Last week's season-opening win against Virginia Tech brought grins to the No. 9-ranked Virginia women's lacrosse team. Last night's 13-5 victory over No. 13 Richmond brought wide-mouthed smiles.
The Cavaliers (2-0, 1-0 ACC) completely dominated the Spiders through all 60 minutes of the match, holding their offense to only 15 shots total.
"We really scouted them fairly well," senior defender and co-captain Jessy Morgan said about the defense's performance. "We knew all their plays and we knew their go-to players and we worked really hard to shut them down and let other people try to beat us."
Virginia set the tone offensively early on. After a little over one minute into the game, sophomore attacker Blair Weymouth took on a Spider defender one-on-one to the right side of the goal and, with a quick shot, hit the back of the net to give the Cavaliers the lead, which they maintained for the entire game.
"On attack, we were just very patient with the ball and making sure we got the best looks we could," said Weymouth, who recorded three goals and two assists.
The offense was patient through the entire match, taking advantage of every possession and using up the clock.
With a little more than 20 minutes to play in the first half, Weymouth held the ball on the outskirts of the right-hand side of the goal until she saw senior attacker Kate Breslin cut to the inside. A quick pass to Breslin led to an easy shot in the back of the net, which increased Virginia's lead at that point to 3-1.
"We ran through a bunch of different offensive sets and we got great looks if not goals off of each one of them," Myers said about the team's offensive production. "We were really able to get into our rhythm and flow and try to pick apart the defense, so I think the girls did a great job."
Another accomplishment with which Virginia should be credited is never letting Richmond score twice in a row. Every time a Spider would put one in the back of the net, a Cavalier would return the favor right back, typically within the next minute or two.
"I think our attackers did a great job stealing balls back in the midfield that gave us extra opportunities as well," Myers said.
This occurred most memorably in the last three minutes of the game. Richmond's goalie moved ahead and attempted to pass, but Virginia was able to knock it down and steal it. Senior attacker Megan Havrilla shot it down to Breslin, who had a one-on-one with the goalie. After a quick juke, Breslin had the open net for an easy shot.
Now, the squad knows its potential and what needs to be done to succeed in the rest of the upcoming season.
"We're really looking forward to Syracuse over the weekend, and we already started thinking about that and preparing for them," Morgan said.
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