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Virginia Men's Lacrosse Downs Drexel 20-5 in Season Opener
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Feb. 24, 2002
Charlottesville, Va. – Six players scored at least two goals to highlight an impressive offensive performance as #5 Virginia gained a 20-5 win over Drexel this afternoon at the U-Hall Turf Field in the Cavaliers’ season opener. Drexel, 19-5 winners over West Chester on Wednesday, falls to 1-1.
All-American attackman Conor Gill had plenty of offensive weapons to feed and finished with a career-high seven assists and one goal to pace the Cavaliers’ offense. The eight points tie his career high.
Highly regarded freshmen Joe Yevoli and John Christmas had impressive college debuts and were among the biggest beneficiaries of Gill’s passing prowess as each scored twice on feeds from the senior captain. In all, Yevoli scored four goals and added an assist, while Christmas scored three times. Christmas put the Cavaliers on the board first just 48 seconds into the contest by scoring on the first shot of his career.
Cavalier middie Billy Glading scored a career-high four goals, including two in the first quarter, to pace a first midfield unit that combined to score nine goals and add an assist.
Six Cavaliers scored, including four on feeds from Gill, in the first quarter as UVa jumped to a 7-1 lead after 15 minutes of play. Junior midfielder Chris Rotelli scored all three of his goals in the second quarter as UVa held a 13-4 halftime lead.
The Virginia proved particularly stingy, allowing just 15 shots during the game, including none in the third quarter. Of the Dragons’ five goals, two came in extra-man situations.
Cavalier goalie Tillman Johnson recorded seven saves before giving way to freshman Ben Roberts for the game’s final 10 minutes.
Sophomore midfielder Pat Friel scored two goals to lead the Drexel offense. Jordie Olivella started in goal and recorded 18 saves in 55 minutes of action.
The win is the 100th for head coach Dom Starsia at Virginia and puts him in rare company among coaches who have won 100+ games at two different schools. He won 101 games at Brown from 1983-92 and joins Jack Emmer (Washington & Lee, Army) and Dave Urick (Hobart, Georgetown) as the only coaches in college history to accomplish this feat.
Virginia returns to action next Saturday (March 2) against #2 Syracuse at 3:00 p.m. at Kl?ckner Stadium.
Drexel 1-3-0-1-5Virginia 7-6-3-4-20att-902
ShotsDrexel 15UVa 63
ClearingDrexel 9 of 21UVa 20 of 25
FaceoffsDrexel 13UVa 14
Ground ballsDrexel 41UVa 58
PenaltiesDrexel 6-3:30UVa 9-9:30
Extra-Man ScoringDrexel 2 of 8UVa 2 of 5
SavesDrexel-20 (Jordie Olivella 18, Will Melton 2)UVa-7 (Tillman Johnson 7, Ben Roberts 0).
Drexel scoringGoals-Pat Friel 2, Joe Fiore, Jarett Mizzi, Sean Moloney.Assists-Mike Hagan.
UVa scoringGoals- Billy Glading 4, Joe Yevoli 4, John Christmas 3, Chris Rotelli 3, A.J. Shannon 2, Joe Thompson 2, Conor Gill, Eric Leibowitz.Assists- Conor Gill 7, Jack deVilliers, Andrew Faraone, A.J. Shannon, Trey Whitty, Joe Yevoli.