They have all been, by now, conditioned. It has been like this for five weeks. Nick Simmonds, the freshman forward, touches the ball — even just runs toward it — and the fans rumble.
They know what is coming.
Saturday, after his third goal, Simmonds ripped off his shirt and threw it. His teammates mobbed him behind the goal. The loudspeakers christened the moment even as it kept forming. Simmonds had scored the program’s first hat trick since 2012 — the first by a freshman since 2009.
The airborne shirt? It never had a chance.
“Just felt like something I had to do,” Simmonds said. “Thankful to not get a yellow card. If I got a yellow card, I probably would have been a little upset. Probably a little impulsive, but just feel like I had to do it.”
On Senior Day, the freshman hijacked the show. No. 11 Virginia pelted No. 10 Clemson at Klöckner Stadium, scoring three first-half goals on the way to a 4-0 win freighted with significance well beyond one player’s gleaming achievement.
The Cavaliers (9-1-4, 4-0-3 ACC) leapfrogged the Tigers (8-4-2, 4-2-1 ACC) into second in the ACC. They gave themselves a shot at the regular-season title. They welcomed back, after two months of injury, senior midfielder Brendan Lambe. They extended their unbeaten run to 11 games.
But the night was about Simmonds. Will Bates would, Simmonds promised, have a text in his phone before the night ended. That is, if one wasn’t coming the other way already.
Bates is the last player in program history to score a hat trick, and he is also the last player to do it as a freshman. He coached Simmonds at the U15 level.
“Knew that he had the last hat trick,” Simmonds said, “and it was a goal of mine to break.”
Over the entire unofficial spring season, Virginia Coach George Gelnovatch said, Simmonds scored zero times. He has eight goals this fall.
Saturday night’s explosion started early enough. The stadium was still sleeping, only four minutes gone, when Simmonds powered home the opener. The fans scarcely had time for their customary rumble.
“I think that was his best goal,” Gelnovatch said. “That goal was the most technical finish I’ve seen him have. Instinctively, he knew where the goal was. He didn’t just smash it on goal. He hooked it across the goal. That was a high-level, technical finish.”
His second goal, though, was more about the touch than the finish. Backpedaling toward goal, Simmonds turned and poked the ball around a defender, then went the other way. He closed his hips and then opened them to thrash the ball into the far post.
His hands went out to his sides, palms up. What more was there to say?
Five weeks ago, against then-No. 1 Wake Forest, Simmonds scored twice inside 18 minutes. Against Clemson, another top 10 team, it took him six extra minutes to bag his brace. Slouch.
Simmonds’ third goal waited until the 77th minute. Sophomore defender Alex Parvu weaved his way to the endline and cut it back, and there he was at the back post to walk it in.
Gelnovatch gave his star a hug postgame. Simmonds staggered back toward the locker room after the team’s postgame huddle with two teammates on his back, slapping his neck in ecstasy.
“Can't even explain,” Simmonds said. “Words can't describe. Just happy to get the third. But there's still so much more to do in the season left. Haven’t won anything yet.”
That is true. But Virginia is getting close. If it wins Friday at SMU, and with some help from first-place Stanford, it could win the regular-season conference title. The Cardinal are level on points with the Cavaliers but with a game in hand.
Either way, Virginia’s latest torrid performance further warmed it for the coming ACC and NCAA Tournaments. Clemson entered the game first in the ACC and third in the nation with 2.62 goals per game. Its last time out, it pummeled UNC Wilmington 6-0, and before that it stifled Duke 3-0.
Saturday it failed to place a single shot on target. Virginia neutralized Clemson's potent attack and especially sophomore forward Ransford Gyan, the 5-foot-3 dynamo tied for the third-most goals in the conference.
There was a 10-minute period at the end of the first half in which Virginia sustained almost unbroken possession. It felt like a rondo, a man-in-the-middle possession drill, where the player gets trapped helplessly in the middle for a time, except this was 11 versus 11, and it lasted 10 minutes.
“We really haven’t found a team that can stop us from coming out of our half,” Gelnovatch said. “When a team’s on top of us like that, and you can break that pressure by coming out of your half, you can create chances and also create possession in the attacking half.”
There was no better example of that than the second goal, scored by junior forward Marcos Dos Santos and assisted by senior midfielder Jesus De Vicente — and Simmonds. The ball started in Virginia’s own penalty area. Three passes later, by three players, Dos Santos was running in behind and finishing.
Clemson played Tuesday. Virginia had not played since Sunday, and it had a few extra days of focus. But even still, in its first visit to Charlottesville since 2016, Clemson left not wanting to come back any time soon.
Virginia, with a big lead, subbed on a raft of seniors for the last seven minutes. The game ended with senior midfielder Albin Gashi, a captain and four-year mainstay, standing on the sideline swinging a yellow pinnie over his head, like all those shirtless guys in college football stadiums.
“I didn’t put this game on a pedestal,” Gelnovatch said. “We were ready for this team. We were ready for this team and what they were about and executed. We’ll do the same thing next week.”
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