Virginia bounces back

After a painful home loss to Duke in overtime on Friday, the Virginia men’s soccer team returned to the field on Tuesday night.
This time, there were several thousand fewer fans in the Klockner Stadium stands. And this time, Virginia’s opponent was a far cry from an ACC outfit.
The Cavaliers played as if it they were completely aware of these facts.
But Virginia coach George Gelnovatch didn’t seem too perturbed after the team’s uninspiring 1-0 win over Mount Saint Mary’s.
“We wanted to win tonight and we wanted to rest a lot of people — and we accomplished that,” Gelnovatch said. “I would have liked to have scored more goals and won more convincingly, but in the end we achieved our two goals.”
In the first half, Virginia had a number of quality scoring chances but just couldn’t put the ball in the net. UVa outshot the Mount 9-0 and held a
5-0 edge in corner kicks.
In the 38th minute, Virginia was finally able to break through when Neil Barlow took a pass from Ari Dimas near the top of the box and blasted a shot to the far right post that eluded the outstretched arms of goalie Chris Davis.
“Ari played me a great ball and I just decided to run with it,” Barlow said. “I just took it upon myself to try and put us ahead by one.
“Luckily, it went in.”
Virginia freshman goalie Will Whorton got the start in place of redshirt junior Diego Restrepo, a transfer from South Florida who had started the team’s first three games.
Defender T.J. Cyrus and midfielder Chase Neinken also got their first starts of the season.
Reserves Jordan Evans, Sean Hiller, Sean Murnane and Dimas saw extensive action.
Barlow, who scored the game-winner in overtime in the Cavalier’s win over the University on Washington on Sept. 6, admitted that the team was still in a little bit of a fog after the disappointing loss to the Dookies.
“We definitely need to move past [the Duke loss] because the game we have coming up is a big one and we definitely don’t want to go down 0-2 in the ACC,” said Barlow, alluding to Friday night’s game at Wake Forest. “That wouldn’t be a good start.
“We just have to lift our spirits and do better.”
Added forward Tony Tchani: “I think everyone was pretty much tired from the last game and that’s why we didn’t really play our games.
“But we’re looking forward to the game against Wake.”