Virginia picks up midweek win over Robert Morris as French dazzles

With just one day off after their heartbreaking loss to UNC, the #18 Virginia men’s lacrosse team took to the field under the lights on Senior Night for a matchup with Robert Morris. Robert Morris (8-4) leads the Northeast Conference at 4-0 and is the favorite to win their automatic qualifier to the NCAA tournament.

Lars Tiffany started 10 of his fourth and fifth years, including putting Ryan Montgomery in cage. Montgomery, who walked onto the team in the fall of 2015, finished with three saves and one goal against in his lone career start. For Tiffany, starting seniors on senior day has been a long-standing tradition, something he brought with him from Brown.

“What was really exciting is that we have a new tradition here for Virginia,” Coach Tiffany said after the game. “It is an old tradition for our staff, but on senior night we want to make sure as many seniors start as possible...For us to be up one or two to nothing before we subbed them out and put our normal starters in was really exciting and is a testament to the team effort that we had out there tonight as a team. I am really excited that we got off to a great start with our seniors making it happen.”

Virginia jumped out to an early 6-0 lead, but a 4-1 run by Robert Morris in the second quarter made things a little more exciting than necessary as the Hoos took a 7-4 into halftime. The Hoos went on another scoring spurt as they built an 11-4 lead, and cruised to a 13-7 victory.

First year goalkeeper Griffin Thompson was spectacular in cage, notching a career high 18 saves and only allowing six goals for a 75% save percentage on the day. Virginia rebounded from their face off woes against North Carolina by winning 17 of 24 attempts, and the Hoos got goals from eight different goal scorers. First year Michael Kraus netted a hat trick, but fourth year Joe French dazzled with a trio of highlight reel goals.

Check out the full highlights below:

Virginia closes out the regular season on Saturday with a trip to Duke. The game is scheduled for 1pm and will be streamed online through ACC Network Extra (available on ESPN3.com).