Virginia Lacrosse’s Season Ends in Sluggish 12-6 Loss to Maryland

The Cavaliers had no answers offensively, scoring six goals, their lowest tally of the season.

Connor Shellenberger huddles with his teammates in semifinal loss to Maryland. / Virginia Athletics

The legendary careers of Virginia legends Connor Shellenberger, Payton Cormier, and Cole Kastner have come to a close. After a momentous win against Johns Hopkins in the quarterfinals, the Cavaliers failed to replicate the performance, getting dismantled by the Maryland Terrapins to see their season end two wins short of a National Championship. 

The Terrapins controlled the game throughout as Virginia fell to Maryland 12-6 in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament. 

Virginia came to play to start, with Connor Shellenberger scoring a backhanded goal to put the Cavaliers on the board before Maryland responded with a 4-0 run to close the first quarter. The run was powered by Luke Wierman, who won the first five faceoffs of the game. 

☹️ 𝒻𝒾𝓁𝓉𝒽𝓎 ☹️

A Tewaaraton moment for Mr. May!

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— Virginia Men's Lacrosse (@UVAMensLax) May 25, 2024

The faceoff dominance would persist throughout the game, with Wierman finishing 15/22 from the stripe, awarding Maryland a massive advantage in the possession battle. To add to the possession battle, the Cavaliers, who lead the country in groundballs in the regular season, lost the groundball battle 38-29. 

In the second quarter, the Maryland dominance continued, stretching their lead to 7-3 at the half. After the initial goal by Shellenberger, the Cavaliers had no answers offensively.

Virginia resorted to isolation dodges but failed to draw slides, prohibiting the Hoos from creating off-ball goals, a dynamic of their offense that has been the the Cavaliers bread and butter all season with Payton Cormier and Jack Boyden often on the receiving end. Virginia looked out of sync offensively, finishing with only three assisted goals, an effort not enough to advance them to Championship Monday. 

"We couldn't create slides today against their team defense consistently," said Lars Tiffany. " We were generating a lot of shots, but not putting them on cage."

The Terrapins rifled off two quick goals to start the third, before outscoring Virginia 4-1 in the quarter, slamming the door on a comeback for the Cavaliers. Just before the end of the quarter, Lars Tiffany pulled Kyle Morris, replacing him with Matthew Nunes. Despite the replacement, the Virginia defense held Maryland to 12 goals.

To start the fourth quarter, Payton Cormier and McCabe Millon scored to cut the lead to five, but it was too late as the Cavaliers were unable to muster a comeback, falling to the Terrapins 12-6. 

Offensively, Connor Shellenberger and Payton Cormier each finished with one goal and one assist, with Shellenberger assisting Cormier for the final points of their college careers. McCabe Millon finished with two goals. 

At the midfield, the starting three of Griffin Schutz, Jack Boyden, and Ryan Colsey combined for zero points, struggling to win their matchups and create offense in a game that needed someone to step up for the Hoos offensively. 

Defensively, Kyle Morris finished with five saves and a 31.3 save percentage, while Cole Kastner registered four caused turnovers, and Ben Wayer scooped up seven groundballs. 

Maryland advances to face Notre Dame in the National Championship on Monday at 1 pm. Notre Dame defeated Maryland 14-9 on March 3rd. 

"There's a joy and a success that we got back here, despite having lost about 19 men, but I'm at the University of Virginia, we don't measure ourselves by hanging final four banners we measure ourselves with titles," said Tiffany.

It’s a brutal end to the Virginia season that sees the end of legendary Cavalier careers such as Connor Shellenberger, Payton Cormier, and Cole Kastner. Cormier departs the program as the final member of the 2019 Championship winning team.

"This team means everything, so I can't believe its over," Shellenberger said after the game.

Despite the season being over, Shellenberger will wait to see if he is the winner of the Tewaaraton Award, which will be announced on May 30th.