Virginia needed this game, needed this win.  Through Thursday night, here are the ACC standings:

Duke has one game in hand over Virginia, while Notre Dame, Stanford and Louisville have two games, and Florida State has three (though the FSU v UNC rematch has officially been canceled.) 

You wouldn’t noticed any urgency from Virginia in the way they started the game.  The Cavaliers were as lackluster in the first half as they had been against Tech, against UNC, heck against most of the ACC.  Slow starts are going to keep Virginia out of the ACC tournament.

For years, the Steve Swanson method has been to play wide and control both the midfield, as well as the pace of the game deliberately and methodically.  You could liken his philosophy to that of former men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett, except that Swanson has been doing this longer than Bennet coached.  In terms of using pace of play as a bludgeon, Swanson is the OG.

Controlling pace of play has won Swanson a lot of games over the years, but Virginia is becoming more toothless with each and every year.  Virginia struggles against the high press, and as Clemson showed on this night, allowing the Cavs to make unending passes between their back line, but then jumping Virginia the second the ball made it to midfield.

Really, Clemson put on a masterclass in how to play 1st-Defender/2nd-Defender defense.  With every pass into a Virginia midfielder, their Clemson counterpart was there immediately, standing up the Virginia player til a second defender came.  Virginia lost ball after ball in the midfield and it wasn’t the usual suspects, either.  Addie Halpern and Liv Rademaker, usually Virginia’s most reliable ball carriers, were dispossessed multiple times.

Clemson’s goal, which came in the first half’s last minute, came after a sequence in which first Rademaker and then Halpern were dispossessed by hard tackles.  The ball fell to a wide open Dani Davis who served a perfect ball to Reagon Thompson for the goal.

This is a goal that Virginia cannot score:  Aniyah Collier doesn’t possess the touch and Gio Canali doesn’t have the speed to make this run.

That goal, coming as it did in the last minute, could have been a gut-punch, but it did serve to wake the Cavaliers up, and honestly, the game was far more attractive in the second half.  Virginia finally played with some urgency, kind of how they woke up against UNC, while Clemson ramped up the physicality without resorting to thuggishness.  (We’ve seen Virginia get beat up by UNC and Florida State over the years.  This was not that.  Clemson was just stronger, and a step faster, than Virginia.)

The star of the second half was Carrie Helfrich who simply refused to be beaten on the ball and she pumped cross after cross into the box.  Sixteen minutes into the second half, Helfrich delivered a lovely cross that Rademaker headed just inches wide.  Ten minutes later Helfrich sent in a simply divine ball ahead of a perfectly-time Halpern run.  Halpern struck the ball beautifully but Clemson’s keeper made an even better save, and Virginia was still not level.

I don’t think it was coincidence that Virginia got themselves back into the game and on the front foot when Sarah Flammia was on the pitch.  At this point in their respective careers, Flammia is a more dangerous offensive player than Jordyn Hardeman.  Flammia doesn’t turn the ball over and she’s much better in tight spaces, able to link up with Helfrich, Kyra Koopman and Sophia Bradley.  Hardeman’s time is next year, after Ella Carter has departed; but for now, it is Flammia who should be getting starter’s minutes.

I’ve written this many a time over the years, but it bears repeating:  Steve Swanson teams do not give up.  And Virginia scored with just 33 seconds remaining.  The cross came from who else but Carrie Helfrich.  Driving top of the box, she poked a lovely pass to Halpern who buried the ball into the right of the goal.  And it’s not like anyone on Clemson had fallen asleep.  Helfrich capped off her best game as a Cavalier with the pass of the game to Virginia’s best player.  Talk about heartbreak for the Clemson Tigers.

The Verdict:  An exhilarating result, helped in part by the most vocal crowd I have heard at Klockner in years, doesn’t really help the Cavaliers in the race to the ACC tournament.  Virginia continues to struggle with strong, athletic, fast teams.  Which is most of them these days.

Next Up:  Virginia has a week off before they host Louisville next Thursday, October 29th.  Gametime is early, at 6:00pm, and the game will be the ACC Network.