Men’s Lacrosse: Second-ranked Cavaliers fall at Richmond, 17-13

Courtesy UVA Media Relations

For the first time in series history, Richmond (6-3) defeated No. 2 Virginia (7-2) by a final score of 17-13 at Robins Stadium Saturday afternoon.

Virginia was led by Payton Cormier, who scored a game-high five goals.

Richmond goalie Zach Vigue (2-0) earned the win in the crease after saving 16 shots. Virginia’s Matthew Nunes (7-2) suffered the loss.

Virginia faceoff specialist Petey LaSalla won the game’s first seven faceoffs as UVA leaped out to a 7-3 lead in the first. The Spiders cut their deficit to 7-4 with six seconds remaining in the first. Richmond closed out the second on a 5-0 run and held a 10-9 lead at the intermission.

The Spiders continued their scoring spree by netting the first two goals of the second half to eventually lead it 12-9. Cormier’s third goal of the afternoon broke up the Spiders’ 7-0 run at the 9:58 mark in the third. Richmond led by as many as four (16-12) midway through the fourth quarter. The Cavaliers tried to get something going on offense after Cormier notched his fifth goal of the day with 5:33 to play, but it was the Spiders who scored the game’s final goal on an empty net with 35 seconds left.

FROM THE LOCKER ROOM

Lars Tiffany on opposing teams’ emotional lift when playing against Virginia… 

“We’ve seen teams come out and give us a really, really great effort and earn victories over us. The key for us is learning from this. We’re going to dissect this tape and get deep down into it and see what did they expose. You can’t just write it off as ‘they were the better team today.’ They were the better team, but there’s things in there and were going to find those out, and we’re going to get better.”

NOTES 

• The win was Richmond’s first in series history, which UVA leads 7-1, and UR’s highest ranked win program history over the second-ranked Cavaliers.
• Entering Saturday’s game, UVA held a win streak of 73 games over Commonwealth of Virginia opponents. Its last loss was to Washington & Lee on April 23, 1977, when the Generals were an NCAA Division-I institution in men’s lacrosse.
• Virginia is now 114-20-2 all-time against foes from the state of Virginia.
• Cormier’s five goals tied for the most by a UVA player in series history. Owen Van Arsdale also tallied five goals in the 2015 matchup.
• Cormier’s five goals also extended his goal streak to 21 games. Entering Saturday’s contest, Cormier’s goal streak was tied for fifth-longest in the nation.
• Cormier leads the Cavaliers with 30 goals on the season.
• With two goals and one assists, Matt Moore, who is currently second all-time on UVA’s all-time career points list, now has 254 career points with 133 goals and 121 assists. Moore is now 16 points shy from shattering Steele Stanwick’s all-time record of 269 points.
• Despite exiting the game in the second period with an apparent injury, Moore extended his point streak to 58 games, which entering today’s contest was tied for third-longest in Division-I. Moore’s streak began on March 31, 2018.
• With one goal and three assists, Connor Shellenberger’s 12-game streak with at least five points came to an end.
• Shellenberger has recorded multiple assists in all nine of UVA’s games so far this season and has notched at least one point in all 27 of his career games.
• Petey LaSalla went 9-for-10 at the faceoff-X before leaving Saturday’s game with an apparent injury after sustaining a hit that resulted in a UR penalty.
• LaSalla also finished with a team-high seven ground balls to move to No. 3 on UVA’s all-time career ground balls list. LaSalla now has 325 career ground balls and needs just 12 more to surpass Jason Hard’s program record of 336.
• Midfielder Peter Garno returned to the starting lineup for the Cavaliers for the first time since UVA’s 2022 season opener against Air Force on Feb. 5. Garno finished today’s game with one goal on an extra-man opportunity for UVA.