Virginia men’s soccer jogged off at halftime, soaked and struggling. The Wake Forest goals had charged in like a torrent, one and then two and then three.
They came thicker than the rain that drifted down all night, a heavy rush rather than a steady mist. The goals, like the rain, never really stopped.
The No. 5 seed Demon Deacons (10-4-6, 4-2-2 ACC) added two more in the second half, one to quash any thought of a comeback and the second for good measure. They finally relented from there, cruising to a 5-1 victory Thursday night over the No. 9 seed Cavaliers (10-6-3, 3-3-2 ACC) at WakeMed Soccer Park. Wake Forest advanced to the ACC Tournament final, while Virginia’s next game will come in the NCAA Tournament.
Coach George Gelnovatch knew almost immediately. He could see it in his players’ legs, their slowness in closing down opponents, the way they kept losing one-on-one matchups.
“There’s no doubt, 25 minutes into that game, I could see the three road trips take its toll on the team,” Gelnovatch said. “There’s no question about it. Three long bus trips.”
Gelnovatch called it a “one off,” this letdown that quickly snowballed. He approached it, tactically, the same way he did Sunday’s quarterfinal triumph against No. 1 seed Pittsburgh. Virginia adopted a defensive posture, surrendering possession.
Wake Forest Coach Bobby Muus had some inclination of the way his opponent might set up. The Demon Deacons prepared to face both that defensive approach and other iterations of the Cavaliers’ setup.
Then again, his team got home at 2:30 a.m. Monday from its quarterfinal match, a road win in penalty kicks over No. 4 seed Southern Methodist. Their preparation time got rather cramped. So Thursday’s win boiled down, Muus thought, mainly to the smaller things.
“We did the little things to win first and second balls in the first half,” Muus said. “Really didn’t give them any type of opportunities.”
Muus, standing on the sideline before kickoff, felt his mind rocket five years backward. In 2019, Virginia played against Wake Forest in the ACC Tournament semifinal at WakeMed. It rained a little harder that day. The temperature felt a little colder.
The Cavaliers edged the Demon Deacons that day and hoisted the tournament trophy a few days later. There will be no trophy this year, despite a remarkable run to even reach this point.
Gelnovatch, at halftime, still hoped to keep the run going. He reminded his players what had happened in the first round at No. 8 seed North Carolina State, when a halftime formation change sparked a resurgence and two second-half goals. Gelnovatch made the same change this time.
“Let’s go be aggressive,” he told his team at halftime. “Let’s go. Let’s take chances.”
The changes never conjured up even a hint of worry on the other side. But Virginia, despite the loss, can still feel comfortable in having locked up a first-round bye in the NCAA Tournament. It entered riding a streak of eight wins in its last nine games, enough to vault it from outside the bubble to a likely top-16 seed.
The game did deliver one concrete positive heading into the postseason’s next stage. Senior goalkeeper Joey Batrouni, who missed the previous game and a half with an apparent head injury, returned in the second half.
Gelnovatch said Virginia’s medical staff cleared Batrouni at 5 p.m. Wednesday. That hardly left enough time to get the team’s defensive backbone, who started every game until the injury, back up to speed.
So graduate goalkeeper Tom Miles started, after three shutout halves against NC State and Pittsburgh. But it only took 17 minutes to break the streak of clean sheets.
The first goal looked initially like a bungled set piece, a near-post ball off a corner lacking whip and power. But Wake Forest freshman midfielder Dylan Borso turned and somehow found the ball at his feet. He lifted it across the six, to where senior forward Julian Kennedy headed it home.
Six minutes later, in the 24th minute, Kennedy helped out with the second goal. He recycled a Miles save and laid the ball off for junior Basit Umar, who scored.
The first goal, even according to Gelnovatch, looked unlucky. The second, Miles may have wanted another crack at. But the third came via penalty.
So did the fifth. Senior defender Austin Rome committed both fouls, a handball the first time and a sloppy tackle the second time after losing the ball. Junior midfielder Cooper Flax scored both penalties for Wake. The goalkeepers — Miles in the first half and Batrouni in the second — guessed the right way. But Flax beat them anyway.
“The game didn’t go our way,” junior forward Triton Beauvois said. “But we just have to stay on the front foot, do what we can.”
Beauvois provided Virginia’s lone goal in the 55th minute, stretching around a defender to somehow volley home a diagonal ball. It was a remarkable finish, off a half-chance.
But it only made the scoreline slightly more palatable. It came three minutes after Wake Forest’s fourth goal, a low, whipped cross that wriggled untouched through the crowd and snuck into the far corner.
Gelnovatch subbed off almost everyone towards the end of the match, making seven changes in the final 16 minutes to try and save his starters for the NCAA Tournament. He played Thursday down freshman forward Joaquin Brizuela, who was out with an injury.
“I’m running out of forwards,” Gelnovatch said. “That’s the issue.”
Graduate forward Hayes Wood started up top. Entering Thursday, Wood had played zero minutes in the team’s most recent match against Pittsburgh and had failed to score in 15 appearances this season. But Gelnovatch had little choice, and now his team will at least have a couple extra days of preparation.
“We have a whole season left ahead of us, now, with the NCAA Tournament,” Gelnovatch said.
The NCAA Tournament selection show is set for Monday at 1 p.m., when Virginia will learn its path in the big dance.
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