Virginia Heads to Louisville for Road Match on Friday

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Virginia (7-6-1, 2-2-0 ACC Spring) will take on Louisville (3-8-1, 2-2-0 ACC Spring) on Friday (April 2) in the first of back-to-back road matches to close out the 2021 regular season. The contest is scheduled for a 7 p.m. start and will air live on ACCNX.

Game Coverage: ACCNX is available to authenticated subscribers of ACC Network via the ESPN App. Links for the live stream and in-game live stats are available on VirginiaSports.com. Fans can also follow the Virginia men’s soccer official twitter account (@UVAMenSoccer) for in-game updates.

FOR STARTERS

• The Cavaliers will close their 2021 spring season with a pair of road matches, the first against Louisville on Friday and the finale against No. 3 Pitt on April 8.
• Friday’s match will be the lone, cross-divisional match for both schools. Each team has six ACC contests on its spring schedule, five of them against its respective division opponents.
• A win on Friday would secure win No. 800. The Cavaliers are looking to become the fifth program in Division I college soccer history to reach the 800-win plateau.
• The match on Friday will be only the second road match of the spring for Virginia. Entering the contest, Virginia is 1-2-1 away from Klöckner Stadium in 2020-21.

AGAINST LOUISVILLE

• Virginia is 3-3-1 against the Cardinals all-time and the Cavaliers have taken three of the four regular season meetings.
• The last time Virginia visited Louisville was for the 2017 ACC Tournament Quarterfinal. The two teams played to a 0-0 draw after 110 minutes of action before Virginia advanced on penalty kicks. Jeff Caldwell made two stops in the PK shootout.
• Louisville is unbeaten against the Virginia on its home pitch, sporting a 2-0-1 mark.

ROUND ONE

• The two teams engaged in a wild affair at Klöckner Stadium this past fall that saw the Cardinals level the match at one with 47 seconds to go in regulation only to fall in the 109^th minute on a penalty kick conversion by Philip Horton.
• The match was the first game action for Virginia of the 2020-21 season after two of its fall exhibitions were canceled and the season opener scheduled against Virginia Tech was postponed.
• Nathaniel Crofts scored the first goal of the year for Virginia and it would prove to be his final tally as a Cavalier. The senior was selected by Toronto FC in the MLS SuperDraft and reported to the club earlier this spring.
• The victory for Virginia was also a milestone at Klöckner Stadium, the 300^th in the facility’s history.
• The match would start a string of four-consecutive overtime matches, three of them occurring in a nine-day span. It was the first time in program history the Cavaliers started a season with four-straight OT matches.

LAST TIME OUT

• The Cavaliers ended their 2021 home spring slate with a 3-1 loss to Duke. Thorleifur Ulfarsson scored the first three goals of the match en route to ACC Offensive Player of the Week honors.
• The Cavaliers got a late goal from Kevin Ogudugu in the 85^th minute.
• Virginia outshot Duke, 10-9 but only four of UVA’s attempts landed on target compared to six from the Blue Devils.

HOW THEY SCORE IT

• Virginia is 7-1 in 2020-21 when scoring first.
• Of Virginia’s 18 goals this season, 12 have come in the second half or later including six that have come after the 75^th minute.
• Afonso became the 11^th different goals scorer for Virginia this season. He’s the fifth Cavalier to score

NOTES/TRENDS

• Ogudugu has scored all three of his goals in the spring portion of the Cavalier schedule. He moved into the team lead with seven points (3g, 1a).
• Nick Berghold was credited with his second assist of the season on Virginia’s lone goal against Duke. He has a point in three of the six games this spring.
• The Cavaliers have six shutouts this spring tied for the third most in the ACC and are one of 13 schools in the country with six or more clean sheets. As a team, Virginia has been credited with 55 saves, the most in the ACC and the third most in the NCAA.
• Five shutouts have been credited to Alex Rando’s ledger, including four this spring. He enters the weekend with the league’s second-highest save percentage (.789) and his 0.87 goals against average ranks third amongst his ACC cohorts.
• Irakoze Donasiyano is the only Virginia player remaining on the roster that saw action in the 2017 ACC Quarterfinal triumph, logging 16 minutes in the contest.
• Donasiyano and Oliver Gerbig have played every minute of every match for Virginia in 2020-21. Donasiyano has made 55 consecutive starts in a Cavalier uniform.