Junior defender Nick Dang turned around to glance at the scoreboard. It read 4:30 — four minutes and 30 seconds left to preserve a one-goal lead in an increasingly chippy game.
Dang felt like 10 minutes had passed when he whirled around again to check the clock. It had not stopped. But there was still time left.
“I was like, ‘What are we doing?’” Dang said, laughing at himself. “You just have to grind it out.”
Those last few minutes, and maybe even the entire second half, felt like an eternity. But No. 11 seed Virginia did indeed grind it out against West Virginia. The Cavaliers (11-6-3, 3-3-2 ACC) survived late pressure from the Mountaineers (13-2-7, 5-0-4 Sun Belt) to close out a 2-1 win in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Sunday night at Klöckner Stadium.
Coach George Gelnovatch called it a “great playoff win.” He conducted a jubilant and whooping postgame huddle, then laughed freely answering questions a few minutes later. He looked relieved.
Gelnovatch had refused during the game to check the score of the game that would determine his team’s third round opponent, focusing only on securing the win. He found out afterward that Massachusetts had staged a 1-0 upset of No. 6 seed Pennsylvania. Virginia will host the Minutemen next weekend.
“We were pretty happy,” Dang said, about hearing that result. “Being able to be here. A little warmer, I think, than Pennsylvania.”
The climate might be warmer. But Virginia started Sunday’s game cold. West Virginia scored in the third minute, crowding the goalmouth on a corner as graduate midfielder Simon Carlson flicked the ball onto the back post and junior forward Marcus Caldeira finished it off.
Virginia hardly looked perturbed. It has come from behind to win on multiple occasions in the past couple of months. The Cavaliers know, by now, what it feels like to go down early.
“It’s just accepted,” junior midfielder Albin Gashi said. “They scored. You can’t do anything about it afterwards.”
Gashi did something about it, though.
It happened out of nowhere, in the sixth minute. Dang booted the ball from deep in his own half, and it carried over midfield, toward sophomore forward AJ Smith. It seemed like an indiscriminate clearance. But Dang had actually targeted the 6-foot-5 forward.
“Every time we’re under pressure, it’s an easy choice,” Dang said. “If I’m gonna play it long, just aim for [Smith’s] head. And nine out of 10 times he’s gonna win the ball.”
Smith, who earned a surprise start Sunday after playing only late minutes against Wake Forest in the ACC Tournament semifinals, jumped and flicked the ball on. It fell right into the path of Gashi, who was already running in behind with open space before him.
“He was bullying their defenders today,” Gashi said of Smith. “So I knew he was going to flick it on.”
Gashi’s first touch was good, but his second touch was too big, and West Virginia senior goalkeeper Marc Bonnaire closed him down. But the ball bounced off Bonnaire and then off Gashi, and suddenly he was through.
He tripped over Bonnaire’s leg and kicked the ball into the net as he tumbled to the ground. The play had looked dead the second Gashi’s second touch spurted too far. But he never gave up on his path to the equalizing goal.
“The one thing that sometimes guys do is pull out of tackles when the goalkeepers come,” Gelnovatch said. “He ran right through the whole play and followed through.”
The goal came via simple direct play, an effective tactical adjustment by Virginia’s coaching staff. They played the team’s two most athletic forwards — Smith and junior forward Triton Beauvois — up top for a reason. West Virginia had advanced its fullbacks, freeing up the channels, “and we exposed them,” Gelnovatch said.
The Mountaineers eventually shifted their right fullback to the middle to deal with the attacking speed. But not before it gashed them again.
Senior defender Paul Wiese smacked a huge diagonal pass in the 33rd minute to graduate midfielder Daniel Mangarov, who brought it down with his first touch and flicked it over his head with his second. Sophomore midfielder Brendan Lambe carried the ball down the sideline, chased by two West Virginia defenders.
Neither Mountaineer ever had a chance. Lambe surged forward, cutting in toward the endline. He drove a pass across goal and Smith calmly tapped it in to give the Cavaliers the lead, just over half an hour after they fell behind. Gelnovatch’s unexpected choice of his starting forward had paid off again.
“He’s the fastest, most athletic guy that we have on the team,” Gelnovatch said. “I don’t think you’ve seen half of what he’s capable of doing when he gets fit.”
That is a scary prospect for the future, considering Smith assisted once and scored once. But that was plenty for one day.
It gave Virginia the lead it needed. The program had not won from a losing position in the NCAA Tournament since 2016. The Cavaliers held on to do so Sunday, even if Dang could hardly believe how long the final minutes felt.
They did so with the solid play of senior goalkeeper Joey Batrouni, who made four saves and read the game confidently. They also received a big contribution from junior defender Grant Howard, back for the first time in over a month, who played the full 90 minutes.
Virginia shifted naturally into a more defensive stance toward the end. It resolved to just defend for the last 15 minutes, booting the ball away at every opportunity. That included kicking the ball out of the stadium twice, much to their opponents’ frustration.
“It was physical,” Dang said. “It was chippy.”
He would know. He received an arm in the chest from a West Virginia substitute after one clearance far into the stands. Gashi earned two hands into the chest a moment later.
The visiting bench received two yellow cards in the first half. Physicality infused the game. Another scuffle ensued after the final buzzer.
“When you give everything that they gave, and don’t come out, that’s what it’s gonna look like,” Gelnovatch said. “Guys are gonna be on the ground.”
None of it lasted long past the final whistle. The only thing that might was a non-contact injury Lambe suffered in the second half, a minor calf strain, Gelnovatch said.
Virginia will hope to have Lambe back for the third round. The date and time of that game have not yet been set. If Gelnovatch has any control, though, it will be a night game.
He picked a night game for the second round intentionally. Virginia was upset at home in daytime games the last two years, by Marshall in 2022 and Indiana in 2023.
“Okay, let’s change this,” Gelnovatch said Thursday. “Let’s play under the lights.”
There were more changes. The team did not train Wednesday — they just lifted weights. The Cavaliers practiced on Klöckner all week, a change from doing it just once or twice a week in the past.
Those changes, small as they may seem, have worked so far.
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