For a moment, Brendan Millon’s vision was clear.
Virginia was down two goals against Georgetown, 10-8, and the offense was getting desperate while the Hoyas found an unexpected upper hand. Senior attacker Ryan Colsey stood, ball in hand, on the outskirts of the cage anxiously twirling his stick, looking for a way to shift the momentum. Virginia had not scored for over 20 minutes. But freshman attacker Brendan Millon raised his hands and lowered them, urging Colsey to still as junior attacker McCabe Millon rushed onto the field.
Colsey passed to Brendan behind the cage, and a quick feed to McCabe suddenly found the net. Klöckner Stadium exploded, finally seeing the Millon brothers at their best.
The feeling would not last.
No. 5-seed Virginia (10-7, 2-2 ACC) fell to unseeded Georgetown (11-4, 5-0 Big East) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Sunday night, in a turnover-heavy and physical game where neither team was able to find their finesse. The Cavaliers came out strong, throwing a punch with two goals within the first two minutes from freshman midfielder Lindan Verville — his first of the season — and Colsey. But the Georgetown offense was eager to hit back, and found their chance in getting around graduate goalie Jake Marek.
Marek posted a .391 save percentage, his lowest of the season since the Cavaliers’ conference game against Syracuse, as the Hoya offense ruthlessly picked him apart with angular, tight shooting from junior midfielder Jack Schubert and sophomore attacker Jack Ransom.
“He's a hell of a goalie,” Ransom said. “He plays a little bit of a high arc, so I think we're just trying to shoot around him.”
On the other end, junior goalie Anderson Moore was able to knock Virginia’s offense back, making 10 saves that kept Georgetown’s play in the midfield and lack of composure from spelling their collapse. The Hoyas had 22 turnovers — with Virginia right behind at 21 — and scrums in the midfield, prolonged faceoffs and ugly stickwork showed the aftermath of a short rainstorm before the game.
“We were able to create a lot of turnovers with our ride when we weren't getting what we needed to in the offensive production,” Coach Lars Tiffany said. “But we couldn't get it past Anderson Moore at the other end.”
McCabe and Brendan Millon were also uncharacteristically clamped, with just one goal and two assists for each. Confident in the first quarter with five goals, the Cavaliers at first approached Georgetown’s hounding defense with conviction — a shot from Colsey as he crept up on the crease was blocked by Moore and swept into the stick of Brendan Millon, who found the cage before diving into the field, arms outstretched. It was the kind of goal that rewarded faith.
But as the Hoyas ramped up their offense and poked holes in Marek, the Cavaliers were unable to consistently find a spark and instead shot wildly, hoping for a breakthrough that instead saw the back of Moore’s stick or flew past the cage. With Virginia’s scoring deficit only stretching to three goals once, the barrage of shots prompted their undoing before the Hoyas went on a final four-goal run in the second half of the fourth quarter.
“When you're part of the Virginia [lacrosse program] you've seen some great comebacks, and we've been a part of those,” Tiffany said. “We always believed, and, man, I'm surrounded by warriors.”
Senior defender John Schroter anchored the defense, stalwart even as the unit was forced to continually collapse around Marek, recording three ground balls and three caused turnovers on the day. As sophomore defender Michael Meredith exited in the third quarter with an injury, Schroter kept the pressure on Georgetown brothers, graduate attacker Rory Connor and junior attacker Liam Connor, the Hoyas’ answer to the firepower brought by the Millons.
“I was kind of whacking on [Liam Connor] a lot,” Schroter said. “That was part of our game plan for me, be as annoying as heck against him, and then I guess we tried to slide a little less and looking back we should have slid a little more for that disruption.”
By the fourth quarter, Rory Connor would shoot into an open net — Marek had been lured away — leaving freshman defender Robby Hopper to dive for the save in vain. Another empty net goal, launched from behind the restraining line during a clear by senior defender Charlie McGurrin would seal it, with many Virginia fans in the packed stands of Klöckner taking it as their cue to trickle out.
But the Cavaliers would have to play the rest of it out, on the wrong end of the scoreboard for the first time in three games. As devastating as it was, with the early-season fits and starts and the NCAA Championships in Scott Stadium within reach, Schroter denied that the loss had the final say on the 2026 season.
“This whole year has [not been] a failure by any means,” Schroter said. ”I truly believe with my whole heart that we have the best culture in the whole … lacrosse world.”
Arm in arm, the Cavaliers stood in a circle after the final horns sounded. For some, it would be the last time they would stand on that field. But for many, another year of eligibility offers another chance.
“A lot of [the team] will be back,” Tiffany said. “But I hope [the graduating players] know, and I just told them that you lay the foundation for us to take that next step.”
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