After last week’s demoralizing blowout loss to Ohio State, the task facing Virginia men’s lacrosse only grew harder Saturday, with a trip to No. 7 Johns Hopkins. Despite storming into Homewood Field with a newfound intensity, the Cavaliers (2-3, 0-0 ACC) let the game slip away late, giving the Blue Jays (5-1, 0-0 Big Ten) a 13-12 victory.
In a homecoming game for junior attacker Truitt Sunderland, the Baltimore native achieved his sixth career hat trick and added two assists in the first half, firing up a rowdy Virginia bench that looked hungry for an upset.
Alongside Sunderland, sophomore attacker McCabe Millon tacked on another two first-half goals. Millon was a game-time decision following the hard blow he suffered against Ohio State but showed no signs of injury, finishing the day with a hat trick of his own.
Behind the scoring of Sunderland and Millon, the Cavaliers headed into the break with an 8-7 lead, a promising sign after netting just five goals against Ohio State. A combination of the tight competition between the two teams, the raucous home crowd, and the 20 mph wind gusts that were blowing leaves and debris over the field set the stage for the second half to be an instant classic between the long-time foes.
“We definitely shared the ball better,” Coach Lars Tiffany said. “That was a big focus coming out of last weekend, that we've got to play more unselfish lacrosse. I don't know if we had a lot more assists, but it felt like we did.”
Virginia did have more assists, tallying nine total to just four last week. Six of these assists came in the first half, in which the Cavaliers spread the ball with ease, relying less on one-on-one offense.
Johns Hopkins, though, made the proper adjustments at halftime, dominating the faceoff battle and limiting possessions for Virginia’s hot shooters. The Blue Jays used their extra possessions to methodically pick apart the Cavalier defense and capitalize on the clean looks at the goal.
“[Virginia’s defense] was throwing some junk at us, shorting different guys,” sophomore attacker Hunter Chauvette said. “We didn’t let that affect our strategy and gameplay.”
After being held without a goal in the Blue Jays’ previous two contests, Chauvette found the back of the net five times Saturday, including a goal late in the third quarter that gave Johns Hopkins its first lead of the game. The Blue Jays stretched the lead to 13-9 during a dominant 6-0 run where they controlled the game on both sides of the ball, spanning the course of the middle 20 minutes of the second half.
When the Cavaliers did manage to get stops, the Johns Hopkins ride made it difficult to clear the ball, an aspect of the game Virginia has consistently struggled with over its first five games and that will continue to be an area of high focus for the team.
The Cavaliers showed resilience, clawing back late in the fourth. An illegal body check sent Johns Hopkins graduate midfielder Patrick Deans to the penalty box with just 46 seconds remaining, making things interesting for the Cavaliers, who had cut the deficit to two.
Virginia cashed in during the man-up, but just a little too late, with only 10 seconds to play. The Cavaliers failed to win the faceoff and get a shot on goal as time expired.
Though the final score makes the game appear closer than it was, Virginia fought from start to finish and put up perhaps its most complete performance of the season, given the competition.
“What a difference from last weekend to this weekend — same result, but what a difference,” Tiffany said. “We came out, played with real confidence in the first half, third quarter, got away from us, and we did not play good team defense, but that fourth quarter, we showed the heart of what Virginia lacrosse is all about, so there's a lot of positives here.”
Despite the loss, the Cavaliers played the closest they have all season to their high standard of complementary lacrosse, giving them momentum heading into a neutral site matchup Saturday at 1:30 p.m. with Towson in Houston, Texas.
But in this game, Virginia and Johns Hopkins added another installment to a storied rivalry. The Blue Jays inched closer to the Cavaliers in the all-time series, with Virginia holding a 12-9 record since the Doyle Smith Cup’s first official game in 2006. Johns Hopkins also took last season’s regular-season matchup but was sunk in the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals by a dramatic double overtime game-winner from then-graduate attacker Connor Shellenberger.
The matchup between the two historic lacrosse programs never fails to disappoint. While there is a lot of season left and work to be done for Virginia to make a postseason run, it is not improbable that the Cavaliers will face Johns Hopkins again this year. At any rate, Saturday’s game provided a tough road test that gave valuable experience to a young Virginia team looking to find its identity.
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