Michigan Lacrosse 2024 Game #1: Virginia
What: #11 Michigan @ #3 Virginia
Where: Klockner Stadium, Charlottesville, Virginia
When: 12:00 Noon
Line: (DraftKings) UVA -4.5
Television: ACC Network
Lacrosse season is upon us. There is a competitive Week 0, but Michigan nor their first opponent, Virginia, played a game.
Expectations for Michigan are higher than they have ever been. Last season ended with them torching Maryland, Penn State, and most importantly, Ohio State in the Big Ten Tournament to secure their first B1G Title and first invitation to the NCAA Tournament.
Coming into the tournament as the red-hot underdog, they beat #8 Cornell in overtime then lost #1 Duke, eventual 2023 runner-up. The topic of the opening week of that tournament was all things Michigan. One analyst called the program something like "inevitable powerhouse coming to dominate NCAA Lacrosse". Hopefully they're right, but it was a little over the top.
The trajectory of the program is largely positive, but it will be hard to match last season. The B1G is home to #4 PSU, #5 Hopkins, #6 Maryland, #15 Rutgers, and OSU lurking just outside the Top 20.
What to Watch For:
Virginia is TOUGH. They sit at +475 to win the whole thing this season, only trailing Duke at +400. To put that in perspective, the only team in college football with better championship odds is Georgia. (Michigan Football is +1400 and that's what we call value, baby!)
The #1 offense, averaging over 17 goals/game, return what might be the best attack duo in the country. Connor Shellenberger is among the favorites to win the Tewaaraton (read: Heisman) and is on pace to shatter the points record at Virginia. Alongside him is Payton Cormier who scored on ~50% of his shots last year, mostly coming off Shellenberger assists. Their third attackman will most likely be certified buckets getter Jack Boyden who transferred from Tufts, or #1 overall recruit McCabe Millon. Remember that name, because he already has a list of accolades longer than most and both of his parents are in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
All that to say, Michigan's defense will have their hands full. The three defensive spots could be up in the air and you may see them try out a more players than well-established units normally would. One to watch is four-star freshman Rowan Clay, brother of graduated 2023 captain Bryce Clay. Good luck, kid. There are also two defensive players from the portal; Cathal Roberts from Princeton and Andrew Stanzel from Bucknell. Short-stick defensive midfielder Beau Pederson, also a transfer from Princeton could find himself guarding one of the above threats on some switches too.
Last year in goal, Michigan very unconventionally rotated halves between two goalies; (Fr.) Hunter Taylor and (Jr.) Shane Carr. Taylor solidified a starting role, but not until halfway through the conference tournament. It's assumed he will be the starter in his second year, but they could be quick to make the swap back to the senior Carr if things aren't looking good at halftime of any game this season. Opponents averaged 10.8 saves against the Cavs in 2023 and gave up 17.2 goals. It's going to take some unlikely saves to keep this one close or win.
On the other side of the field, Michigan lost leading scorer Josh Zawada to Duke (gross), but returns Michael Boehm, the number two option who was starting to look a lot like a number one option late in the season. He'll be guarded by All-ACC, second-team All-American Cole Kastner. He stands at 6'7 and is tough to get around. He'll also be playing college basketball somewhere next year.
Faceoffs can win or lose game in lacrosse. For those unfamiliar, imagine if a basketball game reset with a jump ball after every basket but instead of a jump ball it was an XFL Coin Toss. Michigan's Justin Wietfeldt ranked second in the country winning 65%. Virginia's five year starter at FO departed, but in the portal, they found Anthony Ghobriel from Navy, who ranked 11th with a 61% win rate. I'm no math wiz, but one of those averages must decrease Saturday. Whoever comes out on top could swing the game.
Go Blue.
February 7th, 2024 at 2:29 PM ^
Inspired by my urge to write like I did back in the day and to commit time theft from my currently draining job. Lacrosse is a short season, so if there's any interest, maybe I'll try to keep it going past this sudden burst of inspiration.
February 7th, 2024 at 2:37 PM ^
Why did Josh Zawada transfer to Duke? Looks like we picked up another attack guy, but I saw that in my news feed and struck me as weird.
February 7th, 2024 at 2:46 PM ^
It was a fifth year graduate transfer, now that I look back. With the confusion of added covid years, I'm unsure whether he was eligible for another year here.
Looks like we added a grad transfer attack from Lehigh, but I can't pretend to know anything other than he scored 46 goals last year. So that's something.
February 9th, 2024 at 1:35 PM ^
Yeah, the whole thing has a "Dickinson-to-Kansas" vibe to it. Disappointing.
But, I'm pretty sure he's from NC so maybe that's why.
February 7th, 2024 at 4:15 PM ^
Due to proximity (MD resident), the fact that it's going to be 65 degrees and some friends' ties to VA... I'm actually going to be at this game.
I can be your first away correspondent!
(And, no B1G and NCAA, I'm not filming the Wahoo sidelines!)
February 8th, 2024 at 7:18 AM ^
Me too! I recently moved back to the DC area and weather's going to be nice and I don't have anything else to do! Should be a good afternoon. GO BLUE!
February 7th, 2024 at 6:51 PM ^
Somehow I forgot to include SATURDAY 2/10 in the "When" section with the time.
February 8th, 2024 at 12:16 AM ^
Thanks for the writeup. Wietfeldt will need to be the difference if Michigan wants to pull the upset or hang as tough as they did in Charlottesville last season. LaSalla could be UVA's biggest loss anywhere on the field, but the Hoos are a no-doubt Top 3 team coming into the season.
For anyone looking to fill the void created by the... discouraging basketball results, can't recommend college lacrosse strongly enough. Michigan not only has a blossoming program but to me, has the profile of a team that could pull an upset on any given Sunday (Saturday, in college lax) with a top faceoff man, a goalie who can get HOT, and a streaky top scorer in Boehm.
Excited for the first look at Pederson and Tiernan (Lehigh attackman) in maize and blue.
February 8th, 2024 at 12:34 AM ^
wish I didn’t have to work, I’d go watch. saw UVA’s team practice when I got to my car this evening.
February 8th, 2024 at 7:15 AM ^
Yeeesssssssssss. This is excellent, Honolulu, thanks for posting. UVA lost a lot of key contributors but it never really matters for them because they always lose historic guys and just replace them with more historic guys. And they still have Schellenberger, who if I recall correctly, Michigan kept somewhat in check last year. He's also a candidate for the Jacque Vaughn-Aaron Craft Been Here Forever Award (even for a lacrosse player).
I'm curious to see how Michigan does replacing their key players from last year. They lose Bryce Clay, Peter Thompson, Josh Zawada and Josh Jackson. I also had no idea Zawada still had eligibility and transferred to Duke (booooo). But Boehm and Coen can make plays and importing a versatile offensive guy from Princeton and a 40+ goal scorer from Lehigh should help. I'm excited to see the second line midfield guys from last year - Justin Brown and Isaac Aaronson and do-itall middie Emmit Houlihan. Those defensive transfers could be great additions too; Whitney and Van Wees were pretty strong last year but I think LSM Shriber will be out for a while. I'm weirdly excited about Beau Pederson, a short stick d-middie who is 2nd team preseason AA; that could be huge bc Michigan lost some good ones and it's probably the hardest and least appreciated position on the field. I love Taylor or Carr in goal. Taylor is a lunatic.
This game could be interesting. Michigan could pull an all-time upset...or lose by 10 goals. But honestly, I'm leaning towards the former. Last year, they hung within 1-2 goals all game until a bad call helped UVA stretch the lead in the 4th. That was before Michigan really learned how to win. This program has got a fun new attitude. GO BLUE!
February 8th, 2024 at 1:41 PM ^
I forgot that UVA had Millon's kid too.
Mark Millon was one of my favorite players growing up. Probably still have his instructional DVD in my mom's basement.
February 9th, 2024 at 12:32 PM ^
Mark Millon's Offensive Wizardry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UxIYAIkfCE
February 9th, 2024 at 12:14 PM ^
Looks like it is going to be broadcast on the ACCN if you have access.
Definitely looking forward to seeing whether the team can keep the momentum going this season. Last season was fun.
Didn't realize Zawada transferred....that sucks. I mean, I know it is Duke (vomit), but I wonder what the thought process was about in dumping a team you sort of helped build?
February 10th, 2024 at 9:37 PM ^
So, that was pretty rough. Obviously not the start they wanted. But I think they have a good base to build a strong season. Hopefully this will be their worst performance of the year and they can just put it behind them. Here are some of L'Carpetron's takeaways:
1) I can't get over how big Virginia's dudes are. I don't think it really came through on screen I mean their defense is enormous - it's like they took a power forward and some d-ends and gave them longsticks. Their F/O guy was also a mutant and a few other middies were huge. It looked like Michigan was playing the goddamn Chicago Bears or something. They were physical as well; Michigan never backed down and kept playing hard but they never matched Virginia's physical play/attitude.
2) Virginia's goalie was incredible. Michigan was slow to get on the board...and then keep pace...and then make a comeback because Virginia's goalie kept making tremendous saves. Maybe Michigan helped him out a few times w/ poor shot placement (my big worry this season is that they'll revert back to poor shooting) but it seemed like they generated plenty of good looks and that dude just stonewalled them. He's big, takes up space in the cage and just eats up every shot with no wasted movement at all.
3) Hopefully this is just some first game rust. M has a lot of new faces but I think those are strong additions and a lot of those guys played well especially Tierney, Roberts and Pederson. They need to figure out who will create on offense; it seemed like they wanted Boehm to be the facilitator but that wasn't really his role last year or his game. He often found himself forced into the teeth of their enormous defense. It seemed like when they let Brown or Lockwood key the offense it went a little better. But, overall, they got crushed on GBs and F/Os and Taylor unfortunately did not have his best game in goal. A lot of old problems - poor shooting, inopportune turnovers (same thing) and unassisted goals resurfaced. But those seem like fixable problems and the capable guys they've imported will settle in soon.
4) Virginia are a bunch of punks and the officiating was absolute dogshit. Virginia were some fucking goons out there; they got a good number of flags but they also got away with a ton of dirty shit and were chippy from the start. And the smallest guy on the team - Millon, seems to be the biggest punk of them all, I was disappointed no Michigan player took his head off. The refs gave only gave a 1-min penalty when a Virginia dude hit Billig square in the back in an extremely dirty and dangerous play. They also missed a late hit on Taylor (also from behind - what sportsmen!) and a h-2-h on our F/O guy. And they missed some blatant endline calls that directly led to UVA goals. None of this really made a difference because Michigan played poorly and had a hand in beating themselves. But I will be rooting my ass off for any team playing Virginia the rest of the year.
5) Despite the general odiousness of Virginia, that stadium is great and it was a really fun atmosphere. Box score said there were 4000 fans in attendance but it seemed like a lot more. And the Michigan fans really represented. It was the first time I've been to a college lacrosse game where it felt like big time college sports and not something that the athletic dept just sort of put up with. I would love it if every athletic dept treated their nonrev sports like that.
Michigan will put in much better performances than that so here's to a fun season!
February 11th, 2024 at 9:44 AM ^
Just scoreboard watching most seasons with this program, we're just not on UVA's level.
We've had a few close calls with big games. And last year had the huge win over Maryland and then the miracle run at the end of the year. I'm not sure that momentum is going to carry over.
It would be nice to take care of business in the non-con (i.e., don't lose to Marquette/Delaware/Harvard). Without that, this season is toast. Because then it's @Notre Dame and the Big Ten gauntlet.
February 11th, 2024 at 1:25 PM ^
The only things I'll add to this excellent summary:
1) The weather did not cooperate. While the temp reading said 61, it felt like 45. (Got nicer later towards the evening.)
2) M needs to do better with pick plays on D. I don't have the actual stats, but it felt like at least 5 goals game directly after an M defender just allowed the pick to take them out of the play, leaving the attackman 1v1 with Taylor.
3) Taylor, as you mentioned, did not have a great game. He got beat on high-to-high shots in the 1st Q that, honestly, just shouldn't have been goals at this level.
4) On a positive note, M's first 2 goals game on Man Up plays that were very nifty quick-passing / slipping into space set pieces. Found that very encouraging.
5) To back you up, the UVA goalie made some incredible saves. In particular, at 2 different points in the game, M was mounting runs to get back in the game (2 goals to pull things into a 4 or 5 goal deficit early, then later in the 2nd I think we scored 3 in a row to bring things into striking distance) and that dude just stoned point blank shots.
6) I don't know about UVa being punks, as I thought M (#16??) kind of lost his mind very early in the game, getting into with almost the entire UVA defense. Things just kind of progressed from there with lots of chirping on both sides. That said, I sat with the UVA parents (pretty much), so I didn't really hear much negative from the crowd either way.
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