Women’s Lacrosse: Clark scores 7 goals as No. 12 Hoos knock off No. 23 Louisville, 19-9

Courtesy UVA Media Relations

No. 12 Virginia women’s lacrosse scored 13 goals in the second half and sophomore Rachel Clark led with a career-high seven goals in the 19-9 win over No. 23 Louisville on Saturday afternoon.

The game was tied 6-6 at the half but Virginia (4-0, 1-0 ACC) scored the first four goals of the second half to take its first lead. UVA’s defense allowed just three goals in the second half as it outscored Louisville 8-1 in the fourth quarter.

Five of Clark’s goals came in the second half. She led four players with hat tricks on the day for UVA. Graduate student Ashlyn McGovern had four and senior Jaime Biskup and junior Mackenzie Hoeg each scored three.

Senior goalkeeper Ashley Vernon made eight of her nine saves in the first half when Louisville out-shot the Cavaliers 22-16.

HOW IT HAPPENED

McGovern and Clark scored UVA’s first two goals, both on free positions, as the team trailed 4-2 at the end of the first quarter. Louisville went up 5-2 to start the second but three straight goals for the Cavaliers tied it up 5-5. Clark scored one and Biskup had back-to-back goals in 37 seconds.

McGovern scored with 38 seconds to go in the first half to tie the game 6-6 at the break.

The Cavaliers scored the first four goals of the second half to lead 10-6 with Hoeg scoring back-to-back goals and McGovern and Clark adding one each.

Louisville (2-2, 0-1) cut it to 10-8 before another 4-0 run for UVA opened it up to a 14-8 lead. Clark had three of the four goals. UVA’s 5-0 run to close the game included goals by sophomore Abby Manalang, Clark, junior Morgan Schwab, Biskup and McGovern.

Just raining 🌧️ goals in the second half for our first ACC win ✅ #GoHoos pic.twitter.com/4e6YhVpev0

— Virginia Women’s Lacrosse (@UVAWomensLax) February 25, 2023

NOTES

• UVA trailed 8-6 in draws at the half but finished with a 19-13 advantage.
• The Cavaliers led 13-10 in ground balls and 36-27 in shots.
• Juniors Aubrey Williams and Devon Whitaker led UVA on the draw circle with eight and five, respectively.
• Graduate student Annika Meyer had a team-high three ground balls.

FROM HEAD COACH JULIE MYERS

🎥 head coach Julie Myers after the win over Louisville #GoHoos pic.twitter.com/qfOSDL40Eo

— Virginia Women’s Lacrosse (@UVAWomensLax) February 25, 2023

“The effort and those goals that Jaime hit at the end of the first half, they are inspiring, and they give you life. Throughout the course of the game, our draw kept getting better, our goalies were making saves, our defense expired some clock. We created so many opportunities that finally we found the back of the net. I am proud of our effort and how we stuck together. Once we got our momentum from the second quarter, we didn’t lose another quarter. We did a good job of breaking a talented team.”

UP NEXT

Virginia hosts Clemson on Friday at 5 p.m. at Klöckner Stadium.