The No. 9 ranked Virginia women's lacrosse team will end its nine-month-long offseason and begin to defend its ACC championship tonight against ACC and in-state rival Virginia Tech on University Hall Turf Field. This is a challenge the Cavaliers eagerly await.
"Everybody's really anxious to play Virginia Tech and to open up our season," said senior co-captain Jess Wasilewsk. "We've been working really hard this preseason, so we're excited to see how far we've come and basically what we're prepared to do in our first game."
Last season, the Cavaliers roasted the Hokies with an 18-3 win, and Virginia leads the all-time series with a 10-0 record.
Virginia Tech opened up its season this past Sunday with a 10-18 loss to No. 13 Richmond, despite senior Hokie Jackie Gray scoring a hat trick.
The Cavaliers, however, are determined not to underestimate their opponents.
"We've just been trying to pay attention to the little things that Virginia Tech does on attack, reading slides, knowing when to double on certain players," sophomore Blair Weymouth said. "For the most part, we're just going to focus on our transition. We think that'll definitely work well against Tech."
Weymouth, returning from a National Rookie of the Year Award-winning season, helps lead an offense that is consistently one of the nation's leaders in scoring. In the 2006 season, Virginia ranked among the top 20 in scoring offense with 230 goals scored.
Co-captains senior Jessy Morgan and sophomore Jen Holden, returning from a summer playing with the U.S. National team, are ready to help the Cavaliers out on defense, where the squad ranked No. 3 last season in scoring defense, giving up only 144 goals throughout the entire season.
This game, though, is more than just a season opener. Not only would a win award Virginia with another point in the annual Commonwealth Challenge, in which the Cavaliers currently hold the lead with a score of 7.5 -- 4.5, but it would also put the team in first place in the conference.
"Virginia Tech games are always very important games because of the big rivalry between the two of us," Wasilewski said. "A win would be a great start to our season and also to beat Virginia Tech is really great for us to get our confidence up and get things going in the right direction."
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