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Virginia scored the only goal it would need when Bird headed home a cross by first-year midfielder Jake Rozhansky. It was Bird's third goal of the season, and his second in an as many games. The fourth-year captain had knocked in the game-winner against George Mason. "It was a corner kick that got popped back out, and [Rozhansky] just put in a great ball," said Bird, smiling. "I saw him and knew exactly where he was going to put it — we had worked on it all week in practice. I just got across my guy and headed it in." The win gave Virginia an 8-3-1 record, including a 3-1-1 mark in the ACC. However, another rough patch followed in which UVa went winless in four of its next six games. Virginia's inability to score was its biggest con- cern. The Cavaliers ranked in the bottom third in the country in goals for much of the season. Virginia's struggles in that department were never more apparent than in a 3-0 loss at defending NCAA champion Notre Dame in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals Nov. 9. It was after that game and dur- ing a 14-day break leading into the NCAA Tourna- ment that Gelnovatch decided to adopt an entirely different game plan. Realizing that his team was never going to out- score anybody, Gelnovatch elected to become more defensive-oriented. The new plan was to drop several defenders behind the ball and become more opportu- nistic with scoring chances. The strategy worked like a charm when Virginia returned to South Bend Nov. 30 for a third-round NCAA Tournament game. Playing without Bird, who sat out with a groin injury that he had suffered in the first minute of the second-round match against UNC Wilmington, UVa got an 82nd-minute goal from second-year forward/midfielder Nicko Cor- riveau to upset the top-seeded Irish 1-0. "We came in with a good game plan and the guys executed it," Gelnovatch said. "I can't say enough about how the guys executed the game plan. We knew the longer the game went on 0-0, the better the chance we would find the way to get a goal. We didn't want to give up any goals early, and the guys did a good job of that." The win was just the third true road victory ever for Vir- ginia in NCAA Tournament play, and the first since the 2003 season at Wake Forest. The other was a 3-0 win at Rut- gers in the 1989 semifinals. Notre Dame nearly found the equalizer a minute after Corriveau's goal when Jeffrey Farina got loose in the box and fired on target, but Brown de- flected the shot away. From there, UVa's defense hunkered down, which would be a theme the rest of the postseason. "We knew we would have to be good defensively in our third of the field, both in our box and defend- ing one-on-one and off the dribble," Gelnovatch said. "We did a really good job of that and we worked on it all week. The guys did a good job of that, and in particular once we went up a goal and over the last eight minutes when they turned it up." Next up for the 16th-seeded Cavaliers was Georgetown, the No. 8 seed. Trailing 1-0 in the final minute of the game, it looked like Virginia's season was going to come to an end. However, the Cavaliers silenced the sold-out Shaw Field crowd with an equalizer by Todd Whar- ton in the final minute. After the sides played to a 1-1 draw following two overtime periods, Virginia won in a penalty kick shootout 5-4. "In my time here, that was one of the gutsiest performances I've seen," Gelnovath said afterward. "We did a great job of understanding the crowd, the THE ROAD TO NO. 7 Date Opponent Result Nov. 23 UNC Wilmington W, 3-1 Nov. 30 at Notre Dame W, 1-0 Dec. 6 at Georgetown T, 1-1 (2OT)* Dec. 12 vs. UMBC^ W, 1-0 Dec. 14 vs. UCLA^ T, 0-0 (2OT)$ * UVa won the penalty kick shootout 5‑4; ^ at Cary, N.C.; $ UVa won the penalty kick shootout 4‑2