By Zach Rowen Cavalier Daily Associate Editor No. 4 Virginia avoided a letdown after Saturday night's thriller over Clemson and held on to defeat Liberty last night 2-0 at Klöckner Stadium. Propelled by goals from juniors Nico Colaluca and Chris Tierney, the Cavaliers improved their record to 10-1-0 heading into Saturday night's showdown with ACC rival Duke.
After a sluggish start in the pregame warmups, coach George Gelnovatch rallied the team and challenged them to come out and defeat Liberty in regulation, rather than allow them to force another mid-week overtime game.
"I kicked a chair," Gelnovatch said in reference to his pregame speech to the players. "Maybe it worked to get us the first goal. I just put the challenge to the guys. I said, 'we've played three midweek games, and all three of them have been overtime games.' So I put the challenge to them to make sure that this game doesn't turn into that."
Whatever Gelnovatch did or said seemed to work.
The Cavaliers came out and dominated possession for much of the first half before Colaluca scored off a double flick just inside the six-yard box. After a throw-in from junior Zola Short and flicks from sophomore Yannick Reyering and senior Adam Christman, the ball landed at the feet of Colaluca right in front of the goal.
"We have two big targets in there in Yannick and Adam," Colaluca said. "That's our play -- get it to their head, they flick it on and then I run off it. It just fell for me, and I finished it."
It wouldn't be until the 74th minute when the Cavaliers would put the Flames out for good. Off of a slip pass from senior Sean Hinkle, Tierney delivered the left-footed blast from 12 yards out to give the Cavaliers a 2-0 lead.
Hinkle "brought a couple of defenders in for us, and he saw that I was open," Tierney said. "I was actually trying to hit it across the keeper, but I got a little lucky with it and snuck it in the near post."
The insurance goal came as a relief for Virginia as they avoided any possibility of another overtime game. With a big game against Duke on the horizon, the option to take players out of the game and allow them to rest was an important part of last night's gameplan for Gelnovatch.
"We're tired," Gelnovatch said. "Not just physically but also mentally. I have confidence in the guys I put in, and we need guys rested for Friday. We're going to Duke [Friday], and they're a very good team. So the plan all along was, even if it was 0-0, we were going to have a lot of different bodies on the field."
The win helped the Cavaliers retain momentum going into a big conference game Friday night in Durham. After already having suffered an ACC defeat to UNC, a win over the Blue Devils is even more critical. The fact that the Cavaliers were able to put away Liberty early certainly helped them to keep the stress off of an already fatigued group of players.
"We want to go far this year," Colaluca said. "We don't want to have another year like last year where we started off great and then fell off towards the end of the year. These games shouldn't be overtime games. We wanted to finish it early so some of us could get rest for the big game we have this weekend"
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