No. 7 Virginia Downs Yale, 6-1
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Sep 6, 2013
NEW HAVEN, Ct. – The No. 7 Virginia field hockey team earned a 6-1 road victory at Yale on Friday (Sept. 6).Freshman Caleigh Foust (Bryn Mawr, Pa.) logged the first hat trick of her career, including scoring the game-winning goal.
“If we have the ball in the circle, both Caleigh and Riley (Tata) are on top of it,” said head coach Michele Madison. “They are very aggressive to the ball and they make things happen. I was not surprised that they were both able to put the ball in the goal. Congratulations to Caleigh on her first collegiate hat trick.”
Tata (Virginia Beach, Va.) scored her third goal in three games, tapping in a long pass from senior Carissa Vittese (Cherry Hill, N.J.) just under 18 minutes into the game, to give Virginia a 2-0 lead.
The Cavaliers led 5-0 when Yale’s Gabrielle Garcia broke up the shutout, taking off on a breakaway and getting around Virginia junior goalie Jenny Johnstone (Paisley, Scotland) at the 44:43 mark.
Virginia dominated the pace of play and the action, outshooting Yale 30-5 in the Bulldogs’ season-opener and the first game on Yale’s brand-new blue AstroTurf playing surface.
“It’s nice to play on a blue field, it really made it feel like we were at home,” Madison said. “The team really needed to pass on the move to avoid some of the stiffness of the playing surface, so that really helped. The key was keeping our structure, just getting better every day and working on our system.”
Senior Elly Buckley (Scarborough, Perth, Australia) added to her team-leading points tally with back-to-back goals scored 80 seconds apart in the first five minutes of the second half. Buckley also had an assist, setting up Virginia’s first goal of the game, scored by Foust 10:09 into the contest. Buckley scored both of her goals on passes from Chloe Pendlebury (Perth, Australia), one off a corner and the other a shot after a cross from the far side of the circle.
With the victory, Virginia improves to 3-0. Yale falls to 0-1.
Virginia will head to Norfolk, Va. where the Cavaliers will face their second top-10 opponent of the season, taking on No. 8 Old Dominion on Sunday, Sept. 8 at 1 p.m.
The Cavaliers return home on Wednesday, Sept. 11 for a 6 p.m. midweek contest against Richmond. Admission is free for all regular-season home games played at Turf Field.