Senior night is supposed to be a proper send-off for graduating athletes. but Friday night, it didn’t quite work out that way for the Virginia men’s soccer team. Virginia fell 2-0 to No. 1 Wake Forest Friday at Klöckner Stadium in its final regular-season game and perhaps final home game of the season.
Virginia (9-7-1, 4-4 ACC) has lost its last two games and now heads into the ultra-competitive ACC Tournament as the fourth seed.
The Cavaliers fell into an early 2-0 hole and were never able to claw their way out.
Virginia came out of the gates ready to play. The Klöckner faithful, led by the energetic student section, opened the game with boisterous cheers in support of the home squad. Even former Virginia coaching legend Bruce Arena — also the former coach of Team USA — was on hand for the big game. Wake Forest, however, wasted no time getting on the scoreboard. The Demon Deacons struck in the sixth minute and took a 1-0 lead on a beautiful centering pass and header shot from the combo of junior forward Cody Arnoux and midfielder Sam Cronin. Arnoux — Wake Forest’s leading scorer — added his 14th goal of the season on his no doubt header and put Virginia at an early disadvantage. The Cavaliers found a bit of offensive momentum just a few minutes later when they earned two consecutive corner kicks. Virginia, however, failed to turn its corner kicks into real scoring chances as the Wake Forest defense denied the Cavalier attack.
Virginia came up with an exciting scoring opportunity in the 15th minute when junior midfielder Jonathan Villanueva broke free for an open shot on goal. In a recurring problem, however, Villanueva pushed the shot wide left and missed the goal.
Seconds after Villanueva’s miss, Wake Forest made Virginia pay with its second goal of the night. Cronin buried a shot from 18 yards out and put Virginia down 2-0 only 16 minutes into the game.
“The first 20 minutes I felt like they put a lot of pressure on us,” coach George Gelnovatch said. “When we had the ball in our half, one two and three guys would collapse on us. We weren’t used to that kind of pressure.”
Wake Forest, in all measures, was the better team in the opening half. Its passes were crisper, its play was sharper and its defense was suffocating. It controlled the pace of play for the vast majority of the half and never took its foot off the gas pedal. Virginia, on the other hand, was simply overmatched and — with the exception of a few shots — could not produce offensively. The first half concluded with Wake Forest holding onto its 2-0 lead.
Virginia started the second half with two of its best scoring chances of the night. Junior midfielder Ross LaBauex entertained the crowd with two deep runs but was called offsides on one play and stripped by a Wake Forest defender on the other. LaBauex seemed to be Virginia’s only offensive threat, as the Demon Deacons continued to deny the Cavaliers any offensive consistency. Virginia even came up with a golden opportunity in the 55th minute when junior midfielder Jordan Evans sent a centering pass to a wide-open LaBauex in front of the goal. LaBauex struck the ball up in the air and popped it up and over the net.
Wake Forest, on the other hand, never let up on the intensity it played with in the first half. The Demon Deacons controlled the ball for most of the second half and relegated Virginia to only Hail Mary offensive attempts.
“It’s tough,” LaBauex noted. “We always want to come out here and come up with victories and play well. But, you know, we just need to keep our heads up.”
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