Virginia Lacrosse Lands Third Faceoff Transfer in Colgate's Thomas Colucci

Lars Tiffany and the Cavaliers have added three faceoff specialists from the transfer portal to their roster in the last month

In a month's work in the transfer portal, Lars Tiffany has turned the question mark the UVA men's lacrosse team had at faceoff into an exclamation point. Virginia landed its third faceoff specialist transfer of the offseason in Colgate's Thomas Colucci, as reported by Inside Lacrosse's Ty Xanders on Thursday. 

A graduate transfer from Westfield, New Jersey, Colucci comes to UVA for his final season of eligibility after an impactful four-year career at Colgate. Appearing in 34 games over the last four seasons, Colucci posted a career 53.5% faceoff percentage and 191 career ground balls. Like Petey LaSalla, Colucci is also a threat to produce offensively after winning the draw, totaling 16 points on nine goals and seven assists in his career, including six goals and an assist in his senior season this spring. Colucci's best season came in 2022 when he turned in a 57.1% faceoff percentage, third-best in the Patriot League, and recorded 90 ground balls, five assists and a goal in 12 games. 

With Virginia's all-time leader in faceoff wins Petey LaSalla graduating and heading to the PLL and former No. 1 faceoff recruit Mac Eldridge transferring to Penn after his freshman season at UVA, it was no secret that Lars Tiffany and the Cavaliers would be in the market for a faceoff specialist in the transfer portal. What nobody expected was for Tiffany to end up securing not one, but three quality faceoff transfers over the span of a month. Even before picking up the commitment from Colucci this week, Virginia had already added two of the country's top 12 faceoff specialists in terms of 2023 faceoff percentage in Binghamton's Matthew DeSouza and Navy's Anthony Ghobriel. Colucci's faceoff numbers in 2023 weren't as lofty as those of DeSouza and Ghobriel, sitting at 48.8%, but he is a ground ball machine and can contribute significant offensive production, making him a prime candidate to fill a role on the wings on faceoffs. 

Virginia now has four faceoff specialists on its roster for the 2024 season, with DeSouza, Ghobriel, and Colucci joining rising senior Gable Braun, who backed up LaSalla in 2022 but missed the entire 2023 season with an injury. Between those four players, who have combined to take more than 1,700 faceoff draws in their careers, UVA can label its faceoff unit as a position group of quality, depth, and experience, something that certainly wasn't the case a month ago. 

Thomas Colucci is the fifth player to transfer to Virginia this offseason, joining Harvard short-stick defensive midfielder Chase Yager, Binghamton faceoff specialist Matthew DeSouza, Tufts attackman Jack Boyden, and Navy faceoff specialist Anthony Ghobriel. 

See more Virginia men's lacrosse news and content: Virginia Men's Lacrosse on Sports Illustrated

See more Virginia sports news and content: Virginia Cavaliers on Sports Illustrated

To stay up to date on all Virginia Cavaliers sports news, follow CavaliersNow on social media:

Facebook: @CavaliersNow
Twitter: @CavaliersNowFN