No. 1 Virginia Lacrosse Erupts in First Half, Rolls Past No. 17 Harvard 25-21
The final score doesn't even begin to convey the dominance of Virginia's offensive performance on Saturday.
The Cavaliers led 11-3 at the end of the first quarter and 20-8 at halftime which allowed No. 1 Virginia to cruise to a 25-21 victory over No. 17 Harvard on Saturday at Klockner Stadium. The Crimson only lost by a margin of four goals because they scored nine goals in the fourth quarter largely against UVA's secondary defensive unit after the Cavaliers pulled their starters. Connor Shellenberger led UVA with a career-high ten points on three goals and seven assists, with many of those helpers going to Xander Dickson, who was perfect on the day with five goals on five shots.
“What an exceptional performance by our offense and give our offensive coordinator Sean Kirwan tremendous credit,” said Virginia head coach Lars Tiffany after the game.
Virginia jumped out to a 4-0 lead after goals from Shellenberger, two from Thomas McConvey, and one from Griffin Schutz. The goal was Schutz’s first of the season after being held scoreless against Michigan.
Petey LaSalla started 4/6 from the x and added a goal of his own before Xander Dickson added his name to the score column twice to put the Cavaliers up 7-0 after only five minutes of action. In that run, Shellenberger contributed three assists after scoring the first goal of the game.
Payton Cormier immediately added two goals of his own to put Virginia up 9-0, only eight minutes into the first quarter. On the defensive side, Matthew Nunes stood tall between the pipes, picking up four early saves and went on to finish with ten stops.
The Crimson finally found their way onto the scoreboard with a goal from Owen Gaffney before Shellenberger scored for his sixth point of the game. Evan Zinn added a coast-to-coast goal to put Virginia up 11-1, but Harvard proceeded to fire back with two goals as the first quarter closed. Virginia opened the second quarter with four-straight goals which included a goal from redshirt freshman Thomas Mencke, the first of his career.
Hayden Cheek stopped the bleeding for the Crimson and sparked a two-goal run to make the score 15-5. Later on in the second quarter, the UVA bench erupted after getting another goal from a short-stick defensive midfielder as Noah Chizmar joined the scoring before Schutz scored on a man-up opportunity.
As the first half closed, Virginia responded to a two-goal scoring burst by Harvard as freshman Truitt Sunderland scored the first two goals of his career and Dickson added one more to give Virginia a 20-8 lead.
UVA's defensive problems in the first half largely stemmed from man-down defense. Four of Harvard's eight goals came from man-up opportunities after the Cavaliers allowed no man-up goals last week against Michigan. UVA went man-down several times in the first half as Virginia's faceoff duo of Petey LaSalla and Mac Eldridge combined to commit five faceoff violations. Virginia recovered in that area in the second half and ended up having a 28-23 advantage in faceoffs as LaSalla went 20/32 and Eldridge went 8/19.
In the second half, the Cavaliers took their foot off the gas on the offensive end, scoring just five goals combined in the third and fourth quarters. Harvard went on a 4-1 run in the third that included two goals from star attackman Sam King after the Cavaliers did a nice job keeping a lid on him in the first half.
King and the Crimson piled on in the fourth quarter, outscoring UVA 9-2 after the Cavaliers pulled their starters. King had three goals in the fourth quarter alone to help Harvard make the final score a respectable 25-21 score.
UVA exploded on offense with 13 different goal scorers led by Xander Dickson with five goals and Payton Cormier and Connor Shellenberger each had a hat trick. Thomas McConvey, Griffin Schutz, Truitt Sunderland, and Petey LaSalla had two goals apiece. Virginia's defense certainly has some things to work on especially in the area of man-down defense.
Now 2-0 on the season, Virginia returns to action against Ohio State next Saturday in a neutral-site matchup at the Paradise Coast Sports Complex in Naples, Florida. The game will start at 7pm and will be streamed on Big Ten+.
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