This season with Virginia lacrosse has presented challenges for junior Connor Shellenberger. To no one’s surprise in Charlottesville, he’s met them head on.
“Connor’s a warrior,” Cavalier coach Lars Tiffany said. “He’s been battling through stuff all year. He’s starting to get into a rhythm as you can tell out there.”
Stuff for Shellenberger included an unspecified leg injury early in the campaign and a different level of attention from defenses. On the latter, Tiffany noted mid-way through the season that opponents had regularly decided to put their No. 1 defender on Shellenberger throughout this season, a strategy that had been divided in previous years with Matt Moore and others. Shellenberger needed to adjust to that approach regardless, but the injury made it more difficult. He still ranks No. 2 nationally at 3.36 assists per game.
Still, the Virginia captain did not complain. He missed only one game and kept working both with a training staff led by Rebecca Vozzo to get healthier and with the coaching staff to adjust on the field. The effort started to show up over the last month as he steadily looked better and better in games, while also getting more and more reps in practice.
“After the second Duke game, I felt like I was really starting to turn the corner and starting to be able to practice a lot more and get that chemistry back with our offense,” Shellenberger said.
The second meeting with Duke came on April 15. Since then, Shellenberger and the Hoos have four wins and he’s contributed 6 goals with 11 assists. That included 2 goals and 4 assists in the NCAA Tournament win against Richmond in the opening round.
The real key there is that he’s recorded multiple goals and multiple assists in the same game in 2 of the last 3 games. That’s more on par with Shellenberger’s best. He had 3 goals and 3 assists followed by 3 goals and 7 assists in the first two games of this season. He had 9 such games as a sophomore and 7 as a freshman. He had 4 in the first 8 games this season before he recaptured some of that dual threat magic in recent outings.
“With Connor healthy, he now really presents that double threat,” Tiffany said. “Is he dodging to feed or is he dodging to score? That’s when he’s most effective when he’s doing both.”
“Like coach said, being able to pose that threat of not just dodging to feed but hopefully turning the corner and hopefully the shooting will come down the stretch as well,” Shellenberger said.
That double danger role is what makes Shellenberger so lethal for the Hoos. When he comes from behind the cage or along a wing with a step on a defender and a potential shooting angle, defenses are immediately thrust into decision mode. Tiffany identified that as defenders questioning whether Shellenberger is there to feed or to score.
UVA senior attack Xander Dickson described it as the ultimate dilemma. Here comes Shellenberger with a potential opening, the 2021 Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament and Tewaaraton Award regular nominee. You know if you go, he’s as good a passer as anyone in college lacrosse and he has big-time finishers waiting like Dickson and Payton Cormier. On the other hand, if you don’t go, a defender is alone to deal with it. Then there’s the goalie trying to anticipate or react to the situation in either direction.
Dickson, of course, has thrived playing alongside that threat. He set the program’s single season goals record with 58 so far in 2023, a record that had stood since 1996. His assessment is simple – it starts with Shellenberger.
“All of it – I mean without Connor, I’d be nothing probably,” Dickson said. “He’s just next level, having a quarterback that’s that unselfish and that willing to let other guys score and be the feeder and draw that much attention. That’s a big part of it too. Getting open inside, you have to have guys that are going to win a matchup or else no one is going to slide out of the crease and feel like they are threatened. When you have Connor Shellenberger dodging, the guys guarding myself, guarding Cormier, their head’s on a swivel and they’re like oh Shelly’s coming around the corner, I’ve gotta go. … Connor starts it all. He’s the matchup with this whole thing. Having him behind there, the defense is terrified already.”
