In the second-annual Battle for the DMV at Audi Field, No. 12 Virginia (2-0) took down defending national champion and No. 1-ranked Maryland (1-1), 2-0 on Monday night (Sept. 2). The Cavaliers snapped a six-game winless streak against their former Atlantic Coast Conference foes.
Virginia came out the aggressors in the first half and it paid dividends. After tallying the first six shots of the contest, the Cavaliers broke through on in the 21st minute on the first goal of the season by Nathaniel Crofts (Sheffield, England). The junior capitalized on a long rebound of an initial shot by Daniel Steedman (Glasglow, Scotland) that was punched away by Maryland goalkeeper Niklas Neumann.
“This is obviously a great win,” head coach George Gelnovatch said. “Maryland is a great program and they’ll be fine. It’s the second game into the season and I reminded our team of that. In the first half I was happy with the confidence and the combinations. We were scoring goals and got after Maryland like we trained to get after Maryland, especially centrally.”
It only took one minute and 15 seconds for the Cavaliers to claim a two-goal lead. Driving down the left side of the field, Crofts slipped a pass to the corner of the 18 where sophomore Daryl Dike (Edmond, Okla.) made a move to his right and buried a right-footed shot into the upper right 90 for his first goal of the season.
Defensively the Cavaliers put together their second-straight clean sheet, limiting the Terps to just five shots. Goalkeeper Colin Shutler (Middleburg, Va.) turned away one of two shots on target in the first half. The other save went in the books as a team save when Andreas Ueland (Bryne, Norway) slid to knock away a Terps chance near the right post.
For the game Virginia owned a 11-5 advantage in shots while Maryland out-corned the Cavaliers, 5-3.
Virginia will be back in action on Saturday, Sept. 7 at Klöckner Stadium when it hosts High Point. The match is slated for a 7 p.m. start and will be broadcast live on ACCNX.
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Chris Graham
