Field Hockey: Virginia blanks No. 4 Maryland, 4-0, to advance to national semis

Courtesy UVA Media Relations

The Virginia field hockey team advanced to the semifinals of the 2023 NCAA Field Hockey Championship with a 4-0 victory against 4-seed Maryland on Sunday at Maryland’s Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex in College Park.

The Cavaliers (14-6) held the Terrapins to one shot on goal.

The Cavaliers will play in the NCAA Semifinals for the sixth time in program history and the first time since 2019. UVA will take on top-seeded North Carolina (16-3) on Friday at noon at Karen Shelton Stadium in Chapel Hill.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Maryland (17-6) had the first scoring chances of the game, earning three straight penalty corners in the first 90 seconds of the game. Junior midfielder Noa Boterman made a defensive save on one of the Maryland attempts, keeping the Terrapins off the board. Hope Rose took a shot at the goal five minutes into the game, her attempt going wide. It was the last shot that Maryland would take until the fourth quarter.

Virginia had its first opportunity midway through the first quarter, earning their own slate of three straight penalty corners. On the third attempt, a shot by sophomore midfielder Lauren Kenah was saved, but sophomore midfielder Daniela Mendez-Trendler picked up the rebound off the goalie’s pads and knocked it into the cage to give UVA a 1-0 lead with 5:47 remaining in the opening period.

Sophomore back Madison Orsi added a second goal off a corner in the second quarter, deflecting in a shot from Boterman with 7:31 remaining in the half.

Freshman Minnie Pollock added a third goal for the Cavaliers in the third quarter, firing off a shot from the top of the circle that smashed into the boards in the back of the cage.

Grad student Adele Iacobucci made it 4-0 3:03 into the final quarter. Iacobucci picked up a rebound off the pads after a hot shot from Pollock then dribbled around a defender to find opened space, and firing off an on-target shot.

Maryland had a pair of penalty corners with ten minutes remaining in the game, but the shot was blocked. The Terrapins had another penalty corner a minute later with the same result. Virginia’s defense kept Maryland from taking a shot for the final 8:22 of the game.

FROM ACTING HEAD COACH OLE KEUSGEN

“Field hockey is a very quick-changing sport. Even if you are up three goals, that can change very, very quickly, as we have seen in our season. So we wanted to make sure that we took away their strength, their key players. Tactically, we have done a great job. Individually, we have done a great job to minimize Maryland’s strength, they have a lot of very powerful players, very skillful players. We found a way to minimize their touches and their possibilities and make the space around them small, and then sometimes a tackle outside is also very fortunate. We have been fortunate. We have been focused but also very detail-oriented. That’s why it worked the way it worked.

“I think what is more important than our two goals is the very beginning of the game when, after 90 seconds, Maryland had a battery of corners. That, to me, was the most important thing because they might just switch the entire game momentum, and it would be a very different game. So holding strong at the beginning of the game and making sure that we have the right place, the discipline and also the sacrificial mindset to defend those corners was absolutely crucial. We spent a lot of time improving our corners. It’s absolutely crucial in field hockey that we can execute on corners, especially your first two or three corners, which we have done and made our game today a lot easier.”

NOTES

• Virginia’s previous trips to the NCAA Semifinals were in 1997, 1998, 2009, 2010, and 2019
• Virginia held a 16-6 edge in shots and 9-5 in penalty corners
• Orsi’s goal was the first of her career
• Mendez-Trendler’s goal was her team-leading ninth of the year
• Pollock and Iacobucci’s goals were their fourth of the year
• Boterman’s defensive save was her fifth of the season
• Maryland’s Alyssa Klebasko made seven saves
• Virginia improved to 9-1 in road games
• This was the fifth shutout of the year for the Cavaliers
• Virginia is No. 5 in the latest NFHCA Coaches Poll. Maryland is No. 4