Virginia Offense Clicks in 19-14 Win Over Colgate

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Virginia’s season opener Sunday didn’t look much like what it might have imagined in the offseason.

It also didn’t mirror how much of the Cavaliers’ season unfolded last year.

Virginia pulled away from Colgate 19-14 inside the school’s football indoor practice facility, an environment with no fans, plenty of echoes off the walls and roof and a dry-erase board displaying the score and timeouts remaining near the box.

Truitt Sunderland had six goals and two assists and McCabe Millon delivered four goals and five assists for the Cavaliers, who went 6-8 a year ago to finish below .500 for the first time since 2016.

“It’s a group that’s been really excited,” Sunderland said. “Since June, we’ve been talking about this week and getting to play this season. We know there are no second chances.”

Casey Quinson (four goals), Freddy Fowler (three goals, one assist) and Hunter Drouin (two goals, two assists) each had four-point days for the Raiders (0-2).

Plenty of unknowns accompanied Virginia into 2026. Who would start in goal? (Turns out it was Air Force grad transfer Jake Marek, who made nine saves in his Cavalier debut.)

How would a rebuilt defense fare? (Penalties didn’t help that group, as Colgate went 5-for-7 on extra-man, including a rapid score on a 6-on-3 possession. Also an issue: The absence of defenseman John Schroter, whose left foot was in a walking boot. Coach Lars Tiffany said the junior was day to day.)

And just what would a faceoff unit look like after the departure of its two most frequent contributors last season? (Freshman Griff Meyer got the bulk of the work and was 10 of 23, though that group fared better as the game unfolded.)

But the greatest intrigue revolved around just how Tiffany would deploy an attack unit that returned Millon, Sunderland and Ryan Colsey (four goals and an assist Sunday) and added redshirt freshman Ryan Duenkel (two assists) and freshman Brendan Millon (five assists in his college debut).

Turns out it wasn’t too far off from what Tiffany suggested in November, with Sunderland and the Millons each coming out of the box at times. Duenkel did pretty much the entire afternoon as well, and Virginia usually had at least four (if not all five) of its top attackmen on the field most of the game.

Among those prominently mixed and matched with that group were Chase Band, a junior who started at midfield and had a goal and an assist; Johnny Hackett, a holdover who scored a man-up goal late in the first half; as well as grad student Will Inderlied; seniors Tim Myers (another extra-man fixture) and Charles Balsamo; and freshman Owen Crann.

“Everyone’s here to win,” McCabe Millon said. “We have such unbelievable personnel here at this school, on this team. Whatever we need to do to win, everyone’s there to go out and perform.”

The Cavaliers’ offense needed to, in part because of Colgate’s activity. The Raiders’ use of the double-pole on faceoffs flummoxed Virginia for more than a half, and defenseman John Carrabine collected most of his seven ground balls off draws. Colgate held a 26-13 edge on the ground at halftime.

Toss in the Raiders’ long-standing fondness to apply pressure in the middle of the field, and Virginia didn’t generate many extended possessions early even though it managed to lead 9-8 at halftime.

“When you take a really athletic and aggressive Colgate team that loves to 10-man ride and you put them in a smaller venue, their 10-man now starts feeling like a 12-man ride,” Tiffany said.

Colgate led 12-11 deep into the third quarter before Sunderland and McCabe Millon scored in a little more than a two-minute span to reclaim the lead for the Cavaliers.

After Virginia generated transition off the ensuing faceoff, Colsey was stuffed by Raiders goalie Andrew Lehrman (13 saves), only for faceoff man Henry Metz to lean on his old hockey background to shovel in the rebound.

“When Metz just whacked the ball in, it felt like that’s kind of how we’ve been giving up goals at the other end,” Tiffany said. “Now we just got one that didn’t need four perfect passes and a perfect shot.”

Virginia got its share of those goals, too, against a Colgate defense willing to let the Cavaliers zip it around without an inordinate amount of on-ball pressure in settled situations.

They figure to see more aggressive 6-on-6 defenses in the future, as well as endure more taxing playing conditions. (Virginia originally moved this game from Klöckner Stadium to an artificial turf field before eventually choosing to move indoors to avoid dangerous temperatures that only nosed above freezing in the middle of the afternoon.)

But if the Cavaliers can maintain the sort of offensive cohesion and overall unity they demonstrated against the Raiders, Sunday could well be the start of a bounceback season.

“I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it is for other teams’ defensive coordinators trying to check down on our attack end and see who’s in there,” Sunderland said. “We have five really good attackmen that could start anywhere in the country. The beautiful thing is that no one cares — as long as the ball is getting in the back of the net, everyone’s happy.”