The No. 2 ranked Virginia Cavaliers men's lacrosse team (6-1) will play host to No. 20 Ohio State (5-2) at 3:00 p.m. today in the first meeting between the teams since 2001. Four of the past five games for the Buckeyes have been on the road, the last coming just last week in a loss to lowly Albany.
Ohio State has already taken down one ACC team, when they defeated the No. 3 Tar Heels last month in Columbus. But the Buckeyes have never defeated the Cavaliers in the history of lacrosse itself.
Scoring for the Buckeyes is led by sophomores Logan Schuss and Jeff Tundo, who have scored 13 goals each. Schuss has added nine assists, while Tundo has six to his name.
In the cage for the Buckeyes is freshman Greg Dutton, who has started six games this season and has a 7.37 goalst-against average and .541 save percentage. Virginia of course has the experience in senior Adam Ghitelman, reigning ACC Defensive Player of the Week. Ghitelman is the all-time winningest ACC goalie, passing Duke's Dan Loftus (2004-2008) with a win over No. 14 Cornell last week. Ghitelman is now seventh in the all-time NCAA DI wins list, at 43, seven wins behind Princeton's Scott Bacigalupo (1991-1994).
Virginia and Ohio State are tied for best in the country when it comes to extra man opportunity defense, at .929. The difference maker in this is that Virginia is also leading the nation in EMO offense, at .615.
Virginia continues to struggle at the X. The Hoos are 38th out of 60 ranked teams in face-off win percentage, at .483, while Ohio State's sophomore Trey Wilkes has won 31-of-56 face-offs (.554) and freshman Shawn Kaplan is 39-of-78 (.500).
There shouldn't be too much magic in today's matchup, and the Cavaliers should be able to dispatch the Buckeyes. Still, it should be a fun game to watch, especially if you're already in the Klockner/Davenport area.