sensenig of the Lady Monarchs scored on a free stroke. The pressure from the Lady Monarch offense continued as ODU struck two more times before the first half came to a close on goals from junior Sami McLeneghan and junior Daphne Admiraal.
"Their basic skills are their biggest strength," head coach Michele Madison said. "They can hit the ball and carry out their game plan. They were able to get the ball to the middle during the first half."
The final 35 minutes, however, belonged to Virginia. The Cavaliers outshot the Lady Monarchs 7-2 and recorded four short corners -- compared to ODU's zero -- in the second half.
"They proved that they were the better team in the first half," Madison said. "But we had another half to go and 35 minutes is a long time. Bit by bit we just had to put more pressure on them."
It was off of the short corners that the Cavaliers broke through the Lady Monarch defense and scored their two goals. Sijpesteijn opened the scoring for Virginia with seven minutes left in the game. Just two minutes later, the Cavaliers pulled to within one when freshman Traci Ragukas scored on a rebound after a second consecutive short corner shot from Sijpesteijn.
The Cavaliers kept the pressure on and got another scoring chance just moments later on another short corner. Sijpesteijn wound up to take the shot but had it blocked by an ODU defender.
"I hit it too late," Sijpesteijn said. "If I hit it earlier, who knows. I really was confident but it didn't happen."
That would mark the last good scoring chance that the Cavaliers would have as time ran out on Virginia's run at an upset.
The Cavaliers, however, recognized that even though their performance in the second half was solid, they need to work on staying with their game plan and playing hard for all 70 minutes.
"We lost our structure" in the first half, Madison said. "Once you lose your structure you don't know what each other are doing. We had no system of play and we weren't able to bring it back together until halftime."
Besides learning the importance of staying focused for the entire game, perhaps the most beneficial aspect of playing against a top opponent is the experience that the team gained.
"Every game is another type of experience," senior Mia Link said. "We're just going to keep building."
The Cavaliers' next test will come on Wednesday and Thursday night against Radford and Virginia Commonwealth, respectively.
"We're not going to let it happen again," Link said. "We're not going to play to the other team in the first half."
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