New Hoos: Meet the New Guys on the 2024 Virginia Men's Lacrosse Roster
Coach Lars Tiffany has added five transfers and 12 freshmen to this Cavalier squad for the upcoming 2024 Virginia men's lacrosse season. With the start of the season on the horizon, here’s what you need to know about Virginia’s incoming transfers and the freshman who could have an instant impact in the blue and orange.
No. 28 Jack Boyden (Transfer from Tufts)
Attackman Jack Boyden set the single-season points record at Division III Tufts with 157 points on 69 goals and 88 assists last season. Boyden won the Iroquois National Outstanding Player of the Year award as he led his Jumbos to the National Championship before having their perfect season spoiled by Salisbury.
Boyden is a versatile player who played midfield his first two seasons at Tufts before moving down to attack, allowing him to play any position within Coach Kevin Cassese’s offense. In his final two seasons as a starting attackman, Boyden finished with a combined 290 points.
In his senior season, Boyden still produced despite being shut off for the majority of the second half of the season. In Charlottesville, Boyden will not draw as much attention, with Connor Shellenberger alongside him, allowing him to make a statement at the Division I level.
During Inside Lacrosse’s Fall All-Access series, Shellenberger compared Boyden to former teammate Xander Dickson, who broke the single-season goal record last season in Charlottesville with 61. Despite the comparison to Dickson as an impressive off-ball player, Boyden is also a capable dodger. The Canadian from Toronto, Ontario, can score in several creative ways, serving as a nightmare matchup for opposing defenses.
Jack Boyden 2023 Highlight Tape:
No. 23 Chase Yager (Transfer from Harvard)
Short-stick defensive midfielder Chase Yager is a capable on-ball defender who registered 14 caused turnovers and 27 ground balls for the Crimson last season. Yager, similar to Boyden, began his career at the Division III level at Amherst before making the move to Harvard for the last two seasons.
Yager, a Virginia Beach native, finishes his career back in his home state, slotting in alongside Noah Chizmar in the SSDM department. Yager was also described by Inside Lacrosse as a one-man clear, using his strength and physicality to run through multiple players if necessary. Last season, Yager helped Harvard achieve a .891 clear percentage, good for second-best in the Ivy League. In transition, he registered three goals and two assists and was also key to Harvard’s ride that finished third nationally after holding opponents to a .789 clearing percentage.
While at Amherst, similar to Boyden, Yager lost in the Division III National Championship and will be eager to get this team back to Championship Weekend.
Chase Yager Highlights:
No. 33 Matthew DeSouza (Transfer from Binghamton)
Faceoff specialist Matthew DeSouza joins the Cavaliers after finishing 9th in the country in faceoff percentage last season at 61.7%. A native of Virginia, DeSouza returns to his home state to fill the void in Virginia’s faceoff room after the graduation of Petey LaSalla and the transfer of Mac Eldridge.
DeSouza has shown he can compete with the best, finishing 9/16 against Lehigh, who had Mike Sisselberger, who finished No. 1 in all of Division I in faceoff percentage. DeSouza also finished 8/12 against Vermont, who had the No. 3 faceoff specialist in Tommy Burke.
Fortunately for DeSouza, he will have Gable Braun and Anthony Ghobriel alongside him to share the workload. The committee has already proven effective, winning around 90% of faceoffs in their scrimmage against Colgate this Fall, according to Inside Lacrosse.
No. 32 Anthony Ghobriel (Transfer from Navy)
Next up, Anthony Ghobriel joins the squad as the second transfer faceoff specialist alongside DeSouza. Ghobriel, unlike DeSouza, Yager, and Boyden, arrived at Virginia with two years of eligibility left rather than one.
Ghobriel finished 12th nationally in faceoff percentage last season and broke Navy’s single-season faceoff win record with 191. Ghobriel also faced off against Lehigh’s Mike Sisselberger, faring 12/26 against the now PLL Second-Team All-Pro.
No. 81 Thomas Colucci (Transfer From Colgate)
The final transfer joining the squad is faceoff specialist Thomas Colucci. Colucci joins the Cavs after finishing 50th in faceoff win percentage, a number not as high as DeSouza and Ghobriel. Despite this, Colucci finished with 51 ground balls and two caused turnovers and is expected to join Yager and Chizmar in the short-stick midfield department.
Colucci’s capability as a ground ball machine may also find him a starting spot on the wing during faceoffs, filling in for the departed Grayson Sallade or Jeff Conner. Colucci is also a threat in transition, putting up six goals and an assist, with two of those goals against No. 7 Army.
No. 9 McCabe Millon (Freshmen)
The No. 2 rated freshman, attackman McCabe Millon looks to make an instant impact in his first spring in Charlottesville. Millon led his high school team McDonogh to back-to-back conference championships, including a 51-goal and 32-assist season in his junior year.
Millon is the son of lacrosse royalty, as his parents, Mark and Erin, are both in the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
From a player perspective, Millon is a capable dodger and feeder, as he served in a quarterback role for the McDonogh offense. Millon is also a fierce rider, which will bode well for Coach Lars Tiffany’s iconic 10-man ride. It remains a question where Millon will play, but given his ability to have an impact anywhere on the offensive side of the ball, it will be difficult to keep him on the sidelines.
With Boyden expected to fill the third attack spot, Millon will most likely find himself running out of the box as an offensive midfielder. With a quarterbacking skillset, Millon has the potential to reinvigorate Virginia’s two-quarterback offense involving Connor Shellenberger and Matt Moore only a few years ago.
McCabe Millon Highlights:
Although Millon is Virginia’s only five-star recruit from the incoming class, that does not mean he will be the lone contributor. Attackmen Caulley Deringer also received minutes during Virginia’s Fall scrimmages, noted as an aggressive rider, a quality praised in Charlottesville. Other possible freshman standouts include defender Eli Petty and Cole Webber, who goalie Matthew Nunes said were "under the radar," on the Lacrosse All Stars Podcast with Quint Kessenich. Nunes also mentioned midfielder Will Erdmann from Norwalk, Connecticut, who is learning to be a two-way midfielder.
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