UVA men’s lacrosse gets commitment from #1 recruit in the 2024 class

With college lacrosse coaches only being allowed to start contacting class of 2024 recruits starting on September 1st, Virginia Cavaliers’ Head Coach Lars Tiffany was obviously itching to get off on the right foot.

Tiffany and his staff did just that as Inside Lacrosse’s top-ranked 2024 recruit, Ryan Duenkel, announced his commitment to the Wahoos earlier this evening. An attackman hailing from St. John’s High School in Washington, D.C., Duenkel is following in the footsteps of current UVA stars Griffin Schutz (2021) and Connor Shellenberger (2019) as a #1 ranked recruit heading to Charlottesville.

To a certain extent, getting Duenkel to commit to UVA was a slam dunk. Both his dad and brother played football for the ‘Hoos with his older brother Justin currently playing for Tony Elliott’s program as a place kicker (Justin previously was the starting kicker before being usurped by Brendan Farrell last fall).

Despite UVA ending its three-year reign as national champs last May (ridiculous, I know), there are no signs of the program slowing down with a stacked 2022 group joining the team for this coming spring and Duenkel starting things off well for the 2024 class.

That 2022 class includes the 3rd (midfielder Joey Terenzi), 4th (attackman Truitt Sunderland), and 10th (Mac Eldridge) ranked incoming freshman along with another five star defenseman in John Schroter. The 2023 class was slightly below expectations with the top-ranked player being 22nd ranked Wills Burt, but that’s reasonable considering the quality of the 2022s.

That said, Tiffany also made further inroads with the 2023s today by flipping former Ohio State commit Chase Band. Out of the Bullis School (where Connor Shellenberger spent his high school junior year) in Maryland, Band was the second of two impressive gets for UVA on this fine Sunday evening which underscore that the program is only building towards the future with its eyes on establishing itself as the team to beat this decade.