Virginia lacrosse beats Lafayette as Matt Moore breaks UVA’s all-time points record

Last night, the Virginia Cavaliers closed out the regular season with a decisive 20-10 victory over Lafayette. On senior night, fifth year Matt Moore further established himself as one of the greats in program history as he toppled Steele Stanwick’s total career points and now hold’s the program’s all-time points record with 271.

This record is a testament to what Moore has done for this program. Having led the team to two straight National Championships, he’s got to be on the Mount Rushmore of UVA lacrosse players. Beyond his play on the field, he’s developed into a quintessential leader and has even taken on the responsibility of stepping back at times to allow others to take the reins.

Moore led the way for the ‘Hoos against Lafayette with his most productive outing of the season as he found the back of the net twice and also dished out six assists for an eight point outing. His fellow fifth year and depth piece midfielder Regan Quinn burst onto the scene with four tallies of his own while Payton Cormier added five scores.

At the face-off X, Petey LaSalla finished 17 of 22 while his backup Gable Braun went seven for 10 as UVA dominated possessions all night long. In the cage, freshman brick wall Matthew Nunes had the game off with senior Miles Thompson getting the start and making 13 saves for a 65% save rate.

Virginia started the game relatively slowly. Quinn started the scoring at the 13:43 mark, but then Cormier’s goal 8:40 in the first quarter was the only other goal for more than twelve minutes when Lafayette’s John Mathes made the game a 2-1 affair. Moore then found Dickson for a score with a mere three seconds left in the first stanza to put UVA up 3-1 heading into the second.

The first five minutes of the next quarter were similarly slow offensively, but once Moore scored his first goal with 9:45 left in the half, the floodgates opened properly. Defender Cole Kastner tallied his second goal of the season 24 seconds later before Griffin Schutz got in on the action off a Connor Shellenberger assists a minute after. Patrick McIntosh closed out the five-goal Virginia run, putting the ‘Hoos up 7-1.

Lafayette scored two straight after that, but two finishes from Cormier matched those and put the score at 9-3 going into halftime.

Quinn, Cormier, and Moore each found the back of the net to start the second half, essentially hammering the final nail in Lafayette’s coffin. That said, the Leopards did score three times in the third period, but it still wasn’t enough to match the ‘Hoos as Cormier added another one and Peter Garno notched his first goal of the evening as well.

That meant that the deficit was eight for the Leopards when the fourth quarter got underway. Ten goals were scored in that final fifteen minute stretch, six for Virginia and four for Lafayette. Notably, senior attackman Paul Rodriguez got on the board as did junior long stick midfielder Mitchell Whalen, scoring his first career goal.

A final tally from Lafayette’s Peter Lehman closed the game out at 20-10 with the Wahoos advance to 11-3 on the season and now have more than a two week break to rest up and prepare until the NCAA Tournament kicks off the weekend of Saturday May 14th.