Virginia Lacrosse: Analyzing Another Frustrating Loss to Duke

The streak continues.

Virginia suffered its 17th-consecutive regular season loss to Duke in a 16-14 defeat on a rainy Friday evening at Klockner Stadium. The Cavaliers haven't beaten the Blue Devils in the regular season since April 17th, 2004 and this is the eighth time during that streak that UVA has lost to Duke as the higher-ranked team. It's one of the more bizarre losing streaks in sports given the tremendous success the Cavaliers have had against essentially everyone else in college lacrosse. Virginia has won four national championships - 2006, 2011, 2019, 2021 - and several ACC titles and has even beaten Duke twice in postseason play during that span, including an overtime win over the Blue Devils in the 2019 Final Four. The idea that Virginia hasn't managed to win even a single regular season game against Duke in nearly two decades is simply mind-boggling.

So, how did John Danowski and his Blue Devils do it again? Let's break down what led to yet another Duke regular season win over Virginia and then we'll have some more slightly positive takeaways for the Cavaliers moving forward.

Connor Shellenberger shut down and possibly hurt?

This is not intended to be an excuse for the outcome, but Connor Shellenberger clearly not being 100% healthy must be mentioned at the outset. After tallying seven points on two goals and five assists at Notre Dame, Virginia's best player was limited to zero goals on just one shot, although he did have three assists against Duke. The Blue Devils had Kenny Brower guarding Shellenberger and Brower did an admirable job, but Shellenberger didn't press the issue. Until the final moments of the fourth quarter, there weren't any UVA possessions in which Shellenberger initiated offense by dodging from behind the cage. It appeared that Shellenberger had a brace of some kind on his lower right leg and he was seen limping around the field throughout the game. Given the wet and slippery playing surface at Klockner Stadium, it makes sense that Shellenberger didn't attempt to dodge much against Brower if he was already dealing with a lower body injury. His only shot of the game came on a man-up opportunity and it was saved by William Helm. It seems that Shellenberger was more of a decoy than anything else, staying on the field to prevent Duke's best defender from switching onto someone else.

Duke takes Virginia's offense out of its comfort zone

With Shellenberger down, Duke was able to totally eliminate the bread and butter of UVA's offense: dodging and feeding from behind the cage. The Blue Devils forced the Cavaliers to win one-on-one matchups, something that was very difficult to do given the field conditions. We'll get to Duke's offense later, but one of the key reasons the Blue Devils won this game was because their attack unit handled the wet field better than UVA did. Duke put a short-stick defensive midfielder on Payton Cormier and forced him to become a dodger. Cormier responded and put up six goals, three of which were unassisted, on a high volume of 15 shots. Xander Dickson added four goals on an efficient six shots, but Virginia never got into a rhythm on the offensive end and it wasn't a very good day statistically for the rest of the Cavalier offensive unit. Thomas McConvey had just one goal, Jeff Conner and Connor Shellenberger didn't score, but had three assists apiece, and Griffin Schutz only had an assist. Sloppy passes and poor decision-making plagued the Cavaliers throughout the game. Turnovers were even at 18 for each team, but UVA's turnovers seemed so much more costly as the Cavaliers were playing from behind for the entire game.

Brennan O'Neill was unstoppable

In last season's meeting between Virginia and Duke, Brennan O'Neill had four goals and four assists, with much of that production coming from O'Neill beating his defender individually with a dodge. This time around, O'Neill had an even better game with six goals and three assists, but that outcome wasn't at all the result of O'Neill beating his defender individually. Cade Saustad drew the matchup and virtually none of O'Neill's offensive production came from him beating Saustad one-on-one. The rest of Duke's offense did a great job of breaking down the UVA defense, forcing difficult slides and then getting the ball to O'Neill, who attacked mismatches and took advantage of Virginia's shifting defense to get high-percentage looks that Matthew Nunes couldn't stop. Duke's supporting cast of Garrett Leadmon (3 goals), Dyson Williams (3 goals, 1 assist), and Aidan Danenza (2 goals) kept the Cavaliers honest and capitalized on any opportunity that came from a UVA defender slipping on the grass. The Blue Devils got more than a few goals in transition as well, as many of Virginia's live-ball turnovers resulted directly in Duke goals in unsettled situations. Simply put, Duke outplayed Virginia at its own game on Friday, playing fast and feeding on chaos. The Cavaliers fell behind by five goals early and spent the entire rest of the game trying to come back, and couldn't quite close the gap completely.

Virginia and Duke will meet again in less than two weeks in Durham. With that in mind, here are some positive takeaways the Cavaliers can build on with a rematch against the Blue Devils looming on the horizon.

Petey LaSalla can hang with the best

Petey LaSalla has faced some of the best faceoff men in the country this season and he has shown that he belongs in that elite category. A couple of weeks ago, LaSalla split the faceoffs 15/15 with Maryland's Luke Wierman, who had a significant upper hand in the two matchups with LaSalla in 2022. On Friday, LaSalla went 20/34 against Duke's Jake Naso, who is the No. 1 faceoff specialist in the ACC at 65%. Virginia had trouble making the most of those possessions and on more than a few occasions, Virginia quickly turned the ball over after LaSalla won the draw. But, had LaSalla not dominated the faceoff x as he did, the Blue Devils might have ran away with this game. Instead, the Cavaliers can hope that with another performance like that from LaSalla in two weeks, they'll have a good shot at knocking off Duke in Durham.

Matthew Nunes is not the problem

Statistically, it wasn't a great day for Nunes who had 14 saves versus 16 goals allowed. But, not many of those goals were on shots that he had much of a chance of stopping. The UVA defense gave Duke way too many open looks, especially in unsettled situations. Aside from a few goals on savable shots throughout the game, Nunes did his job and even came up with a couple of big saves in the fourth quarter to give Virginia a chance, continuing to show that he is capable of playing his best with the game on the line. Nunes has a .502 save percentage on the season and his continued improvement is critical for the Cavaliers moving forward.

It takes a lot to beat Virginia

UVA has now suffered two losses this season. The main common denominator is that in both defeats, the Virginia offense was a shell of itself and didn't operate anywhere near its usual level of execution. In the loss to Duke, Shellenberger's injury and the difficult playing conditions effectively neutralized UVA's offense and the Cavaliers still managed to put up 14 goals. Credit is also due to Duke, both offensively and defensively, for handling the weather and slippery playing field better than Virginia. Another parallel between UVA's two losses is borderline miraculous saves from the opposing goalkeeper. Maryland's Brian Ruppel made a series of three ridiculous saves, stopping three shots that easily could have won the game for Virginia in overtime. On Friday, it was an incredible stop from William Helm sliding across the cage to deny Payton Cormier of a goal on the doorstep that would have gotten Virginia back within one with less than a minute to go. On the other end of the field, Duke got a brilliant game from Brennan O'Neill who took advantage of every inch the UVA defense gave him.

Even with the sloppy mistakes on offense, the wet conditions at Klockner, a hobbled Connor Shellenberger, and a nine-point performance from Brennan O'Neill, the game came down to the wire and the Cavaliers were a couple of plays away from finding a way to win. Virginia is right there with the best teams in the nation and will have plenty of opportunities to prove that in April and May, including another chance to end the regular season streak against Duke in Durham on April 15th.

Before that, though, Virginia will have its first opportunity to bounce back against North Carolina on Friday at 6pm in Chapel Hill.

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