Denver prepping for Virginia's zone defense
Had Saturday’s opening NCAA tournament semifinal between No. 6 seed Denver and No. 7 seed Virginia taken place in the middle of the season, the contest might have evolved – or devolved, depending on your perspective – into a track meet.
But with the Cavaliers (11-5) losing redshirt junior defenseman Matt Lovejoy to season-ending shoulder surgery after the team’s 12-7 loss to Maryland on April 2, the run-and-gun potential doesn’t appear likely as Virginia has unveiled a zone defense that frustrates opposing offenses and slows the pace of games.
The Pioneers (15-2) is preparing to solve the Cavaliers’ zone, which impressed Denver coach Bill Tierney Tuesday morning during an NCAA-organized conference call involving the four Division I coaches, two Division II coaches and two Division III coaches who will appear at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore this weekend.
“It’s different, but it tells you what a great coach Dom is,” Tierney said of Virginia’s Dom Starsia. “You can continue to beat your head against a wall if something’s not working or you can adjust to your team’s personnel, and he’s done that. When they lost the Lovejoy kid for the year, you had a force out there. For whatever reason, he’s gone to more zone. If 10 years ago, I told you we’d be talking about Bill Tierney playing Dom Starsia and one was playing zone and a great defense like that and the other one was trying to score a lot of goals, you might have the roles reversed a little bit. So I think it’s really interesting, and I give Dom and his staff a lot of credit for what they’re doing.”
After surrendering 12 goals in an overtime win against Bucknell in the first round, the Cavaliers suffocated No. 2 seed Cornell, shutting out the Big Red in a critical second quarter in which Virginia scored seven goals en route to 10-4 halftime advantage and a 13-9 final.
Tierney said the onus is on the Pioneers to succeed where Cornell didn’t.
“How do you beat it? That’s a good question,” he said. “I thought that Cornell has been really clicking all year long, and they were phenomenal. To be held down, especially in that second quarter, the way they were by Virginia, that was nothing short of amazing. Very athletic, very quick, and a great goalie with a lot of experience. So it’s going to be tough to score on them. Who knows? Maybe our game could be the 7-6 game. But I think it’s really a credit to Dom and his staff for what they’ve done.
