No. 4 Virginia Shuts Out No. 8 Boston College, 3-0
Sept. 22, 2017
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The No. 4 Virginia field hockey team (8-1, 2-0 ACC) picked up a 3-0 victory over No. 8 Boston College (6-3, 0-3 ACC) on Friday (Sept. 22) at University Hall Turf Field in Charlottesville, Va.
The victory was the Cavaliers’ seventh straight win and their second consecutive shutout. It was also the team’s second victory of the year over a top-10 ranked team.
Freshman midfielder Pien Dicke (Den Haag, Netherlands) had a hand in all three goals, scoring the first and third and assisting on the second. The Cavaliers held a 21-11 edge in shots, outshooting the Eagles 15-2 in the first half, but BC had a 9-6 advantage after the break.
“Every team in the ACC is strong and BC is a very tough opponent,” said Virginia head coach Michele Madison. “These games are about putting out the best performance we can put out. And if that performance is good enough to beat BC, then we are happy.
“In the second half, we talked about working harder for it, digging deeper. Everyone had to give more. Our goal was to go hard for seventy minutes, and we had to do it with defense. I thought Makayla [Gallen], Pien and Izzy [McDonough] worked really well together on the press. We got two of our goals off the press. Our defense today, especially Rachel [Robinson] and Dominique [van Slooten], was strong and denied a lot of one-on-one opportunities.”
The game began as a battle in the midfield with neither team managing a shot in the first nine minutes of the contest. Dicke broke the deadlock 14:19 into the game, dribbling all the way from midfield and through the circle to send a shot between the goalie’s legs and into the back of the net. The Cavaliers took that same 1-0 lead into the halftime break.
Dicke ignited the offense early in the second half, grabbing a steal off a defender at the top of BC’s circle just over three minutes into the period. Dicke dished the ball to junior striker Greta Ell (Plains, Pa.) who scored the goal. With just over 10 minutes remaining in the game, Dicke again stole the ball off a defender just outside the circle, passing it to sophomore striker Erin Shanahan (Pasadena, Md.) who then passed it back to Dicke for the goal.
Dicke’s second goal was her 12th of the season. She came into the weekend ranked third in the nation in goals per game, averaging 1.25 per contest.
Redshirt junior goalkeeper Carrera Lucas (Brooklandville, Md.) picked up her third shutout of the season and the seventh of her career, making five saves. Redshirt freshman back Carolyn Topps (Fredericksburg, Va.) logged her first career defensive save.
The Cavaliers have not lost a game since falling to now No. 3 Penn State, 4-2, in the second game of the season. This is Virginia’s second straight shutout after defeating Richmond 7-0 last Sunday. It was the second top-10 victory after downing then No. 1 Duke 4-1 on Sept. 8.
BC will take on Pacific (3-5, 0-2 America East) on Sunday, Sept. 24 in a neutral-site game at Turf Field before heading back home.
The Cavaliers will face Pacific on Monday, Sept. 25 in a match that had its start time pushed up to 1 p.m. The Tigers are playing three games on their current road trip as they also play at No. 18 William & Mary on Friday night. Savannah Burns and Kriekie van Wyk are the leading goal scorers for the Tigers with five goals apiece.