Senior goalie Ryan Burke was not ready to celebrate after his Virginia men's soccer team came back in the second half to defeat the California Golden Bears, 2-1, to advance to the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament.
Virginia had reached the quarterfinals in 2004 before being humbled by the Duke Blue Devils, 3-1. With every game potentially being his last, Burke knew that Virginia's upcoming match with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish would prove to be just as daunting.
"I really want to avenge the disaster to Duke we had two years ago," Burke said after defeating the Golden Bears. "I am really looking forward to this next game and we're going to come out and fight."
With a crowd of 5,850 on hand, the Cavaliers did just that, hanging on to defeat the Irish 3-2 and advance to their first College Cup in nine years.
The quarterfinals had been the bugaboo for Virginia since the departure of former coach Bruce Arena to the U.S. national team. In five previous quarterfinal matches, Virginia coach George Gelnovatch had only won once, eventually losing to UCLA in the 1997 NCAA Championship game.
This time lucky number sixproved to be the charm.
"It's been a long time and it feels even better to do it with this group and this team," Gelnovatch said. "It's unbelievable."
The Cavaliers quarterfinal match got off to a hot start when senior forward Adam Cristman found a through ball by junior Nico Colaluca. After a quick juke around Notre Dame goalie Chris Cahill, Cristman punched it in for the opening goal.
The Cavaliers added a critical goal late in the second half when sophomore forward Yannick Reyering converted off a deflection from a long free kick to knock in a short-range goal in the 35th minute to give Virginia a critical two-shot edge.
"I think the keeper hit it again and then [Reyering] poked it in," Cristman said. "It was good determination by all those guys to stay with it. It really helps getting a second goal and getting up."
Reyering was the hero in the third round match against California when he scored both goals in the second half to advance Virginia to this point.
Virginia may have wanted to coast to the Final Four in the second half but Notre Dame had other plans in mind.
The Fighting Irish came out reinvigorated and with a new goalie after Cahill's disappointing first half effort. Notre Dame struck back in the 70th minute. M.A.C. Hermann Candidate Joseph Lapira found Kurt Martin from outside the box for just his second goal of the season.
Virginia, however, struck back in less than a minute when Cristman nailed a long bomb from the left side into the goal to take the advantage back to two.
"After they scored their first goal nobody pointed the finger or anything," Colaluca said. "I felt that with other teams that I've been on, that might have been the case, but this team, we're just so close and we play for each other and 30 seconds later we go out on the field right after the kickoff and we get a goal back."
Virginia still had a few bullets to dodge though -- a tackle inside the box led to a penalty kick for Notre Dame that Martin converted to make things interesting.
One final corner kick cleared by Virginia sealed the deal and sent the team into full celebration mode.
The Cavaliers finish their season at Klöckner Stadium virtually unbeatable. Their 14-1 record was in large part helped by the 43,183 fans who attended Virginia soccer this year -- a single-season NCAA record.
Now the Cavaliers must leave the friendly confines for St. Louis this weekend where they will be two victories from their first NCAA title in 10 years.
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