April 20, 2003
Final Stats
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -
The University of Maryland women's lacrosse team officially completed its return to the top of the Atlantic Coast Conference with an impressive 11-6 win over host and No. 3 seed Virginia in today's ACC Finals. The win gave Maryland the tournament championship after it had secured the No. 1 seed with a perfect 3-0 regular season mark.
The Terrapins have now won five of seven ACC tournaments all time and own a perfrect 6-0 mark against Virginia in ACC tournament play.
Five Terps were honored for their play in the tournament as seniors Sonia Judd and Julie Shank were joined by junior Kelly Coppedge and sophomore Annie Collins on the all-tournament team. Senior goalie Alexis Venechanos was named the tournament's most valuable player.
The Terrapins (15-1, 3-0 ACC) were dominant from start to finish. The game began with the two teams exchanging goals in the first six minutes. Maryland then ran off the half's next six goals to take a 7-1 lead to the locker room. In the run, four different Terps found the net with Coppedge and Kristie Leggio leading the way with two goals apiece. The Terrapin defense was tough in the half, limiting the Cavaliers (12-4) to just nine shots.
The second half saw Virginia working to try to get back in the game, but the 'Hoos chipped away at the Maryland lead a little too slow considering their were down six at the break. Morgan Thalenberg and Cary Chasney each scored to cut the Maryland lead to 7-3 and the Cavaliers successfully held the Terps in check for the first 15 minutes of the second frame.
As she did in the first half, Collins would get Maryland on the board for the first time in the second half, converting on a free position shot at 44:51. Virginia would answer at the 46:00 mark, but that four-goal margin would be as close as UVa would come the remainder of the day.
Maryland would score three more times and Venechanos would make save after save en route to victory. For the game, Venechanos set a season high with 13 saves while she stopped all four of Virginia's free position attempts on the day.
Sophomore Acacia Walker led all scorers with five points, converting two of her four shots on goal and dishing out three assists. Collins posted four points behind a hat trick and an assist, while Coppedge (two goals, one assist) and Judd (one goal, two assists) each had three points.
For the game, Maryland's 11 goals came on just 21 shots while it won the battle on draws, 12-7.
The Terrapins now return home for their final three regular season games of the 2003 season as they will square off with Virginia Tech (Sat., April 26th) and Princeton (Sat., April 30th) before taking on current No. 1 Loyola in the regular-season finale on May 3rd.
