Shellenberger Tallies Seven Points, Virginia Earns 14-10 Win at Richmond
Two years ago, Virginia fell to Richmond 17-13 in Richmond. Last year, the Cavaliers defeated the Spiders twice in Charlottesville. And this year, when it was time to travel an hour southeast to the state capital, No. 3 Virginia defeated No. 17 Richmond 14-10 to improve to 2-0 on the season.
A sloppy performance by the Cavaliers saw the game knotted at nine with 6:04 left in the third quarter before a 4-1 fourth quarter allowed Virginia to cruise past the Spiders, who nearly defeated Maryland earlier this season. Offensively, after only scoring two goals on 2/13 shooting in the season opener, Connor Shellenberger came to play, registering two goals and five assists.
Richmond grabbed an early 2-0 advantage with goals from Luke Grayum and Dalton Young as Virginia struggled early with four sloppy offensive turnovers.
It wasn't until a save by Matthew Nunes sparked the Virginia offense with a goal from McCabe Millon that came from a cross-field assist by Griffin Schutz. Minutes later, after staving off a Richmond man-up, Millon tallied another goal, this time in transition to knot the game at two. Richmond’s Jack Ricciardi then fired back, capitalizing on an extra man opportunity.
Immediately after, Virginia began to click with Connor Shellenberger finding a cutting Joey Terenzi in transition to make it 3-3 before Jack Boyden assisted Shellenberger on the crease, giving Virginia its first lead of the game. Boyden then scored a goal of his own, giving UVA a 5-3 lead at the end of the first quarter.
In the second quarter, Ryan Colsey found Payton Cormier to extend the lead midway through the quarter. The goal tied Doug Knight’s record for most career goals in UVA program history.
In response, after lockdown defense by Virginia all quarter, Young scored with a crease diving goal as he slipped past John Schroter, but Shellenberger fired back immediately, making it 7-4.
The Spiders refused to let the Cavaliers pull away, with Joe Sheridan scoring a goal in transition to cut the lead back down to two. Soon after, Virginia picked up its fourth penalty of the half. Although Richmond only managed to score one goal over those three and a half minutes, man-down can be taxing for a defense, especially early in a game.
The half would close with Virginia holding onto a 7-5 lead. Nunes registered seven saves as Richmond outshot Virginia 22-20 at halftime. The Spiders also won the faceoff battle 7-5 through the first two quarters, allowing them to hang around.
To open the third quarter, Virginia ran a hidden ball trick on their opening possession, resulting in Terenzi scoring his second goal from 20 yards out. The goal caused the UVA bench to erupt in celebration, but ignited a fiery response from the Spiders.
Minutes later, Richmond earned a double man-up, cashing in with a goal by Lance Madonna before Aidan O’Neil scored to cut the lead to one. The two penalties brought Virginia’s penalty tally to six.
But just as it seemed Richmond was going to tie the game, Millon found Will Cory to reestablish the advantage. Ghobriel then won the faceoff for the Hoos, but Virginia failed to capitalize.
After that, Young netted his third goal of the day before Hunter Smith tied the game at nine with 6:04 left in the third. A goal from Boyden, assisted by a cross-field pass from Shellenberger, gave Virginia a 10-9 lead headed into the fourth.
To open the fourth quarter, Cormier scored two quick goals. The first of the two was his 166th of his career, passing Doug Knight to become Virginia’s all-time leading goal scorer.
Then, both teams exchanged goals, giving Virginia a three-goal lead with six minutes left. After that, Virginia’s defense locked down the Spiders and then Colsey scored his second of the quarter to seal the game for the Cavaliers, who went on to win 14-10.
Offensively, Connor Shellenberger led the way with seven points, with Payton Cormier registering three goals and McCabe Millon and Jack Boyden both having two goals and two assists.
From a ground ball perspective, Virginia only outperformed Richmond 29-27 on the ground, with Anthony Ghobriel going 15/24 from the x, despite at times struggling to recover the loose ground ball after winning the clamp.
On the positive side, Matthew Nunes registered 12 saves, for a 54.5% save percentage.
Having successfully opened the 2024 season with a pair of ranked wins, Virginia returns home to Charlottesville next Sunday to host Ohio State on February 25th at 1 pm.
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