Umberto Pelà scored on a header in the 10th minute, and that goal would stand as the difference in lifting the #11 UVA Soccer team to its third shutout victory in four games, with a 1-0 win over American on Monday night at Klöckner Stadium.
It was the first goal of the season for Pelà, with Marco Dos Santos getting his third assist of the season for Virginia (3-1-0).
American (0-3-1) went a man down when Patryk Rojek was shown his second yellow card of the match in the 23rd minute.
American would play the rest of the match with 10 men.
Virginia continued to dominate in the second half outshooting the Eagles by a margin of 10-2 in the final 45 minutes of play.
For the game, Virginia controlled 71 percent of possession and outshot American 22-5.
“Just making sure we’re focused, with the understanding that, especially out of conference, everyone is coming to get us, we’ve got to be ready for it. We did a really good job with that, immediately taking control of the game with our possession and breaking them down,” UVA coach George Gelnovatch said. “I would like to have gotten that second goal at some point, get us a little bit of breathing room. But we’re still early in the season, figuring some things out. Sometimes when you’re playing a team with much more possession, and they go down a man, it’s really tough to score, because they’re dropped off.
The Cavaliers will be back in action on Friday when they travel to Blacksburg to take on Virginia Tech in the Smithfield Commonwealth Clash.
Kickoff at is set for 7 p.m. on ACCNX.
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Chris Graham
