Virginia wins low scoring contest with #16 North Carolina

In a surprisingly low-scoring affair, the Virginia Cavaliers handled the North Carolina Tar Heels in an 11-4 victory. With the win the ‘Hoos advance to 8-2 on the season and 4-0 in the ACC. Payton Cormier led the way for UVA offensively with four goals while freshman goalie Matthew Nunes kept the door shut on UNC with 13 saves. Petey LaSalla also battled a shoulder injury all game and gave the team a big lift by winning 10 of his 18 face-offs.

The Virginia offense struggled all day in the absence of attackman Matt Moore after the senior suffered a lower body injury against Richmond last week.

Cormier opened the scoring after he scooped up the ball near the net following a UNC save off a Xander Dickson shot.

The Tar Heels answered in short order though, as Chris Gray tied the game up on a low-angle lefty goal with 10:05 remaining in the first quarter. Gray followed that tally up with another off-handed score four minutes later to put the Heels up one while the UVA offense was stagnant for much of the opening stanza.

Virginia finally found the back of the net again on an Evan Zinn rip with just over 11 minutes left in the second period. Carolina took the lead back shortly thereafter on a Cole Herbert goal.

Fortunately for UVA, though, the Wahoo offense burst into action with a 4-0 run to close the first half. Cormier had two more in that run while Patrick McIntosh and Griffin Schutz added their first of the game as well.

The third quarter was a 1-1 stanza as each offense remained quiet. UVA’s lone goal came on a sweet move from Jeff Conner while Gray scored his third lefty shot of the game to keep the Heels in the game heading into the final quarter.

Connor Shellenberger found the back of the net for the first time to make the score 8-4 a third of the way into the period. Schutz followed that up with his second goal a few minutes later as the UVA offense wound the clock down before attacking the net.

Cormier scored his fourth and final goal before Zinn added his second and ran out the clock to seal the sweep of the Tar Heels this season.