With the clock winding down Saturday in the Virginia men’s lacrosse team’s game against Johns Hopkins at Homewood, the Blue Jays scrambled to find the goalposts just one more time.
Hopkins had been down by one goal for eight minutes but when the last two minutes started to tick away, play became even more frenzied and erratic. Despite the frenetic play, Virginia stood firm, holding on to its one-point margin to claim victory, 16-15.
“Very nerve-wracking,” was how freshman attackman Steele Stanwick described the final minutes of the game. “I had no idea what was going to happen. It could have gone either way — we got lucky.”
Stanwick added three goals to the team’s final tally, helping the Cavaliers to their second one-point victory of the season. Virginia went into the fourth quarter one goal behind but ultimately found a way to win.
“When it’s a team who likes to hold the ball a lot, you just have to deal with [that sense of urgency] and just wait until you get the ball back,” senior attackman Garret Billings said. “What we try to do is not rush the first possession when we get the ball back. We try to run a really good one and get a good shot.”
Adding to this sense of urgency was the Blue Jays’ methodical and often tedious play. Drawing numerous stalling calls throughout the game, Hopkins limited the number of Virginia’s possessions in the third quarter and mounted a 7-2 scoring burst to recover from a 12-8 halftime deficit. The Blue Jays even dropped into a zone defense to slow down the Cavalier offense and force low percentage shots.
“When we went ahead by four or five goals there in the second quarter and they went into a zone,” Virginia coach Dom Starsia said, “they didn’t come out and play us, so we were just sort of making a point more than anything else ... We never made a conscious effort to slow the pace of the play down. That play in the second quarter where they went into a zone and we had a four- or five-goal lead was just us saying, ‘You can’t play a zone — we’ve got the lead.’ And we eventually made them come out of it.”
Virginia, though, had its own troubles on the defensive end of the field. As the game wore on, the Cavaliers found themselves unable to adapt to the Blue Jays’ different offensive strategies.
“I felt like we were kind of a step slow and a dollar short,” Starsia said. “Just little things Hopkins was able to take advantage of ... It was a struggle for us the entire evening defensively.”
Virginia left the Blue Jays open on the crease numerous times, and the Cavaliers also seemed unable to deal with the invert that Hopkins ran. A lacrosse offense usually operates with attackmen working close to the goal or behind it and midfielders attacking the cage from farther up the field. Hopkins inverted the shape of its offense so the midfielders worked from the side or back of the goal, while the attackmen took it from up top. This had the intended effect of confusing the Cavaliers enough for Hopkins to find scoring opportunities.
The Cavaliers’ defense finally stood its ground in the fourth quarter and shut out the Blue Jays, allowing the offense’s two goals to secure the win.
“As a lacrosse coach, you might not script it just quite this way in terms of your first wish for a lacrosse game,” Starsia said. “But even I can appreciate that this was a great game.”
Note: This article originally ran with the headline “Cavs topple Blue Jays at Klöckner.” In actuality, the game was held at Johns Hopkins. The Cavalier Daily regrets the error.
Read More
No. 24 women’s soccer not to be denied in late win over Clemson
By Sam Chun | 4 hours agoThe Cavaliers topped Clemson 1-0 in front of a packed out Klöckner Stadium.
Men’s soccer, totally discombobulated, capitulates early to No. 5 Pittsburgh
By Michael Liebermann | 6 hours agoPittsburgh set a program record for the quickest cluster of three goals.
No. 4 field hockey shut out for first time of season in defeat at No. 2 North Carolina
By Eleanor Lynch | 18 hours agoThe Cavalier offense had its worst outing of the season as they were once again defeated by the rival Tar Heels.
