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No. 2 Virginia Travels to Mount St. Mary's on Tuesday for Mid-Week Matinee
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CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – The Cavaliers, ranked No. 2 this week in both the Nike/Inside Lacrosse media poll and USILA coaches poll, conclude a mini-two game road swing on Tuesday when UVa travels to Emmitsburg, Md., to battle the Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers, at Waldron Family Stadium. Faceoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. Live stats will be available at VirginiaSports.com.
Virginia remained at No. 2 in the Nike/Inside Lacrosse media poll, while jumping one spot to No. 2 in the USILA coaches poll after an 11-8 victory at Drexel on Saturday, coinciding with Duke’s 11-7 setback with Notre Dame. The Cavaliers currently sit behind two-time reigning national champions Syracuse in both polls.
Last Saturday the Cavaliers traveled to Philadelphia in the season opener and rode three goals and two assists from Steele Stanwick to get past the Dragons, 11-8. The victory served as head coach Dom Starsia’s 200th career victory at Virginia, making the UVa head coach the first to tally at least 200 victories at one Division I school and 100 triumphs at another.
Sophomore Chris Bocklet, making his first career start, notched two goals and two assists, while Junior Rhamel Bratton added two scores of his own to pace the Cavaliers’ scoring attack.
Mount St. Mary’s is playing its first game of the season Tuesday night. Head coach Tom Gravante enters his 15th season at the helm for the Mount. The Mountaineers are looking to contend for the title in its final season in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Last season, the Mount earned the No. 2 seed in the MAAC Tournament before falling to Manhattan in the semifinals, cementing a 5-10 campaign.
The Mount returns a solid group of defenders in addition to one of the top goalkeepers in the Northeast.
Headlining the defense is junior goalkeeper T.C. DiBartolo, a First Team All-MAAC selection last season. DiBartolo set a school record with a 7.81 goals against average last season, posting double figures in saves in nine of the Mount’s 15 games. He twice had 21 saves in a game last year, including against the Cavaliers, and made 171 saves with a .609 save percentage for the year.
Virginia has a 20-game winning streak going back to 2001 in regular-season mid-week games, including last season’s 10-2 victory over the Mount in Charlottesville. The Cavaliers own a 6-0 all-time mark against Mount St. Mary’s, including a 20-2 victory during their last trip to Waldron Family Stadium in 2008.
The seventh all-time meeting between the two programs also serves as the sixth straight year the Mount and Cavaliers have met during the regular season. The two squads first met in the opening round of the 2003 NCAA Tournament during the Cavaliers’ run to their third of four all-time NCAA national championships.
Tuesday’s match will be UVa’s final road game before heading home for Saturday’s home opener against No. 18 Stony Brook.