The No. 17 Virginia men’s soccer team began Friday night with a small ceremony before their match against Duke, honoring their seven fourth years — redshirt junior midfielder Pablo Aguilar, senior forward and midfielder Nicko Corriveau, senior midfielder and defender Paddy Foss, redshirt junior midfielder and defender Hayes Fountain, redshirt junior goalkeeper Adam Prevost, redshirt junior defender Wesley Suggs and redshirt junior defender Sheldon Sullivan.
In front of a packed crowd, the Cavaliers (9-2-5, 3-2-3 ACC) capped off senior night at Klöckner Stadium with a satisfying 1-0 victory over ACC rival Duke. In their last game of the regular season, the Cavaliers battled the Blue Devils (7-7-2, 2-5-1 ACC) throughout, with neither team able to get much going on the offensive side of the ball.
Both teams were locked in a scoreless tie with just over three minutes to go in the second half when Aguilar scored the game-winning goal off of an assist from sophomore midfielder Jean-Christophe Koffi in the 87th minute to knock off Duke. It was Aguilar’s fifth goal of the season.
“I got a ball, and to be honest, I saw an open shot,” Aguilar said. “As soon as I shot it, I thought it was going in — I blacked out after it went in — it was a great feeling and it feels great to have scored that goal in the last minutes.”
Virginia coach George Gelnovatch was impressed with what he saw from one of the seniors the team honored before the game.
“What a great goal by Pablo,” Gelnovatch said.
Before Aguilar’s goal, Virginia struggled offensively, especially in the first half. In the second half, the Cavaliers seemingly missed a couple opportunities to score and both teams looked like they were heading towards a tie.
Gelnovatch mentioned that Duke’s defense in the first half made it difficult for Virginia’s offense to get going.
“Well, I mean, I think what you saw, again, what we’ve run into is a team that’s hell-bent on defending,” Gelnovatch said. “So the reason our offense is having a hard time is because they’ve got ten guys behind the ball, makes it a little tougher.”
However, Gelnovatch believed that Virginia was able to start playing better offense in the second half since they started to wear Duke down.
“I think in the second half … was better, and mostly because we just wore them down,” Gelnovatch said. “You know, we had a couple of half-decent chances in the second half, I just think they got tired. We got to be patient, got to keep doing the things we talked about.”
Aguilar agreed that the Cavaliers wore down Duke down the stretch.
“I think we’re good at, like, getting teams tired,” Aguilar said. “So in the first half we like to keep the ball, make them run, make them run back and forth so they get tired. In the second half, almost always we seem to find more spaces and create more chances, it’s obviously because they’re more tired, you know.”
Virginia’s defense was strong once again, as they kept another clean sheet Friday night, extending their unbeaten streak to nine games. Junior goalkeeper Jeff Caldwell had another solid performance, picking up four saves.
Though Virginia’s offense struggled at times, they were still able to outshoot Duke 11-8.
It was an important victory for the Cavaliers, as they will now have home-field advantage for the opening round of the ACC Tournament. Aguilar talked about how important home-field advantage is for the team. The Cavaliers have not lost at home so far this season.
“It’s great, this win was so important because it will give us home-field advantage for Wednesday to the start of the ACC Tournament,” Aguilar said. “That’s crucial for us, having the home field advantage — we haven’t lost at Klöckner yet and I hope that we don’t lose at all during the season.”
The Cavaliers will now have a couple of days to regroup and refocus as they get ready for the start of the postseason. Their first-round match of the ACC Tournament will be against NC State and is scheduled to take place Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Klöckner Stadium. The Cavaliers will be the No. 6 seed and the Wolfpack will be the No. 11 seed.
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