Photo by: Jaylynn Nash
Cerebral Eagles Mentally Outwit And Outlast To Semifinals
April 25, 2025 | Lacrosse, #ForBoston Files
The first round win over Virginia showcased BC's smarts.
The first meeting between No. 2 Boston College and eighth-ranked Virginia was a rare and complex matchup for the Eagles. The then-No. 11 Cavaliers stayed feisty and plucky while limiting BC in its first game after the loss to North Carolina, but an overall lack of a Tar Heel hangover kept them from ever coming close to toppling the league's second place team. The second quarter was exceptionally close on the scoreboard after BC opened a 6-3 lead in the first, after which the Eagles ran away with a 14-5 second half advantage and a 24-11, 13-goal rout.
Quickly facing one another less than two weeks later left little to the imagination for Wednesday's Atlantic Coast Conference championship tournament. The lack of distance between the two games meant both teams retained a fresh memory from BC's win in Chestnut Hill, and each easily threaded their own national tournament aspirations through the common link of positives retained from that game.
None of that prevented the second-seeded Eagles and seventh-seeded Cavaliers from attempting to gain an upper hand on one another. Reviewing the film and creating new game plans for the matchup illustrated the chess match between the coaches and players, to which BC used its own brand of intelligence to gain an upper hand after feeling out the first quarter. In their own way, the low-scoring, 2-2 period showcased the precursor of a methodical dissection, and the 17-7 victory broke the Eagles through to a semifinal matchup with Stanford.
"I think our experience comes into play [in these games]," said head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein. "We just have to protect our midfielders. Against [Virginia's] type of zone, we had to look for really clear and easy shots that weren't sending our midfielders back into playing defense. Even when [goalkeeper Shea Dolce] plays like [she did], she had 14 saves, but we had to do our part to play a little bit of slow-down offense to ensure good possessions."
A lower-scoring first quarter indicated an altogether different approach to a game featuring two attacks averaging well north of a combined 30 goals per game, but the lack of offensive outbursts pointed more towards successful objectives installed by BC's cerebral game management. Virginia failed to control the pace even after a 70-second span built a 2-1 lead, and the end of the quarter erased the lead for good after Dolce's save spurred a successful clear attempt and a goal by Rachel Clark as the first period drew near its final end.Â
A failed first minute of the second quarter later produced a yellow card to Jenna Dinardo, and another successful clear by BC led to Kylee Colbert's power play goal that essentially dumbfounded the Cavaliers. They'd tie the game on Nichole Cruthirds' goal in the fourth minute of the quarter, but they'd also been forced to truly pound away at BC's defense in a way that enacted a tariff on the tie score.
"One thing that we've been harping on offensively is what our defense needs from us," explained Mia Mascone. "I think we needed to take a second to pause and recognize that [the game] was getting to be a little bit of a track race, and we just adjusted to get back to our gameplan."
"It wasn't necessarily even about the game plan," added Clark. "It was more about game management, and once we got back to game management and reading what type of stop our defense made, [whether] it was from a big save or a shot clock violation, that was our cue to let our midfielders rest through a long possession. It's on the offensive attackers to know the game management and when to push the fast break and when to slow down."
Understanding the mental portion of the game enabled BC to post a third quarter shutout against Virginia before rolling to the 10-goal victory. The halftime swing aside, the Eagles rolled by drawing the Cavaliers into the more methodical game, but the idea that a slower pace could lead directly into a tightly and defined matchup against third-seeded Stanford is gaslit by the previous 17-9 result against the conference's newest power.
BC led that game by five after the first quarter and similarly shut out the Cardinal in the third quarter with a 5-0 frame, so the early indication illustrates how the Eagles could use the same style to dictate the pace against the conference's No. 3 seed. The main difference, though, is that Stanford didn't post the same brand of attack with any type of consistency. The 20-goal outburst against UC-Davis, for example, preceded a 13-7 win over Virginia during the early part of the season, and a 14-13 win over Villanova occurred before a mirrored double-overtime loss at Syracuse.
A 15-10 win over the Orange advanced the Cardinal into the league's semifinal round, but the game required a second half flip-flop after Syracuse broke out to an 8-5 lead after two. More specifically, Stanford surrendered seven consecutive goals over an 11-minute span and needed to post nine of the first 10 goals across the third and fourth quarters to overtake the more experienced ACC club.
"I was happy that we won ground balls [against Virginia]," said Walker-Weinstein. "I was unhappy that we had 11 turnovers. I'd like to be under eight [over the full game]. I think that's going to be the big requirement to win big, but I was really proud of Shea [because] she held down the defense. It was really great to see people like Giulia Colarusso come into the game. Mallory Hasselbeck and Elizabeth Kirk came in, and Avery Hudson is getting her feet under her. Our middies held a lot of composure against a hard opponent."
The second-seeded Eagles and third-seeded Cardinal face-off on Friday from the American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. Game time is slated for 8 p.m. and follows the first semifinal between top-seeded North Carolina and fifth-seeded Clemson at 5 p.m. Both games will be televised on the ACC Network with the winners advancing to Sunday's 12 p.m. start.
Quickly facing one another less than two weeks later left little to the imagination for Wednesday's Atlantic Coast Conference championship tournament. The lack of distance between the two games meant both teams retained a fresh memory from BC's win in Chestnut Hill, and each easily threaded their own national tournament aspirations through the common link of positives retained from that game.
None of that prevented the second-seeded Eagles and seventh-seeded Cavaliers from attempting to gain an upper hand on one another. Reviewing the film and creating new game plans for the matchup illustrated the chess match between the coaches and players, to which BC used its own brand of intelligence to gain an upper hand after feeling out the first quarter. In their own way, the low-scoring, 2-2 period showcased the precursor of a methodical dissection, and the 17-7 victory broke the Eagles through to a semifinal matchup with Stanford.
"I think our experience comes into play [in these games]," said head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein. "We just have to protect our midfielders. Against [Virginia's] type of zone, we had to look for really clear and easy shots that weren't sending our midfielders back into playing defense. Even when [goalkeeper Shea Dolce] plays like [she did], she had 14 saves, but we had to do our part to play a little bit of slow-down offense to ensure good possessions."
A lower-scoring first quarter indicated an altogether different approach to a game featuring two attacks averaging well north of a combined 30 goals per game, but the lack of offensive outbursts pointed more towards successful objectives installed by BC's cerebral game management. Virginia failed to control the pace even after a 70-second span built a 2-1 lead, and the end of the quarter erased the lead for good after Dolce's save spurred a successful clear attempt and a goal by Rachel Clark as the first period drew near its final end.Â
A failed first minute of the second quarter later produced a yellow card to Jenna Dinardo, and another successful clear by BC led to Kylee Colbert's power play goal that essentially dumbfounded the Cavaliers. They'd tie the game on Nichole Cruthirds' goal in the fourth minute of the quarter, but they'd also been forced to truly pound away at BC's defense in a way that enacted a tariff on the tie score.
"One thing that we've been harping on offensively is what our defense needs from us," explained Mia Mascone. "I think we needed to take a second to pause and recognize that [the game] was getting to be a little bit of a track race, and we just adjusted to get back to our gameplan."
"It wasn't necessarily even about the game plan," added Clark. "It was more about game management, and once we got back to game management and reading what type of stop our defense made, [whether] it was from a big save or a shot clock violation, that was our cue to let our midfielders rest through a long possession. It's on the offensive attackers to know the game management and when to push the fast break and when to slow down."
Understanding the mental portion of the game enabled BC to post a third quarter shutout against Virginia before rolling to the 10-goal victory. The halftime swing aside, the Eagles rolled by drawing the Cavaliers into the more methodical game, but the idea that a slower pace could lead directly into a tightly and defined matchup against third-seeded Stanford is gaslit by the previous 17-9 result against the conference's newest power.
BC led that game by five after the first quarter and similarly shut out the Cardinal in the third quarter with a 5-0 frame, so the early indication illustrates how the Eagles could use the same style to dictate the pace against the conference's No. 3 seed. The main difference, though, is that Stanford didn't post the same brand of attack with any type of consistency. The 20-goal outburst against UC-Davis, for example, preceded a 13-7 win over Virginia during the early part of the season, and a 14-13 win over Villanova occurred before a mirrored double-overtime loss at Syracuse.
A 15-10 win over the Orange advanced the Cardinal into the league's semifinal round, but the game required a second half flip-flop after Syracuse broke out to an 8-5 lead after two. More specifically, Stanford surrendered seven consecutive goals over an 11-minute span and needed to post nine of the first 10 goals across the third and fourth quarters to overtake the more experienced ACC club.
"I was happy that we won ground balls [against Virginia]," said Walker-Weinstein. "I was unhappy that we had 11 turnovers. I'd like to be under eight [over the full game]. I think that's going to be the big requirement to win big, but I was really proud of Shea [because] she held down the defense. It was really great to see people like Giulia Colarusso come into the game. Mallory Hasselbeck and Elizabeth Kirk came in, and Avery Hudson is getting her feet under her. Our middies held a lot of composure against a hard opponent."
The second-seeded Eagles and third-seeded Cardinal face-off on Friday from the American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. Game time is slated for 8 p.m. and follows the first semifinal between top-seeded North Carolina and fifth-seeded Clemson at 5 p.m. Both games will be televised on the ACC Network with the winners advancing to Sunday's 12 p.m. start.
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