The Virginia men's lacrosse team knows nothing comes easy in the ACC. The conference regular season title will be on the line Saturday as the ninth-ranked Cavaliers travel to Durham, N.C., to take on No. 15 Duke at 1 p.m. at Koskinen Stadium.
Despite freshman goalkeeper Tillman Johnson's 11 saves, Virginia (5-4, 1-1 ACC) dropped a 7-5 home decision to North Carolina last weekend and lost any chance to win the title outright.
Fourth-ranked Maryland finished ACC play with a 2-1 mark and at least a share of first place. The No. 14 Tar Heels also have finished their conference schedule, but their 1-2 record earned them one of the two basement spots. Saturday's game will determine whether Virginia or Duke (7-4, 1-1) will join Maryland as the top seeds in the ACC Tournament.
While being one of the No. 1 seeds in the tournament is important, Virginia freshman attackman Justin Mullen notes that the four teams are very comparable and seeding will not matter much. Still, the Cavaliers cannot afford to have an off day.
"Playing Duke [in the regular season] is motivation enough," Mullen said. "But the fact that if we win this game we're the ACC regular season champs, could possibly knock Duke out of the playoffs, and get another shot at Carolina, which are three very important things. It should only add to the motivation."
While coaches and players alike insist that the entire team was responsible for the loss to North Carolina last Saturday, the offense clearly struggled and put up only five goals.
"Last weekend we didn't play how we needed to," Cavalier coach Dom Starsia said. "We understand that we have a young team, an inexperienced team. We're not deep, so we've got to play our very best lacrosse, or we're not going to be good enough to win any of the games on our schedule."
"Everyone on offense can see that if we play how we know to play and how our coaches tell us to play, things will really work," Mullen said. "Just getting things done is difficult. When things go the way they're supposed to go, then the offense runs great. It really starts with the energy and concentration, think about what you have to do, and then going and doing it."
The Blue Devils pose a particularly difficult task because of their different game plan. Junior Alex Lieske and seniors Greg Patchak and Chris Hartofilis rank 1-2-3 on the Tar Heels' scoring list. Patchak leads Carolina with 18 goals, and Lieske's 19 assists tops the Tar Heel leaderboard.
"Duke is a very athletic, physical team," Starsia said. "They play a much different game than we're used to seeing. They don't slide very early, which reduces the game to a lot of 1-on-1 action. They don't play to our strengths, so we're going to have to really work hard to overcome that."
The Cavaliers' season thus far has been characterized by ups and downs. The loss to North Carolina snapped Virginia's four-game winning streak, which included wins over No. 1 Maryland on Marh 24 and No. 5 Johns Hopkins on March 31.
"I've been very pleased with the evolution of the team overall," Starsia said. "This past weekend was really a punch in the stomach. I hated to see us take a step backwards like that, but it can also be a positive thing if we move forward again."
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