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No. 4 Virginia Wins at Liberty, 2-0
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Sept. 29, 2013
LYNCHBURG, Va. – The No. 4 Virginia field hockey team earned its second-straight shut out, blanking Liberty 2-0 Sunday (Sept. 29) in Lynchburg, Va. in the first-ever meeting between the two teams.
Senior forward Elly Buckley (Scarborough, Perth, Australia) scored both of the goals for the Cavaliers. Junior goalkeeper Jenny Johnstone made one save in the team’s fourth shutout of the season and the second of the weekend including Friday’s 3-0 victory at Wake Forest.
“Today, the defense did a great job of getting the ball out of the circle,” said head coach Michele Madison. “They are coming together and working really well building the dynamic of team defense.”
Virginia improved to 11-1 while Liberty fell to 5-4.
“The team was tested in a different way today,” Madison said. “We came up against a team that was very aggressive and very physical. We didn’t quite have our A-game in the first half. The team really dug deep and got their composure back to establish some momentum.”
The score was knotted, 0-0, until Buckley took a hard shot on goal that deflected off the pads of the Liberty goalkeeper. Buckley rounded up the rebound and fired off a second shot, breaking the deadlock 23 minutes into the second half.
Liberty, trailing by a goal with five minutes remaining in the game, pulled its goalkeeper to add an extra attacker. Virginia quickly got the ball down into the attack zone and earned a penalty corner opportunity. Buckley converted the chance, firing off a shot past the line of defenders and into the empty net to give UVa an insurance goal with three minutes left in the game. Liberty put the goalkeeper back into the game on the reset after the goal.
The Cavaliers took 14 shots, 11 coming off Buckley’s stick. Liberty had 10 shots, eight coming in the second half. Buckley scored two goals in each of the Cavaliers’ last three games, finishing the week with six goals and an assist.
Freshman Lucy Hyams (Whitstable, Kent, England) notched her fifth assist of the week. Senior Chloe Pendlebury (Perth, Australia) also had an assist with a stick-stop on the short-corner goal.
The Cavaliers finish off a stretch of playing four games in a span of seven days when they host Radford (2-6) on Tuesday, Oct. 1 at 6 p.m. Admission is free for all 2013 Virginia field hockey regular-season home games played at Turf Field.