EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — There were plenty of incentives for Jared Conners to come back to Virginia for a fifth season when the NCAA granted a blanket eligibility waiver for athletes impacted by the pandemic last spring.
The chance to be a part of the Cavaliers’ lacrosse program, by itself, was a factor. The appeal of staying in college an extra year doesn’t require an explanation for most.
But the biggest lure was what could — and ultimately did — transpire Monday, as Conners and his teammates pulled off the most unusual of successful title defenses.
Fourth-seeded Virginia held off third-seeded Maryland 17-16 before 14,816 at Rentschler Field, a triumph that couldn’t truly be savored until the final buzzer but nonetheless one to be savored as the program’s seventh national championship and its first back-to-back titles.
Virginia beat Yale on Memorial Day in 2019. Last year’s tournament was wiped out when the season was canceled in March 2020.
“This is one of the greatest feelings ever,” Conners said. “It’s definitely the reason you come back. Talking to [fellow fifth-year senior] Dox [Aitken] after the game, there’s nowhere else we’d rather be. It’s been an incredible experience and an awesome ride.”
Redshirt freshman Connor Shellenberger earned most outstanding player honors, Matt Moore matched Shellenberger’s four-goal, two-assist line in the title game and senior goalie Alex Rode added to his postseason resume with a save on Maryland faceoff specialist Luke Wierman with five seconds remaining to clinch the victory for the Cavaliers (14-4).
“I had a rough day,” Rode said. “It wasn’t my best day in goal. Our defense actually played great. The FOGO took a shot and I was a little nervous. I thought I owed my team a couple and luckily it hit me in the body.”
It was a crushing end to the season for the Terrapins (15-1), who were looking to become the first undefeated champion in Division I since Virginia’s 2006 juggernaut went 17-0. Logan Wisnauskas scored five goals and added an assist for Maryland, doing nearly all of his damage in a frantic second half.
Tewaaraton Award favorite Jared Bernhardt had two goals and three assists in his final college game, finishing his career with 202 goals
“We threw it all out there for them,” Maryland coach John Tillman said. “We have nothing left in the tank, and we took this thing as long as we could take it.”
It was an exceptional afternoon for the Virginia offense, which was opportunistic at times (a pair of goals off faceoffs and Conners’ pole goal in the second quarter) but also broke down the stingy Maryland defense that was coming off a 14-5 smothering of Duke.
Moore and Shellenberger both had monster days, but Jeff Conner had three goals and Payton Cormier added two.
“We kind of have this stereotype as an offense that we play hero ball, but we really do whatever the defense dictates us to do,” Shellenberger said. “We took it as a challenge. We didn’t want to back down from Maryland’s defense. We wanted to go right at them.”
And so they did, building a 9-7 lead at the break before Maryland knotted it at 11 with 9:11 left in the third quarter. From there, the Cavaliers silenced the Terps for nearly 18 minutes, and ripped off five consecutive goals to take a 16-11 edge.
Shellenberger’s ability to get the better of Nick Grill, the Big Ten’s defensive player of the year, in a variety of ways helped. But it was more than just one guy who allowed Virginia to score the most goals any team had managed against Maryland since Duke’s 18-9 rout of the Terps in the 2005 NCAA semifinals.
“A lot of their goals came down to us not having the best fundamentals,” Maryland defenseman Brett Makar said. “We didn’t really have a clean game on our part. You really think about the one missed ground ball or the bad pick play behind. Just so many plays running through my head right now, and I’m sure a lot of the guys feel that way. Defensively, it definitely wasn’t our best performance.”