It seemed for a while like a simple case of one team commanding but never fully separating, one of those games that never feels as close as the final scoreline. Then the eruption happened. Virginia rammed home two goals in two minutes and then another one less than 12 minutes later, turning a nonchalant affair into a 5-0 drubbing of St. Joseph’s on Thursday at Klockner Stadium, a game rescheduled to 3 p.m. from 7 p.m. due to thunderstorm forecasts.
The Hawks (0-0-2, 0-0 A10) seemed toothless against the patient but volatile Cavaliers (2-0-1, 0-0 ACC), just sort of bobbing around the field, watching passes flit in between and around them. Virginia, much like in Sunday’s shocking 1-0 upset loss to Colgate, commenced a war of attrition. This time it yielded results.
“Gosh,” Coach George Gelnovatch said. “In the first 20 minutes of the game, all we did was pass, pass, pass, pass, pass. Goal. That broke them.”
The opening goal came out of nowhere after just 10 minutes. A pair of defenders loomed between junior forward Triton Beauvois and the penalty area when all of a sudden he exploded. He scooted around one defender, then surged past another.
“I like to run at people, create something from nothing,” Beauvois said. “So I just took my opportunity.”
He arrived at the endline and floated the ball to the back post, where junior defender Reese Miller thumped it home nonchalantly. Inside, though, emotion churned. Miller failed to score last season, something that irked him tremendously, and he said finally getting a goal brought relief. There was something euphoric, too, about the handshake he and Beauvois performed in the corner a second later, something the two former first-year roommates concocted together a couple of weeks ago.
Fifth-year midfielder Daniel Mangarov stepped up to a free kick 12 minutes later and sent a cross into the penalty area, the ball dipping into that awkward area too short for the goalkeeper but too far for a defender. Junior defender Nick Dang headed it in, just grazing it so that St. Joseph’s senior keeper Lars Haavie could only freeze, stranded in no man’s land, as the ball bounced through his legs.
The Hawks soon responded by pressing. They had no choice. Stretched thin, tugged by necessity out of their clogging initial formation, they already seemed to have lost.
“When they are in possession as often as they are, you’re going to have breakdowns,” St. Joseph’s Coach Don D’Ambra said. “That’s what happened.”
The Hawks presented much the same challenge as the match against Colgate. Both teams packed in, setting up in a 5-4-1 formation, trying to squeeze the channels and eliminate every opportunity.
“I haven’t experienced a game like that in 20 years,” Gelnovatch said of Sunday’s loss. “So it was important to get back out here and really go through the same exercise and learn from it.”
The adjustment between games, Gelnovatch said, proved simple — deploy two traditional wingers to roam the flanks, stretching the low block, creating overloads. St. Joseph’s noticed the adjustment but just had little way to stop it.
The next goal waited a long time to arrive, the game dragging on for more than 50 minutes without a goal. A few players on the Virginia bench slumped and draped their jerseys over their heads in a makeshift attempt to block the beating sun. That exemplified the atmosphere, on an afternoon with sparse fan attendance because of the time change.
Those who came, however, enjoyed the last 20 minutes. St. Joseph’s lingered only two goals behind, ostensibly within striking distance, until graduate forward Hayes Wood decided enough was enough. He shunted away a Hawks defender, sending him stumbling, and calmly slotted the ball home.
Virginia is going to need the Lipscomb transfer this season — his size, his strength and his composure — if it is ultimately to succeed. Wood’s first goal, in his first start, seems auspicious. Especially because, by Gelnovatch’s measure, he is playing only at about 85 percent, still recovering his fitness and touch after an ACL injury.
“He’s a beast,” Gelnovatch said. “We’re still bringing him along. Every game he’s getting a little bit better.”
The celebration of Wood’s goal had barely faded when junior midfielder Umberto Pela dropped a ball over the defense, into the path of a charging Miller, who took one touch forward, sidestepped the keeper with another and used the third to score. He scored zero goals last season, but in just one day, he bagged two.
“I love having Coach giving me the green light to go up, because I feel like I could utilize what I do best,” Miller said. “And that’s just, I guess, run.”
The game held in store one more big moment. Sophomore midfielder Max Talley, a reserve player, scored from distance after 83 minutes to neatly tie everything up. The entire bench streamed onto the field and mobbed him, senior defender Paul Wiese dancing like crazy. The celebration lasted only a minute, but the smiles lingered.
They lasted until the final whistle and after the game, too, because this was an important win. It marked a recovery from a hard loss. It showcased an attacking strength that begins to uncloud this team’s most vexing question mark. And it stuffed the players with confidence heading into the annual charged showdown against Maryland, the first time the two rivals will meet in College Park since 2013. The game will kick off Monday at 7 p.m. and air on Big Ten Network+.
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