WOMEN’S LACROSSE: Cavaliers get back on target

By Bart Isley

Published: April 13, 2008

After two straight sub-par shooting performances against Boston College and Georgetown, Virginia’s women’s lacrosse team went to work, running through a long series of shooting drills during practice.
The results are already showing.
Virginia torched Johns Hopkins early and buried six of its first eight shots en route to a 17-6 victory over the Blue Jays.
“We knew today that shooting was going to be really important in trying to set that tone and our attackers did a great job of making their early shots count,” said Virginia coach Julie Myers.
Ashley McCulloch led the way for the Cavaliers’ attack, pouring in five goals while also dishing out one assist.
The junior, who leads Virginia in scoring on the season, converted in nearly everyway imaginable, including a one-timer on a curl from behind the goal delivered by Blair Weymouth that opened Virginia’s scoring.
“Sometimes she kind of settles back there and is more looking to assist on a goal,” Weymouth said. “But today she came out with a vengeance, she wanted to score.”
Brittany Kalkstein and Kaitlin Duff each posted hat tricks while Weymouth knocked in a pair of goals. Seven Cavaliers had an assist each in the win, which was Myers’ 100th in Charlottesville as a head coach and the 400th in the program’s history.
The improved shooting (the Cavs knocked down 48.6 percent of their shots) came on the heels of a 28 percent performance against Georgetown in an 8-7 loss and a 29.3 percent outing in a win over Boston College.
After the Georgetown loss, Myers stepped up the emphasis on shooting each day during workouts.
“We definitely practiced a lot more on shooting, that’s been out focus for the last week,” Weymouth said. “It probably still will continue to be because we’re better shooters than that.”
The Cavaliers seemed to know exactly how to counteract the Blue Jays’ pressure defense, constantly finding the open cutter or safety valve while building a 9-0 lead. In one minute and three seconds early in the first, Virginia’s offense scored four goals.
“In practice, our defense did exactly what they did on defense against us today,” Weymouth said. “We knew they were going to pressure out and that we needed to find that opposite and open girl and we just executed.”
The Cavaliers’ gameplan on the defensive end was just as solid. Virginia wasn’t caught off-guard by anything the Blue Jays did, doubling and playing the passing lanes perfectly on Hopkins’ series of stack plays.
On the stack, the Blue Jays bunched several players about 15 yards from the goal and isolated an attacker to the side of the goal who either drove to the cage or looked for one of the players cutting out of the bunch for an easy goal.
“We had some good film on Hopkins so we were able to really get our defense ready,” Myers said.
“If you struggle defending a stack then they’re going to be their bread and butter, but I think our defenders did a really nice of defending their stack well and then frustrating them from there.”
Virginia will take on George Mason Wednesday in the regular-season finale. After that the Cavaliers will wait until April 24-27 to host the ACC tournament.