Jessica Nonn looks for open Hokies against Old Dominion. The freshman scored four goals that game, helping Tech start a three-game win streak.
Virginia Tech sputtered into its 2009 season with a depleted hand and experience stacked against them. After losing four crucial senior leaders to dismissal in the fall, the Hokies hit spring with only three upperclassmen on a roster of 23.
February suggested an even bleaker forecast when Tech dropped its first four games. As the season's opening month neared a close, it became a question of whether this would be a rebuilding campaign or, perhaps, a "lost year."
The team then bounced back with four straight victories and forged its most successful season since Katrina Silva took over as head coach prior to 2007.
Sophomore Allie Emala didn't liken her youthful team's early outlook as it was against the world, but she did admit outsider expectations could be used as ample fuel to surprise some people.
"I just thought we should use it as fire," Emala said. "It wasn't like we thought everyone was hating on us ... but I, personally, used it as motivation, and I know a lot of other people on the team did as well."
Emala, who finished this season second on the team in both goals and points, is one of 22 currently on roster whom Silva recruited to the team. The only remaining player from previous coach Tami Riley's team is Rachel Culp, a 2009 All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection.
The senior tallied a goal and an assist in her final college game on Thursday as Tech fell to archrival Virginia.
"I think (Silva), and all three of the coaches, really, have put me in a position where I need to step up bigger and bigger each year," Culp said, "and it's made me grow that much faster."
Culp etched her mark in the Tech record books by racking up 119 career goals, good for second in school history.
"(The coaches) put me in a position where they expected me to do certain things, and so I want to meet those expectations," she said. "I'm not satisfied unless I do meet them and go above."
Though this Hokie squad lost in the first round of the ACC tournament - which was held in Blacksburg at Thompson Field - it can take solace in having captured its best ACC record since joining the league in 2004.
Granted, that record was 1-4, and its record on the season finished at a seemingly pedestrian 7-10, but this comes off powerful in comparison to the previous Silva seasons.
Tech posted records of 5-12 (0-5 in the ACC) and 4-14 (0-5) in 2007 and 2008 respectively, failing to achieve the school's first conference win in each season. By far, its closest attempts came against Boston College: a 10-9 loss in Chestnut Hill last year and a 16-15 heart-wrencher in Blacksburg two seasons back.
On March 14, Tech battled to a 16-14 overtime victory over BC at home, finally ripping the monkey off its back and relegating the Eagles to the bottom of the six-team conference.
Judging by the numbers, this type of early faltering followed by rapid progression mirrors Silva's experience at her former job, a seven-year tenure at Colgate University that started with the 2000 season.
In upstate New York, Silva's teams failed to scratch double digit wins until her fourth try, then she never looked back. Silva's Colgate squads amassed a 46-31 record from 2003 to 2006, including two Patriot League Tournament titles.
This twice earned her Patriot League Coach of the Year honors and Colgate Coach of the Year once.
While her beginning-of-tenure records may suggest that she struggled somewhat with adapting to the recruits of the previous coach - as 16 of the 17 leftover Riley recruits of the 2009 and 2010 classes left the team before their senior seasons for reasons that include cuts, quits, transfers, dismissals and injuries - the ensuing success conveys that she has done wonders with her own group.
"I think the chemistry off the field is starting to show on the field," Emala said.
Something also important to keep in mind is that the Patriot League is no ACC, and the latter is regarded by many as the elite conference in women's college lacrosse.
Presenting the new challenge for Silva are teams that produced incredible success this year, such as Maryland (18-0), North Carolina (13-4), Duke (13-5) and, to a lesser extent but still impressive, Virginia (11-7), the team that ended Tech's season in the ACC tournament.
Even Boston College, the Hokies' lone ACC victim, finished with an overall winning record.
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Why does the paper publish this boring crap? The writers suck already and mixing that with girls lacrosse is just painful.
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If you want better stuff why don't you write some! I love girl's lacrosse and I'm glad their successful season got some play in the paper...! Also, the writer's are awesome and have won tons of awards both in the state and nationally..
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