Surging Hoos Riding Wave of Momentum

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — For the University of Virginia men’s soccer team, its 29^th season under head coach George Gelnovatch began on a promising note. On an August night at Klöckner Stadium, 13^th-ranked UVA blanked Rider 3-0.

Calamity followed for the Cavaliers. In their second game, they lost 1-0 to unheralded Colgate. The Wahoos dominated the run of play and outshot the Red Raiders 28-3 at Klöckner, but it didn’t matter. Colgate connected on its only shot on goal and Virginia missed a penalty kick in the 76^th minute. The Hoos were left to ponder a confounding defeat.

“That game cast a dark cloud,” Gelnovatch recalled this week.

Virginia dropped out of the top 25 after the loss to Colgate. The Cavaliers bounced back to rout Saint Joseph’s 5-0 on Aug. 29, but their reprieve was short-lived. They didn’t win again for more than a month.

“It makes you stop and think,” said Gelnovatch, whose coaching résumé at his alma mater includes two NCAA titles (2009 and 2014) and four other College Cup appearances.

For the first time since 1967, UVA posted a winless streak of six games, tying Maryland, Wake Forest and California and losing to Duke, Stanford and UNC Greensboro.

UNCG’s Oct. 1 victory in Charlottesville dropped Virginia to 2-4-3 in what was fast becoming a lost season for Gelnovatch and Co. But look at the Hoos now.  Six weeks after that loss to UNCG, they’re 10-5-3 and locks for the 48-team NCAA tournament.

“It’s great to see a group of guys overcome adversity and work towards a common goal,” said senior wingback Paul Wiese, who leads the team with nine assists. “It’s remarkable to see. I’m glad I can be part of that.”

Virginia’s RPI heading into the UNCG game was No. 100. It’s now No. 6.

“I think when we were 2-4-3—we’ve talked about this within the guys—there was never a sense of real worry,” junior midfielder Umberto Pelà said. “We were probably a bit too calm, in my opinion, when we were 2-4-3. But we just stayed calm. One game at a time.”

In its past eight matches, UVA has stumbled only once, falling 4-1 to ACC rival Pitt on Oct. 25 at Ambrose Urbanic Field in Pittsburgh. The Cavaliers avenged that defeat on Sunday night, knocking off the top-seeded Panthers 2-0 on the same field in the ACC tournament quarterfinals.

“We played fearless,” Wiese said.

“Massive team performance,” Pelà said.

Next up for UVA is an ACC semifinal at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, N.C. At 5 p.m. Thursday, in a game to air on ACC Network, No. 9 seed Virginia meets No. 5 seed Wake Forest (9-4-6).

No. 11 seed Cal takes on No. 2 seed Clemson in the second semifinal at 8 p.m. Thursday. The championship game is set for Sunday at noon in Cary.

Gelnovatch said his team is effectively playing “with house money” in Cary, and Wiese said the Cavaliers are looking to “enjoy the moment. We’ve worked so hard this season. There’s no way to go on that field now on Thursday and be scared of the moment. We’ve showed that we’re capable of beating the top teams, and Wake is certainly one of the top teams. So, why not just go out there and play our game, stick to the principles, to our philosophy, how we play, who we are as a team, and obviously go for the win.”

During his long tenure at UVA, Gelnovatch has had other teams that advanced to the NCAA tournament after starting the season slowly. The Hoos were 4-3 after seven games in 2022, for example, and went on to earn the No. 4 seed in the NCAAs. Last year Virginia was 4-3-1 after eight games and ended up as the NCAA tournament’s No. 7 seed.

“But not to the extent of 2-4-3,” Gelnovatch said.

“This year was definitely something else,” said Wiese, who’s one of the team captains, along with Pelà and junior midfielder Albin Gashi.

The Cavaliers’ resurgence began on Oct. 4 with a 2-1 upset of then-No. 19 Virginia Tech at Klöckner Stadium. “That game was the one that breathed real belief and confidence in us,” Gelnovatch said. “That was the catalyst for the run.”

Before the game the coaching staff employed a motivational tactic and showed the players a video clip of Al Pacino’s stirring speech to his football team in the film Any Given Sunday.

“You can laugh about it now when you look back at it,” Wiese said, “but it probably ignited something within us as a team and we played very well against Tech.”

Four nights later, an own goal in the 90^th minute lifted UVA to a 1-0 win over then-No. 8 JMU at Klöckner Stadium. “We got a little lucky,” Wiese said, “but then we kept rolling and turned that thing around.”

In its first game in the ACC tournament, Virginia scored two goals (by Triton Beauvois and David Okorie) in a 20-second span of the second half and defeated No. 8 seed NC State 2-1. Against Pitt, the Cavaliers’ goals (by Pelà and AJ Smith) came in a 30-second span of the second half.

Even during Virginia’s long winless streak, Gelnovatch and associate head coaches Matt Chulis and Adam Perron continued encouraging the players, Wiese said. “Of course we talked about the mistakes we made during the games, and we learned from them, I think. We figured out who we are as a team, what we’re good at, where we probably need some improvement.”

Sixteen Cavaliers have scored at least one goal each this season, led by center back Nick Dang, who on Wednesday was named to the All-ACC second team. Dang, a transfer from Lipscomb, has scored six goals. Forwards Joaquin Brizuela and Kome Ubogu have four goals apiece, and wingback Reese Miller totaled three before suffering a season-ending knee injury in September.

“This turnaround came with a lot of work, a lot of dedication,” Wiese said, “and that’s what we did as a team, so I’m proud of the guys and can’t wait to play on Thursday.”

To receive Jeff White’s articles by email, click the appropriate box in this link to subscribe.