The Cavaliers grabbed their sixth win of the season in thrilling fashion.
BALTIMORE -- No. 8 Virginia scored two goals in the final 1:34 of regulation to force overtime and Greg Coholan's sudden-death tally lifted the Cavaliers past No. 20 Johns Hopkins 16-15 Saturday night at historic Homewood Field.
The win also secures UVa.'s possession of the Doyle Smith Cup, the spoils awarded to the winner of the regular season matchup between the Cavaliers (6-2) and Johns Hopkins (3-5). UVa. wins the cup for the second year in a row after losing it three times between 2011-13. UVa. held onto the cup from 2006-10, the first five seasons the cup went to the regular season winner in the series.
"That was a great lacrosse game," said Virginia men's lacrosse head coach Dom Starsia. "Credit to Johns Hopkins for playing a great game. If the result had been the other way I was prepared to tell my team in the huddle after the game that I really enjoy this group. I love what they bring to practice every day and the effort that they bring to the games with what we are doing. We have to work extremely hard to get things done, but we are willing to do that. We were down two late there and things didn't look great, but we were composed in the huddles and had a plan going out. We were able to execute to get the goals we needed to win."
UVa. trailed 15-13 when Tyler German took a Ryan Tucker pass and scored at 1:34 to cut the Cavalier deficit down to one goal at 15-14. Johns Hopkins won the ensuing faceoff. After a Blue Jay timeout, Conor Reed lost the ball when double-teamed by Will Railey and Michael Howard behind the cage. Howard picked up the ground ball and UVa. safely cleared. Tucker then fired home the game-tying goal with 46 seconds left.
Jason Murphy won the following faceoff for UVa. and while German picked up the ground ball, Hopkins' Michael Pellegrino slashed him. With the extra-man situation, UVa held the ball to run out the clock to force the extra frame and guarantee possession of the ball to start the overtime period.
At 2:29, UVa.'s Ryan Lukacovic found Coholan for the game-winning score in overtime. Coholan's man fell on a slide to Lukacovic and after the pass made its way back, Coholan scored the overtime game-winning goal against Johns Hopkins for the second year in a row. Last year at Klƶckner Stadium Coholan's goal lifted UVa. past Johns Hopkins 11-10.
