No. 1 Virginia Avenges Last Year's Loss to Richmond With 25-8 Beatdown

When the Spiders picked up their first-ever victory over the Cavaliers last year, it was a perfect storm. Matt Moore and Petey LaSalla suffered injuries in the first half and Richmond used a 7-0 run to stun Virginia 17-13 on April 2nd, 2022 in Richmond.

Lars Tiffany had a much simpler explanation: "They were ready for us." In the week leading up to this game, Tiffany made no effort to hide the fact that his team was treating this game as an opportunity for revenge.

If that was the case, then mission accomplished.

UVA scored the first eight goals of the game and left no doubt as No. 1 Virginia rolled to a dominant 25-8 victory over Richmond on Saturday night at Klockner Stadium.

Virginia wasted no time in taking control of the game, scoring on the first possession, as Thomas McConvey and Payton Cormier made the Canadian connection with Cormier feeding McConvey for the first goal of the game. Noah Chizmar scored a goal in transition after a Richmond turnover and Xander Dickson scored on the crease off a feed from Connor Shellenberger to make it 3-0 just five minutes into the contest.

After failing to score a goal and recording just two assists in last week's 17-6 victory over Ohio State, Connor Shellenberger still only had a single goal, but dished out three assists against Richmond. Shellenberger put up 16 points through the first two games, so opposing defenses have started to devote more and more of their defensive resources towards taking him out of the game.

As has been shown clearly over the last two games, though, Virginia has plenty of weapons that will gladly capitalize on the defense being distracted by Shellenberger. This time, it was Xander Dickson who paced the Cavaliers in goal scoring, as the redshirt senior attackman netted a career-high six goals, four of which came in the first half.

"Especially after last year, you know they took it to us and they took it to us rough, talking a lot of trash last year," Dickson said after the game. "So we wanted to come out hot and punch them in the mouth as quickly as possible, show them we're a different team this year."

That punch was delivered swiftly and it was a serious blow, as Virginia rattled off eight-straight goals to start the game. Dickson scored three of those goals and Payton Cormier had two goals and three assists during that run, displaying his passing skills that are often overshadowed by his scoring prowess.

UVA started to get into trouble with penalties after that, committing three penalties in the first quarter and two in the second quarter. Richmond only capitalized with two extra man goals in the entire game, but Virginia so often having to play a man down did have the side effect of slowing down the UVA offense, at least temporarily.

Richmond ended the first quarter on a 3-0 run, with the last two goals coming from Dalton Young, to make it 8-3 at the end of the opening period. The Spiders added a fourth-consecutive goal early in the second quarter to chop the Virginia lead in half, but Richmond would not score again until midway through the third quarter as the Cavaliers quickly regained control of the game.

Griffin Schutz muscled his way to the front of the crease and scored to stop the Richmond run, sparking a 10-0 UVA run that spanned both sides of halftime. The 10-goal run included eight different goal scorers, with Schutz and Patrick McIntosh each scoring twice. Connor Shellenberger scored his lone goal of the game on a shot that bounced off the Richmond goalie before hitting the back of the net and Shellenberger also assisted on a goal for long-pole defenseman Mitchell Whalen, just the second of his career.

Noah Chizmar scored his second goal of the game to give Virginia a 16-4 lead going into halftime. Virginia outshot Richmond 29-14 in the first half and shots on goal were 21-8 in favor of the Cavaliers. Much of that had to do with the healthy possession advantage Virginia had thanks to Petey LaSalla, who won 19 of his 26 faceoff draws in the game. Mac Eldridge went 5/10 and UVA had a 24-12 overall edge at the faceoff x.

Richmond scored two goals in the third and fourth quarters, but the Cavaliers still outscored the Spiders 9-4 after halftime as they cruised to the 25-8 win.

Matthew Nunes was excellent in between the pipes, making nine saves versus just six goals allowed. Xander Dickson had six goals on only seven shots and Payton Cormier had a balanced game with three goals and three assists. Thomas McConvey had three goals and an assist and Connor Shellenberger had the reverse with one goal and three assists. Patrick McIntosh stepped up at the midfield with three goals and two assists and 12 different Cavaliers scored a goal in the game.

Now 4-0 on the season, Virginia faces a quick turnaround as the Cavaliers travel to Baltimore to take on Johns Hopkins on Tuesday at 4pm at Homewood Field with the Doyle Smith Cup up for grabs.

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

Add us as a preferred source on Google