By Dalton Ray–

The sixth-ranked Louisville lacrosse team defeated Virginia Tech 15-9 on Saturday, March 26.

The Cardinals had four players finish with hat tricks. The trio of Kaylin Morissettee, Kelli Gerding and Cortnee Daley all had three goals. Hannah Koloski led the Cards with four, with her 32 goals leading the team.

U of L scored four goals in the first eight minutes, but the scoring cooled down for the rest of the half. Louisville only scored two more goals in the remaining 22 minutes and walked into halftime with a 6-2 advantage. Coach Kellie Young was pleased with the hot start but wanted more consistency.

“We looked really good early,” she said. “We were looking confident and pushing the ball down the field, it was just nice. We’ve got to find a way to do that for 60 minutes.”

After the half, Louisville jumped on the board first, but Virginia Tech scored the next three goals. The Hokies trailed 8-5, the closest the deficit had been since the first ten minutes of the game. Young called a timeout to regather her team.

“We wanted to get the team to calm down and get back to the scout,” Young said. “We were a little tense and had some turnovers but after that we brought it back in.”

The Cardinals responded by scoring the next five goals. Morissettee assisted on three of those five goals after capping off her hat trick in the first 30 minutes. By that point there was just over ten minutes remaining and the Cards were safely ahead 13-5. Virginia Tech scored four goals in the final 10 minutes while Koloski added her fourth goal and Gerding found her third.

While Young was happy to get the conference win, she sees room for improvement.

“We got beat on a sniper cut, something we haven’t done all year long,” Young said. “We had three yellow cards and that’s just not us and not classy, then we had an off-ball foul. So five of their goals were not earned. We can’t ever assume that we’re just good enough, we always have to be driving. We need better attention to detail next game and I think we’ll do that.”

Morissettee thinks in a similar fashion.

“We battle hard and had our ups and downs. We went on our runs but we have to remember to put it together for 60 minutes,” Morissette said. “We can’t just play 15 minutes here and 10 minutes there. Throughout the game we fought hard, we’re just happy to come out with the win.”

Louisville’s next game will be against Brown and it will be the first night game ever at U of L Lacrosse Stadium. The match will take place March 30 at 7 p.m. After that, the team will end the year against third-ranked North Carolina, 16th-ranked Virginia and seventh-ranked Syracuse. Young says the team will have to come prepared for those games and says she does feel like the team’s success has been recognized.

“We have absolutely have a target on our back, our past few games haven’t exactly been the cleanest performances and people will see opportunities,” Young said. “We have to be able to put a full 60 minutes together like earlier in the year and we want mental toughness.”

The win places the team at 11-1 on the year and 3-1 in conference.

Photo by Dalton Ray / The Louisville Cardinal