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Cavaliers Hang Tough with US National Teams
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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. The Virginia women’s lacrosse team completed its first day of competition at the fourth annual Champion Challenge A US Lacrosse event on Saturday, tying the US Developmental National Team, 11-11, and dropping an 8-3 contest to the US Elite National Team in exhibition games played at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex.
In the first game, despite falling behind 6-1, the Cavaliers rallied to cut the Developmental team’s lead to three, at 8-5, heading into halftime. Out of the intermission, Virginia used a 4-0 run to take its first lead of the contest, at 9-8.
The USA then evened the score at nine before senior Blair Weymouth put Virginia back up, with a score at 9:09. The Red, White and Blue responded with back-to-back goals within a minute of each other to take an 11-10 advantage and senior Jenny Hauser snuck a score in with 49 ticks on the clock to knot the score at 11 all.
The Cavaliers committed a foul within the final seconds of the contest, allowing the United States one final opportunity to win the game, but the Cavaliers’ keeper, redshirt junior Lauren Benner, came up with a save to account for the final 11-11 score.
Junior Kaitlin Duff led the way for Virginia with three goals, while Hauser and Weymouth each tallied two and junior Yeardley Love, redshirt-junior Whit Hagerman and freshmen Josie Owen and Bailey Fogarty accounted for the rest. Junior Marye Kellerman and Owen each added an assist.
In the second game, the US Elite team struck first, notching three scores before junior Ashley McCulloch put the Cavaliers on the board at the 6:16 mark, leading to the 3-1 halftime score.
Out of the intermission, Weymouth fired a shot into the back of the net to cut the US Elite team’s lead to just one, at 3-2, but the national team wouldn’t let Virginia any closer as they fired off five unanswered points to take an 8-2 lead.
The Cavaliers never gave up though, as Weymouth made the final score 8-3, sneaking a shot into the cage as the final horn blew.
Virginia will conclude the Champion Challenge tomorrow with a contest against the Japan National team at 11 a.m.