Stakes High for Cavaliers in Charlotte

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Win, and they’re almost certainly in.

Lose, and their offseason starts late Wednesday afternoon.

For the Virginia Cavaliers, that’s where things stand as they head into the ACC women’s lacrosse tournament at American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, N.C.

No. 5 seed UVA meets No. 4 seed Syracuse in the quarterfinals Wednesday at 2 p.m. A win over the Orange (12-4) would assure the Wahoos (8-8) of leaving Charlotte with at least the .500 record that’s required for an at-large invitation to the NCAA tournament.

The Hoos’ strength-of-schedule rating is among the nation’s highest, and they’ve beaten such teams as Boston College, Notre Dame and Princeton. Most of their losses were to NCAA tournament-bound teams. Moreover, Syracuse is ranked No. 6 nationally in the latest Intercollege Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association poll, so that would represent another notable win for Virginia.

Head coach Sonia LaMonica hasn’t shied away from discussing postseason scenarios with her team.

“You need to look at the bigger picture at a certain point to understand where you are,” said LaMonica, who’s in her third year at Virginia.

After its one-sided loss to No. 1 North Carolina on April 3, UVA was in a bad place. The Cavaliers were 6-8 overall and, with two regular-season games left, had no margin for error. Not since 1995 has there been an NCAA tournament whose field didn’t include Virginia, but LaMonica wanted her players to understand that was a possibility this year.

“And then we were able to move through that to playing to win instead of playing not to lose,” she said. “That’s the space you want to avoid, playing not to lose. I think you've almost got to help your athletes understand and accept what could happen to maybe diffuse a little bit of that pressure, so that then we can focus on the now and where we are.”

UVA bounced back from its loss to UNC to upset Boston College at Klöckner Stadium and then closed the regular season with a Commonwealth Clash win over Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Such resilience has been a trademark of her players in this trying season, LaMonica said.

“They’ve persevered, 100 percent,” she said.

The Cavaliers’ resolve has been tested repeatedly. Since the start of the school year, they’ve lost five players to significant injuries. Among them were Nicole Cruthirds, a team captain who started every game on defense in 2025; attacker Addi Foster, who scored 41 goals last season, and Alexia Giannakopoulos, a promising freshman who would have been on the rotation on defense.

Coming off a season in which they earned the No. 5 overall seed in the NCAA tournament, the Hoos quickly found themselves in an unenviable position. Virginia opened with a loss to Navy and then fell to Richmond five days later. UVA lost again, to Maryland, before finally breaking through with a 17-8 victory over Liberty.

College teams often look to their seniors for leadership on the field. The Cavaliers don’t have that luxury. Apart from senior defender Lara Kology and goalkeeper Elyse Finnelle, a graduate transfer from Florida, Virginia’s key players are juniors, sophomores and freshmen.

“Injuries aside,” LaMonica said, “the challenge for the group this year is, we've been leaning into our juniors to sort of step up and bring that leadership on the field, which can be a tough squeeze when you're not seniors.

“We certainly have some great leadership culturally and off the field in the way that the team shows up for practice every day, no matter whether we’re coming off of a tough loss or a good win. Whatever the circumstance, injuries, they've showed up, and that's the senior leadership. However, for those on the field in the games, that's been a little bit of the growth piece this year.”

Junior attacker Madison Alaimo leads Virginia in assists (40) and points (54). Classmate Kate Galica is first on the team in goals (35) and draw controls (135). Galica has totaled 50 points, and another junior, Jenna Dinardo, has 32, on 24 goals and eight assists.

Alaimo and Galica were named to the All-ACC first team last season, and Dinardo was a second-team selection. Given the honors they collected as sophomores, they were expected to help the Hoos’ produce a formidable offense again this season, but that didn’t happen immediately.

“It just took us a little while to really develop that chemistry on offense where we were sharing the ball a little more and trusting in each other,” LaMonica said. “I think that trio put a lot of pressure on themselves to sort of be those go-tos constantly, but in recent games they've really settled in as a whole, as an entire unit. There’s more trust, there's faster ball movement.”

Overall, the junior class was thrust into a leadership role for which it might not have been ready at the start of the season, LaMonica said, but “what’s been awesome is to now see them playing with more confidence and more trust. That's where we want them to be. And we’re seeing our super sophomores stepping up and impacting for us offensively in these last few games, which has been huge, and that's what I think we were missing a little bit earlier in the year.”

Those second-years include attackers Fiona Allen and Gabby Laverghetta, who have scored 22 and 19 goals, respectively.

Allen, who’s from Hinsdale, Ill., near Chicago, played in only 11 games last season and totaled four goals and three assists. Asked about Allen’s dramatic increase in production this year, LaMonica noted that she’s a relative newcomer to the sport.

“Fiona was a Level 10 gymnast, and she didn't switch to lacrosse until later in high school,” LaMonica said. “She's a tremendous athlete. She is tough. As you can imagine, she has ultra focus, but she was still learning a lot about the game. What’s been fun to see is just her growth.”

Against man-to-man defenses, Allen’s athleticism allows her “to get separation,” LaMonica said, “and she shoots really well. She does it in practice every day. We saw pieces of that last year and she's just continued to be a student of the game, and she's learning and growing. So you're seeing her lacrosse IQ build, and that's allowing her to be more constant in our offensive unit now.”

Galica, the ACC Midfielder of the Year in 2025, already holds the program record for career draw controls, and she continues to expand her skill set.

Elite athletes often have to learn to “let things come to them a little bit and trust the people around them,” LaMonica said, “and I think with Kate you can see that in her draw play. She went from being exceptional last year with self-drawing to this year, where she has [shown the ability] to get the ball to the people on her wings as well. So while you might not see as many draws to herself, she is a huge reason why we're winning the draw, because she is getting it to her teammates.”

Galica has totaled seven points in each of Virginia’s past two games.

“She's really found her rhythm on offense and has stepped up immensely through this second half of the season,” LaMonica said. “I think she was able to get to a space where she was able to lean on some others in the offensive unit, which we need. You need your supporting cast to step up and be threats, and that in turn then opens her up, because the defenses start having to worry about more threats.”

HOOS READY FOR THE POSTSEASON??!!!
We start play in the ACC Championship on Wednesday at 2 pm in Charlotte in a quarterfinal game against Syracuse. All games of the tournament will be broadcast live on the ACC Network #ACCWLAX #GoHoos pic.twitter.com/vNE6KlxkRf

— Virginia Women's Lacrosse (@UVAWomensLax) April 20, 2026

This will be Virginia’s second game against Syracuse this season. The first was on March 21 at Scott Stadium, where the Orange prevailed 6-5.

In the regular season, Syracuse allowed an average of 7.31 goals per game. Only four teams in Division I have been stingier.

“They play a zone, they have a good goalie behind their zone, and you really have to earn the looks to get quality shots,” LaMonica said. “Did we generate some quality looks in that game and maybe not finish some opportunities? Yes. Did we not capitalize on our power plays? Yes.”

LaMonica said the Hoos are “in a much better space offensively now than where we were at that point in the season. So I think this will be a really exciting matchup.”

Win or lose Wednesday, Syracuse is headed to the NCAAs. The stakes are higher for the Cavaliers, and “we need to use that to give ourselves a little extra motivation, a little extra hunger, a little extra drive,” LaMonica said. “But I have no doubt our team understands very clearly where we sit, and they are extremely hungry and motivated to continue our journey this year.”

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