Midway through conference play, Virginia men’s lacrosse is on a trajectory toward its worst season in Coach Lars Tiffany’s nine seasons at the helm. At 5-6 and 0-2 in the ACC, it is the program’s worst record through 11 games since an identical mark by the 2013 team, four years before Tiffany’s arrival.
The common denominator between this year’s squad and its predecessors from over a decade ago? Scoring. And the difference between this season and last? A missing superstar. With just three games left on its schedule, Virginia has no clear offensive leader when the going gets tough.
So far this season, the Cavaliers have netted 125 goals, their third-lowest total through 11 games in the last 20 years, behind the 124-goal totals of the 2013 and 2016 teams. In 2017, upon their arrival, Tiffany and offensive coordinator Sean Kirwan led Virginia to the No. 3 offense in the country, one that scored 169 goals in its first 11 games. That mark is about par for the course in the years that followed.
Kirwan is no longer running the show offensively, with Virginia in its second season under Kevin Cassese. But after last season, in which the team ranked No. 11 in scoring offense, Virginia is tied for No. 35 nationally, a particularly bad mark given the blazing speed with which it plays and the extra possessions that speed creates. It has been prone to long scoring droughts, such as nearly 18 scoreless minutes in a 14-5 loss to Ohio State or, most recently, two goals in the final 38 minutes Saturday in an 18-9 loss to North Carolina.
Virginia has, in recent memory, always had a superstar. Ian Laviano graduated in 2021. Matt Moore graduated in 2022. Midfielder Dox Aitken graduated in 2021, playing alongside both on Tiffany’s first national championship team. These players had a knack for creating offense for either themselves or their teammates, whether in or out of structure, giving Tiffany the luxury of calling one of their numbers when the offense was out of sync and needed a jolt.
Their successors, in Connor Shellenberger and Payton Cormier, picked up the slack. They led the team last year in points, and both of them currently represent the New York Atlas in the PLL. And their departure left big shoes to fill in the superstar department.
“Andy Reid someday will say goodbye to Patrick Mahomes,” Tiffany said. “We just lost our Patrick Mahomes, who, by the way, had a Travis Kelce to catch everything and score.”
Sophomore attackman McCabe Millon is supposed to be Virginia’s superstar. Millon was second on the team in goals last season and was expected to emerge as the face of the program. While Millon has not had a bad year as he works to adjust to the quarterback role, he has certainly not lived up to the lofty expectations. His shooting percentage is down to 20 percent from his 30 percent clip last year, resulting in just 19 goals through 11 games.
There is not a Cormier for Millon to dish it to anymore, but the team’s roster — one that warranted a No. 4 preseason ranking — is still loaded with good players from top to bottom. Junior attackmen Ryan Colsey and Truitt Sunderland have stepped up big time. They lead the Cavaliers in goals scored with 25 each, having both already eclipsed their previous season highs.
But neither, regardless of their increased production, is a superstar — both players are outside the nation's top 50 in goals per game. This low ceiling on scoring coming from the attacking corps places more pressure on other parts of the field, and the midfield in particular is not carrying the load and certainly not supplying that star player.
Senior midfielder Griffin Schutz has been the most productive of the midfield unit, tallying 13 goals and three assists. Despite improvements to his shooting percentage, Schutz’s production is not as great as expected, especially for one of the few seniors who has been in the starting lineup since day one. Fellow senior midfielder Will Inderlied and junior midfielder Johnny Hackett have provided sparks at times throughout the back half of the season, but neither has brought consistent stability at the position. Tiffany has even tried plugging senior attackman Thomas Mencke at midfield, yielding solid but not special production.
“We need more production from our midfield,” Tiffany said. “That's really where it stems from.”
Despite patches of promising play in the midfield, it has not been enough. Right now, Virginia is No. 20 in the NCAA RPI, decidedly on the outside looking in. To have a shot at simply qualifying for the ACC Tournament — something they have not failed to do since Tiffany’s first season in 2017 — they have work to do, and quickly.
Even if Virginia can find a way to boost its scoring through a balanced offensive attack, it will not be a surprise if it drops every conference game and misses the postseason entirely without a superstar to command the field.
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