UVa cruises to win over Dartmouth

In four seasons at Virginia, Danny Glading and Garrett Billings have hooked up on a number of memorable goals.

But the duo’s tally early in the fourth quarter of Saturday afternoon’s regular-season finale versus Dartmouth at Klockner Stadium just might take the cake.

From behind the goal, Glading juked his way around a Big Green defender and hit Billings in stride with a perfect pass. Billings fired a behind-the-back shot that beat goalie Fergus Campbell to snap a tie.

The goal, courtesy of the seniors, awoke Virginia from a mini-coma. UVa went on to score the next six goals, defeating Dartmouth on Senior Day, 13-6.

“That’s just Garrett being Canadian,” said a smiling Glading. “He and I know each other so well. I saw him roll to the left and I knew he wasn’t going to make a left-handed cut. He just did a little spin move and I just let it go, knowing he’d catch it — and he made a great shot.”

“I said to him on the sideline — that may have been my favorite goal that we’ve hooked up for,” said Billings, a Langley, B.C. native. “It was pretty cool.”

With the win and Princeton’s loss to Cornell, Virginia will likely reclaim the No. 1 spot in the polls that it lost after last Saturday’s loss to Duke.

Ironically, UVa will only be the No. 3 seed in the ACC Tournament that kicks off Friday night in Chapel Hill, N.C. The Wahoos (13-1) will get yet another shot at Duke, the No. 2 seed.

“We’re definitely looking forward to it,” said Virginia sophomore Shamel Bratton, who had a goal and an assist against Dartmouth. “This great senior class has never beaten Duke. We’ve got one last crack at it. We’ll give it everything we’ve got and see what happens.”

Virginia won’t be able to afford the kind of sluggish start it had on Saturday in the ACCs. Dartmouth (4-9), thanks to an unassisted goal by Tim Daniels, took a 5-3 lead going into the half.

The score held until just less than four minutes remained in the third quarter when Brian Carroll beat Campbell. Then, with just four seconds left in the stanza, Bratton scored to tie things up.

“We were working the whole day, but we weren’t playing smart in the first half,” said Glading, who had a goal and three assists. “In the second half, I think we won pretty much every faceoff and got good chances and started to bury our shots.”

At the half, Glading was one of several seniors who stood up and rallied the team.

“We told ourselves that we had to stop feeling sorry for ourselves,” he said. “We had been sulking the last couple of weeks instead of doing, and that’s never a good thing.

“We came out and put our foot on the pedal and got to every loose ball.”

On a sun-drenched day, a crowd of 4,080 loved the effort.

For the game, Virginia outshot Dartmouth, 41-27. After losing nine of 10 faceoffs in the first half, UVa won nine of 13 in the second.

“It’s a good win for us against a Dartmouth team that always plays well late in the season,” said Virginia coach Dom Starsia. “It’s also a useful win for us because it’s a good teaching-tool win for us.

“To not have played particularly well in the first half, but to have the older guys step up and take control of the game … we just kept working, didn’t get discouraged and ended up wearing them down in the fourth quarter.”