No. 16 Virginia Earns a 13-8 Road Win at No. 9 Notre Dame
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April 5, 2014
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The No. 16 Virginia women’s lacrosse team (7-6, 1-3 ACC) earned a 13-8 road win at No. 9 Notre Dame (8-5, 1-4 ACC) on Saturday (April 5) in the first-ever meeting between the two teams.
Behind 11 first-half saves by Virginia senior goalkeeper Liz Colgan (Cockeysville, Md.), the Cavaliers held the Irish to one goal in the opening 30 minutes, leading a 4-1 at the break. In the second half, Virginia had a 13-4 edge in draw controls, helping the Cavaliers secure their first conference win of the season.
“This was a must-win for us and I feel that our backs were against the wall and we came out fighting,” said Virginia head coach Julie Myers. “I was really excited to see on the final stats that Notre Dame only scored two goals in a row twice. Whenever you can stop a pretty powerful team like that, you are doing a lot of good things.”
Sophomore Kelly Boyd (Baltimore, Md.), junior Courtney Swan (Vero Beach, Fla.) and senior Maddy Keeshan (Greenwich, Conn.) each scored a hat trick with Boyd also adding an assist. Junior Casey Bocklet (South Salem, N.Y.) scored a goal with three assists.
Notre Dame’s Cortney Fortunato and Rachel Sextion scored two goals apiece.
Senior Liza Blue (Butler, Md.) opened the game with an unassisted goal with 23:22 left in the first half. Blue set up a score from Boyd 19 seconds later to spot the Cavaliers to a 2-0 lead. Swan added a third goal for the Cavaliers before the Fighting Irish netted their only score of the first half with 17:16 remaining. Bocklet scored her 26th goal of the season with 10:32 remaining to give UVa a 4-1 lead at the break.
Notre Dame scored 2:03 into the second half. Boyd answered with back-to-back goals 41 seconds apart to give UVa a 6-2 advantage with 26:42 remaining. After another Notre Dame score, Virginia scored four-straight goals, including back-to-back scores by Swan, to take an 11-4 lead with just under 19 minutes remaining. A goal from Blue with 8:43 remaining gave Virginia a 13-6 lead. Notre Dame’s Rachel Sexton scored the final two goals of the game as Virginia held on for the 13-8 victory.
Virginia held a slight advantage in shots, 31-27. Notre Dame was 0-of-4 on free position shots while UVa made 2-of-4.
Colgan finished the game with 16 saves. Notre Dame’s Allie Murray made 10 saves.Swan won a game-high seven draw controls while also causing three turnovers. Freshman Wyatt Whitley (Alexandria, Va.) caused two turnovers while also picking up a ground ball. Keeshan had five ground balls three draw controls in addition to scoring three goals.
The Cavaliers return to Klöckner Stadium on Thursday, April 10 when they host Boston College for Senior Night when all of the Cavalier fourth-years will be honored in a pregame ceremony. Opening draw is scheduled for 7 p.m. The Cavaliers finish off the regular season with back-to-back ACC road games at No. 2 Maryland (April 13) and Virginia Tech (April 16).