Cavaliers bow out of ACC tournament

BLACKSBURG — With freshman Brittany Dipper in goal and an NCAA berth wrapped up, No. 2 Maryland seemed ripe for the picking against a frustrated, hungry Virginia women’s lacrosse squad in need of a big win in Friday’s ACC semifinal.

A monster second half said otherwise.

Maryland stayed undefeated and advanced to the ACC championship game with a 15-7 victory in the tournament semifinals, pulling away after the break to leave Virginia perilously close to missing out on an NCAA tournament berth.

There are eight automatic bids to the NCAA field and eight at-large bids. With two other ACC squads, as well as a Big East squad and defending champ Northwestern, likely to earn at-large bids, the invitations left up for grabs are going to be few and far between. Conference tournament upsets could potentially leave Virginia on the outside looking in.

“It depends to some extent what other teams do,” Myers said. “But I think we should be okay in terms of getting a bid.”

Virginia will discover its fate May 3 when the tournament field is announced. Friday’s loss was a near-repeat performance of Virginia’s 17-11 loss to the Terrapins on March 6 when the Cavaliers (11-7) struggled to possess the ball and, in turn, got out of rhythm offensively, trying to do too much through one-on-one play. That fact wasn’t lost on Myers.

“I’m sick of it,” Myers said, referring to the same struggle dooming the Cavaliers against the Terrapins. “But Maryland’s good — they play without any fear. They feel like they can beat anybody and it shows in the way they’re playing.”

Maryland (17-0) had its usual balanced offensive attack going, with Caitlyn McFadden, Laura Merrifield and Brittany Jones all notching hat tricks, while Karri Ellen Johnson and Sarah Mollison chipped in with a pair of goals each. Jones, Merrifield and Mollison strung together three unassisted goals right out of the gate after halftime, swinging the momentum back to Maryland in a huge way after the Cavaliers reeled off a 4-1 run to end the first half.

“That was a momentum-changer,” said Maryland coach Cathy Reese. “We were coming up with draw controls and we were able to possess the ball and find open looks to the goal. Overall, it was a really strong performance from us.”

It was Dipper, though, that stymied Virginia with 11 saves on 24 Virginia shots, including several impressive stops in crucial situations. After the three-goal explosion to start the second, Virginia cut the lead to 9-6 on one of Kaitlin Duff’s four goals, and appeared set to make a run. But a goal by McFadden and Merrifeld, as well as two big stops by Dipper, left Virginia with little time on the clock and a five-goal deficit.

“It was probably [Dipper’s] best game,” Myers said. “Our shooters didn’t do a great job — we settled for less than we wanted and made a lot of her saves pretty easy but I give her credit for making those saves.”

Maryland’s defense held Virginia All-Americans Ashley McCulloch and Blair Weymouth in check, much like they did in the regular season, with the tandem combining for just one assist.

“They’re so good — they’re such good players — but Katie Gallagher played great on McCulloch,” Reese said. “We prepared for them and we focused on the entire Virginia offense because they’re all very patient, but all of them can score.”

Virginia and Maryland traded runs during the first half, with Maryland first leaping out to a 5-1 advantage on the strength of a pair of McFadden goals. Then Virginia responded with their 4-1 run to close the Maryland advantage to just a single goal at the break.

The Cavaliers tried to knot the game by killing nearly four minutes of clock before Blair Weymouth was unable to connect with less than 30 seconds to play. Maryland gathered in the ensuing loose ball, but failed to capitalize after racing the length of the field, forcing a shot wide as time expired.