After three consecutive losses in the last two weeks, the Cavaliers face the prospect of dipping below .500 for the first time in field hockey coach Michele Madison's two-year reign at Virginia as the team battles California tonight at the Turf Field.
Putting scores aside, Virginia (5-5, 0-2 ACC) has statistically performed handsomely in its last three losses. In two of their last three defeats, the Cavaliers out-shot the opposing team, and they out-cornered the opposition in all three games. The problem for Virginia, however, is not creating opportunities, but finishing them. In those three losses, the team's combined 28 shots and 21 short corners resulted in just a single goal.
"What we see on paper is that the team is running the system," Madison said. "It's just a matter of clicking and getting the timing with each other, and when we get that, that's when we'll get the results."
According to Madison, the team continues to emphasize that it is not the scoreboard that matters as much as performance and the process of learning the system. That doesn't mean, however, that the team is happy with winning just the statistical battles.
"We can't be happy with all these little moral victories of dominating statistically," Madison said. "Statistics only tell half the story."
Virginia's inability to finish off short corner opportunities has been particularly puzzling, considering the success the team had last year on these set pieces. Of the 53 goals scored in 2006, 26 of them were off short corners. Close to the midpoint of this season, the Cavaliers have netted just five such opportunities.
"We've had some very good corner shots," senior Abby Taylor said. "Our posts, we need those people to get in there and dive for it, and that would definitely have helped our corners."
Virginia runs several variations of its short corners, most of them culminating in a ball laid to 2006 first-team all-American junior Inge Kaars Sijpesteijn, who blasts a shot from the top of the circle. The rest of the team attacks the goalkeeper, ready for a rebound. After seeing no production off short corners in the last three games, Virginia is anxious to start making them pay off.
"It's frustrating, because it's fast, it's right on point," Taylor said. "It's just not going in."
Although the finishing has been lacking the last three games, the team did see some improvements in its most recent game against No. 1 Maryland Saturday. Although the scoreboard did not reflect a positive outing -- the Cavaliers fell 4-0 -- the team says that its effort was much improved from the "Boston massacre" suffered during their previous two losses against Boston College and Boston University.
"As much as I'm upset about losing 4-0, I walked off the field feeling happy," Taylor said. "The things we wanted to improve, we improved."
With the Cavaliers heading into the busiest part of their schedule, playing three games in the next four days, this is a pivotal point in the season as the team attempts to get back on the right foot. From their performance in the Maryland game, the Cavaliers take with them the confidence that better times are just around the corner.
"We're going to pull out of this," Madison said. "It's just a matter of time"
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