Still Sleeping on Richmond? That's a Mistake

Dan Chemotti found the quiet disquieting.

The chippy, chirpy version of Richmond lacrosse — the team that celebrated so hard after beating North Carolina in the NCAA tournament it left him with a black eye — was gone.

In its place, a more reserved group of players reported to campus in the fall. Chemotti asked Dom Starsia if he should be concerned.

“Danny, don’t worry about it. It’s fall ball,” Starsia said. “Loosen up.”

What Chemotti mistook for complacency, it turned out, was an untrammeled focus— a singlemindedness that has not waned as the Spiders have raced to a 9-0 start and the No. 1 ranking in every major national poll.

“He’s a coach. The sky was falling,” said Starsia, the Hall of Fame former Virginia coach who has had a front-row seat to Richmond’s ascent first as an in-state foe and now as the school’s color commentator. “Then they started to get it going.”

The Spiders have dominated Virginia, nudged past defending NCAA champion Cornell, pulled away from Georgetown and obliterated every other opponent on their schedule to get to this point.

On Saturday, they face No. 5 Notre Dame in the unusual position of being the favorite against a traditional lacrosse powerhouse. The 12:30 p.m. ET game headlines Lacrosse Day in Chicago, a doubleheader at Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium. Northwestern hosts USC in the women’s matchup.

“One word we've thrown around a lot with this group is focus. They're super focused. They’re driven,” Chemotti said after the win over Georgetown last month. “They’re a lot less of a rah-rah group and more of a, ‘This is how you get the job done,’ kind of group.”

Richmond has staying power. Among the sport’s most remarkable streaks, the Spiders have played in the conference championship game in every season of the program’s existence. It started with a surprising run to the Atlantic Sun title and NCAA tournament in their inaugural campaign (2014) and then an eight-year stretch in the Southern Conference.

Since 2023, they’ve been the most consistent contender in the Atlantic 10 — a mix of teams with established lacrosse pedigrees (Delaware, Hobart and UMass) and recently ascendant programs (High Point, Richmond and Saint Joseph’s).

And they’ve always been a thorn in the side of the blue bloods. When Richmond defeated Chemotti’s alma mater, Duke, in 2016, he called it the biggest win in team history. The Spiders beat North Carolina the next two years, edged Notre Dame in 2019 and finally got the better of Virginia when the Cavaliers were the defending NCAA champion and the nation’s No. 2-ranked team in 2022.

That’s not to mention the heart palpitations they gave Duke and Penn in the 2019 and 2022 NCAA tournaments — both one-goal losses — and Maryland in double-overtime thrillers in 2020 and 2024. No one wants to play Richmond mid-week anymore, that’s for sure.

And yet, top scorer and All-American attackman Aidan O’Neil thinks there’s still a large portion of the lacrosse populace that’s sleeping on the Spiders.

“I’ll be completely honest,” he said. “I think people are still coming around to it.”

O’Neil is one of four senior captains, all of whom have been starters since day one of their freshman year. Short-stick defensive midfielder Jack Pilling, midfielder Joe Sheridan and defenseman Hunter Smith are the others.

O’Neil and Sheridan were top-100 recruits, the kinds of prospects Richmond has started to attract with its beautiful campus, optimal geography and recent string of success. Pilling and Smith were less coveted and more akin to the underrated gems the Spiders have unearthed and developed within their system.

Pilling swears the only reason he got recruited to Richmond was because he had a decent game opposite Sheridan during a fall showcase.

“He went for, like, four and two,” Sheridan said.

“And now I don’t play offense,” Pilling retorted. “Went downhill after that.”

Asked to describe the culture that drew them to the program, Smith summarized it succinctly.

“We’re going to give you hell for 60 minutes,” he said. “We believe in the guys in our locker room. We believe in our team. That's just how it is.”

The numbers back up that sense of belief and reveal nary a weakness.

Through nine games, Richmond ranks first or second in Division I on a per-game basis in scoring offense (16.67), scoring defense (7.56), points (26.22) and fewest turnovers (12.11). The Spiders shoot for a higher percentage (36.2 percent) than anyone in the country. They’re also top-10 in caused turnovers (10.67 per game), clearing percentage (90.7 percent) and ground balls (37.33 per game).

Prefer advanced metrics? Richmond is first in offensive efficiency (41 percent), fifth in defensive efficiency (23.1 percent) and first in cumulative efficiency (47.1 percent), according to Lacrosse Reference.

Worried about a freshman facing off or a first-year senior starter in goal? Vincent Gaylord ranks ninth nationally in faceoff winning percentage (62.8 percent). Connor Knight ranks fourth nationally in both save percentage (57.8 percent) and goals against average (7.58).  

Offensive depth? Six players have scored at least 10 goals this season. The Spiders stretch the field north-south with Sheridan (17 goals, 10 assists) and O’Neil (20 goals, 26 assists) commanding slides from defenses that must also account for a supreme inside finisher in junior attackman Lucas Littlejohn (25 goals) and a lethal step-down threat in sophomore midfielder Gavin Creo (23 goals).

Starsia saw a harbinger of this when Richmond handled North Carolina easily in a preseason scrimmage. “I thought maybe UNC was overrated,” he said. “It turned our Richmond was just that good.”

Notre Dame figures to be its stiffest test to date. The Spiders remain ever focused.

“There's not a single doubt in this group, in this building that it's not our year,” O’Neil said.

That’s not to say Chemotti is any more at ease than he was at the start of fall ball. Being ranked No. 1 for the first time in program history has only heightened his wariness of possible pitfalls.

“He’s a coach,” Starsia repeated. “Constantly worried about distractions. Sneaking up on people can be very advantageous. They’re not sneaking up on anyone anymore.”