Improved Defense Fuels Virginia Lacrosse's Latest Trip to Championship Weekend

Matt Newton | May 22, 2024

Ben Wayer clears the ball during the Virginia men's lacrosse game against John Hopkins in the NCAA quarterfinals. / Virginia Athletics

There was no shortage of heroes in Virginia's thrilling 11-10 victory over Johns Hopkins in the quarterfinals on Sunday. Connor Shellenberger reprised his Mr. May alter ego with a brilliant game-winning goal in double overtime, while McCabe Millon delivered what is likely the first of many memorable postseason performances with six points on three goals and three assists.

But the biggest reason the Cavaliers found a way to win and extend their season despite trailing for the entirety of the game was their defense.

For a unit that gave up 18 goals on three separate occasions during Virginia's four-game losing skid, the UVA defense knew that a total reversal and a return "to the basics" was needed if the Cavaliers were going to right the ship and make a run in May. Sure enough, the last two weeks have seen Virginia's defense do just that, first in a smothering win over St. Joe's in the first round and then, more impressively, in containing a high-powered Johns Hopkins offense in Sunday's quarterfinals.

It didn't seem that way at first, as the Blue Jay shooters got four hands-free looks and buried them to take a 4-0 lead and compel Lars Tiffany to pull goalie Matthew Nunes from the game after just six minutes and 36 seconds.

Johns Hopkins wound up scoring five goals in the opening period and leading 7-5 at halftime, but with the exception of a three-goal burst at the end of the third quarter, the Blue Jays were bottled up by the UVA defense for the rest of the game.

On a day in which the UVA offense struggled to get into a rhythm, represented most profoundly by the case of the NCAA's all-time leading scorer Payton Cormier being held to just one goal on 11 shots, it was the Virginia defense who kept the Hoos in it and gave them a chance to win.

An extra man goal from Garrett Degnon capped a 3-0 Hopkins run to take a 10-7 lead with one minute and 37 seconds left in the third quarter. The Blue Jays never scored again, taking just two shots in the fourth quarter and going the final 22 minutes and 57 seconds of the third quarter, fourth quarter, and first and second overtime periods without finding the back of the net.

How did Virginia turn things around defensively after the rough start? To start, the Cavaliers were their usual aggressive and tenacious selves, causing several turnovers and wreaking havoc on the Blue Jays in the clearing game. Johns Hopkins committed 25 turnovers, 11 of them caused by Virginia, and was an abysmal 17/26 on clears, failing three clears in each of the third and fourth quarters. UVA also returned to form in attacking the 50-50 balls, winning the ground-ball battle 40-27 and earning a 16-10 advantage in faceoffs.

Ben Wayer had a monster game with 10 ground balls, two caused turnovers, and an assist and Chase Yager tallied three ground balls and three caused turnovers. Yager forced the turnover and Wayer picked up the ensuing loose ball that gave Virginia the possession that ultimately ended with Shellenberger scoring the game-winner in double overtime. Those are the kind of chaos plays that are the calling card of Virginia defensive lacrosse under Lars tiffany.

But more importantly, UVA's defense cleaned up its 6-on-6 execution, preventing the Blue Jays from getting many clean looks and only allowing low-percentage shots that either missed the cage or were much easier for Kyle Morris to get in front of.

"It's so important to get the goalie the shots that they want to see," said senior defenseman Cole Kastner. "And we know collectively as a defense what's good and what's bad. And so when we're not taking away those strengths from other teams, it's a really hard situation for the guys behind us."

It was a night and day difference between the shots the Blue Jays were getting in the first quarter and the looks the Cavaliers were limiting them to in the second half. Kyle Morris did his part, making eight saves, including a big one at the end of the first overtime period, but the improvement of the Virginia defense in front of him as the game progressed had a huge hand in that outcome, significantly lowering the quality of shots that reached Morris.

"I love how Kyle came in and made the saves that you really need your goalie to make, the 13, 14-yard shot on the run. Kyle ate those up when Hopkins took those shots on him," said Lars Tiffany. "There's a symbiotic relationship between the defense and the goalie. What shots can we give up? How do we want this possession to end? We're not going to go out there and take the ball away every time... but it's what shots do we we give up? And when Kyle came in and made those couple saves on shots that we want to be able to give up, it just calmed everything down and helped the entire defense play better."

While Tiffany's decision to replace Nunes with Morris worked out on Sunday, it now presents an intriguing dilemma for Virginia entering Championship Weekend. Tiffany has yet to decide which goalie will start against Maryland in the semifinals. Morris is coming off of a solid game, but has never started a game in college, let alone an NCAA Tournament game, while Nunes has seven career NCAA Tournament starts under his belt and several quality May performances to show for it, including a 17-save game against Notre Dame in the Final Four last year. Not to mention, Nunes has played and beaten this Maryland team once already this season, posting 11 saves and 10 goals allowed to help Virginia take down the Terps 14-10 on the road in College Park.

"As I alluded to on Sunday in the postgame press conference, we only have one day of really intense practice this week. So in terms of our data that we put in and the metrics as we measure our depth chart, it'll be difficult to get a lot more input to make a new decision," Tiffany said of the goalie situation on Tuesday. "So we're going to talk about it as a staff a lot. You know, Matt Nunes has been our starter since he arrived here and Kyle Morris has never started an NCAA Tournament game. But he does have some good experience now. So we're gonna go back and forth. We're gonna look at it, the one practice that we'll have Wednesday, and then we'll make a decision after that."

Regardless of who starts in between the pipes for the Cavaliers, it will be the play of the UVA defense in front of that goalkeeper that is most paramount. If Virginia can continue to play its aggressive and physical brand of lacrosse while not conceding many open shots to the opponent in settled 6-on-6 sets, then the Cavaliers could find themselves playing on Memorial Day with a national title on the line, an incredible prospect for a Virginia team that seemed to be running on fumes just two short weeks ago.

"I don't think there was any doubt," Kastner said on Tuesday. "We're really lucky to have a lot of guys who have a lot of experience and maybe we haven't experienced losing consecutive games like that ever before. That adds a whole lot of value and gives you a whole lot of perspective that it's not easy to get to Championship Weekend and a lot of things have to go right. And we fixed a lot of those issues or the shortcomings where we were not executing at 100% of the capability that we were capable of and I'm really proud of our group for being relentless there and continue pursuing the ultimate goal for us."

No. 6 seed Virginia (12-5) will take on No. 7 seed Maryland (10-5) in the second semifinal on Saturday at approximately 2:30pm (ESPN2) at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.