Alecko Eskandarian, Chris Algright, Ben Olsen; in its history, the Virginia men's soccer program has had many stand-out scoring leaders. Last year, the lack of a dominant offensive player seemed to be one of the Cavaliers' major problems as they struggled to finish opportunities. But this year, things are different. The Virginia offense's lack of a star forward is producing nothing but positive results.
Going into this season, coach George Gelnovatch and many Virginia fans expected sophomore Adam Cristman to be the player the Cavaliers turned to for goals. In 2003, Cristman was the team's leading scorer with only eight goals, but seemed well on his way to surpassing that after notching three goals in this season's first tournament. Gelnovatch said in a preseason interview that the team was still looking for someone to replace Eskandarian. He said he thought Cristman could come the closest to filling that void by netting 15-plus goals for the Cavaliers -- but he has not.
Still the leading goal scorer, Cristman has put nine balls in the back of the net. However, he is just one of 17 players to tally for the Cavaliers.
"We've got contributions from everybody -- freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, backs," Gelnovatch said. "It's a team."
The highest scorers after Cristman are freshman ACC Tournament MVP Jeremy Barlow and senior defender Matt Oliver.
Oliver is not the only defender who has made a major contribution to the Virginia offense. Junior Hunter Freeman has had 21 assists, a single-season record for the Cavaliers. Since he has many possible targets, the versatility of the offense has undoubtedly made it possible for Freeman to rack up so many assists.
"It does make it easier," Freeman said. "We have five or six guys that we know can pull it off. This is probably the closest team that I've been on."
The ability of a multitude of Virginia players to knock balls in makes things harder for defenders, Freeman said. While it may be a comfort to have someone who is consistently well-positioned and able to capitalize, it also creates an easy target for opposing defenders.
"My first year here was when Alecko set the record for scoring so many goals," Freeman said. "When you have guys scoring goals like that it's easy to just feed him the ball, feed him the ball. We got very predictable about what we were going to do."
Throughout the season and in last weekend's ACC Tournament, Virginia's lack of offensive predictability has been not only an example of the team's cohesiveness, but a key factor in its success.
While having one star forward may give a program more hype and a public face, having a roster-full of goal scorers, many of whom are freshman, ensures that the Virginia program will remain offensively strong going into the NCAA tournament this season and for many years to come.
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