Virginia first-year goalie Matthew Nunes posted 16 saves, including one with 20 seconds remaining, to help the top-ranked Cavaliers fend off High Point in an 11-10 decision in frigid conditions at Klöckner Stadium Sunday afternoon.
With the win, Nunes also posted his second career victory, and his 16 saves are a season high.
Offensively, the Cavaliers were led by Matt Moore, who scored a game-high three goals to notch his 19th career hat trick and extend his point streak to 52 games, which dates back to March 31, 2018. Connor Shellenberger also tallied a game-high five assists for the second consecutive outing, tying his career high.
Virginia (2-0) won the faceoff battle after collecting 16 wins at the center-X, while the Panthers won nine.
High Point’s Parker Green (1-2) suffered the loss. He posted 13 saves on 24 UVA shots on goal in 60:00 minutes of action.
How it happened
Both teams were tied 2-2 at the end of the first quarter, despite Nunes posting seven of his 16 saves in the first period. After High Point scored the game’s first goal, the Cavaliers scored back-to-back goals from Payton Cormier and Griffin Schutz to take a 2-1 lead.
The Panthers evened the game 2-2 with four seconds remaining in the first. Moore scored the first two goals of the second period before Shellenberger and Xander Dickson found the back of the net for the last two goals of the period as the Cavaliers led 6-4 at the break.
The Panthers quickly tied it 6-6 on back-to-back goals of their own to open the third quarter. UVA went on a 4-0 run in almost a five-minute span to grasp a 10-6 advantage – its largest lead of the contest – with 1:54 remaining in the quarter.
High Point scored three straight to then cut the Cavaliers’ lead to 10-9 in the middle of the fourth. With 7:04 to play, Dickson notched his second straight game-winning, which was also UVA’s last goal of the contest.
Almost three minutes later, the Panthers scored the final goal of Sunday’s game. After that, Nunes made two clutch saves in the final 2:14 of play, including his 16th save which came from virtually point-blank range from the hands of High Point’s Nick Rizzo, who caught a pass in traffic and fired at the cage just inches away from the UVA crease.
Postgame: UVA coach Lars Tiffany
“Every year regardless of the circumstances whether it’s warm or cold, and whether our team has had one day or seven days to prepare, High Point does this. They are relentless. It’s great for us because we see a team that plays at a different speed earlier in the year that we need to catch up to. We know we are going to get there, but they accelerate our need to catch up to a faster pace of play. We just didn’t play at the pace we needed to, but thank goodness for Matt Nunes. Eleven saves at halftime and then obviously a huge one at the very end. We have to be a better program and I just talked to the men about that. We can’t just rely on a freshman goalie – first years as we call them here – to be winning us ball games. But, that’s exactly what Nunes did today.”
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Chris Graham
