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No. 5 Virginia Blanks Richmond, 7-0
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Sept. 17, 2017
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The No. 5 Virginia field hockey team (7-1, 1-0 ACC) picked up its sixth straight win on Sunday (Sept. 17) with a 7-0 victory over Richmond (0-7, 0-1 A10).
The Cavaliers held a 35-12 advantage in shots, including outshooting the Spiders 21-2 in the second half. Freshman midfielder Pien Dicke (Den Haag, Netherlands) had her third hat trick of the season, scoring three goals with an assist. Senior midfielder Tara Vittese (Cherry Hill, N.J.) scored two goals with two assists.
“It was a hard-fought game today,” said Virginia head coach Michele Madison. “It wasn’t a pretty game and was quite physical. Games like this are sometimes more difficult, but the team stayed strong and got the result. These games make you fresher, stronger and tougher. It teaches you how to play through things, which you need to be able to do when facing great teams. Today we concentrated on trying to create forward space. When we were successful in doing that, we could go fast as it opened up space. I think one of the biggest keys to today’s outcome was our team’s mentality and our ability to stay in our game plan. I told them to go out and win the game with skill, not to fall into the trap of getting frustrated into playing the game that Richmond wanted us to play.”
The shutout was the second of the season for redshirt junior goalkeeper Carrera Lucas (Brooklandville, Md.) who made five saves. Richmond goalkeeper Felicitas Heinzel made a career-high 18 saves.
Vittese scored the first goal of the game 12 minutes into the contest, taking a hard shot from the left side after receiving a pass from freshman back Rachel Robinson (Mount Joy, Pa.). Dicke put UVA up 2-0 eight minutes later, scoring after a penalty corner. Vittese made it a 3-0 advantage by showing off her dribbling skills by cutting through traffic in the circle to score with 8:31 remaining in the half. Sophomore striker Erin Shanahan (Pasadena, Md.) scored on a pass from Dicke five minutes before the break to put Virginia up 4-0 at the half.
Dicke scored on a feed from Vittese less than five minutes into the second period to make it a 5-0 game. However, though Virginia possessed the ball for much of the second period, it would be another 20 minutes before the squad would score again with Dicke stealing the ball, driving to the circle and delivering a hard smash into the back of the net to end the drought. Senior back Becca Zamojcin (Phoenixville, Pa.) scored the final goal of the game with six minutes remaining, tapping in a loose ball in front of the net after Heinzel had made two saves after a penalty corner but could not clear the ball out of the circle.
Zamojcin’s goal was the first of her career on just her second-ever shot.
Dicke has 10 goals this season while Vittese now has 19, including scoring the game-winner in four of UVA’s seven victories.
The Cavaliers’ homestand continues next weekend with a return to conference play when UVA takes on No. 10 Boston College on Friday, Sept. 22 at 5 p.m. at Turf Field.