The Virginia men’s lacrosse team has done more than play a good season. In the games I’ve watched, the team has also managed to be entertaining, something entirely different. Granted, from the team’s perspective, I’m sure the players would rather crush all their opponents in an easy fashion with a huge scoring margin than be entertaining. But as a fan, I’ve loved watching the down-to-the-wire victories the Cavaliers have had against Syracuse, and now Hopkins, whom they beat 16-15 Saturday in Baltimore. The win came in possibly a more dramatic fashion than when the team edged out Syracuse by one point during Spring Break in a clash of lacrosse powers that seemed almost impossible to top.
Battling another collegiate lacrosse titan, Virginia again built a lead during the game that was later threatened as the Blue Jays mounted a comeback.
When Virginia went up 12-6 late in the first half, it seemed like if the game continued in this fashion, the Cavs would coast to a win. I was wary, though. The Jays were losing 12-8 as the first half ended, but they had only taken 14 shots. The Virginia defense still had to prove itself if Hopkins got more opportunities at goal. I remembered Virginia coach Dom Starsia’s warning that “there’s a lot of ebb and flow in the game.”
If Hopkins ebbed in the second quarter, they certainly flowed in the third: The Jays got those chances they didn’t in the first half and managed to bury seven of them. Almost as impressively, they held the Virginia offense, which up until then seemed unstoppable, to just two goals during the period.
As the final period of the game began, it was hard to believe that the six-goal lead Virginia once possessed was now a one-goal deficit. What was harder to believe was how high-scoring the game already was. Going into the match, my expectation was that the Blue Jays would slow the game down to try to neutralize the run and gun offense of the Cavaliers, and going into the match, it still seemed like Hopkins was attempting to do this, in spite of the big score. Both teams had already incurred numerous stalling calls — violations received for holding the ball on offense to run time off the clock — and Hopkins even settled into a passive zone defense that put no pressure on the Cavalier possession and allowed them to take their time. The bizarre imbalance between passive play and high scoring finally ended in the fourth quarter, in which only two total goals were scored.
The Cavs managed to regain the lead from Hopkins and fight off the Jays’ desperate attempts to tie the game, as the last two minutes of play degenerated into frenetic transitional possessions with no scoring. The buzzer sounded and Virginia finally emerged on top by one goal.
So now that it’s all done, and Virginia continues to excel and entertain in the face of a difficult schedule, I have a chance to reflect and to ask myself: What now? Virginia has defeated Syracuse, Cornell and Johns Hopkins — all top-10 teams. These three teams have combined for 22 national championships. What’s more, Hopkins and Syrause were defeated in their home stadiums. You can’t deny how impressive the Cavs’ achievements seem. But exactly how important are these midseason games? Starsia provides some unusual insight.
“Whether or not we win this weekend ... we just have to keep the bigger picture in mind,” Starsia said Saturday.
At first this might read as a cliché, but considering it more closely and in context, it seems like the opposite. Almost any coach you talk to will tell his team not to look at the “big picture” and only to focus on its next game. Starsia certainly shares some of this sentiment but he seems to take emphasis off the short-term record and instead have his team be cognizant of the long-term goal — winning the national championship. NCAA Lacrosse, Starsia explains, is a sport in which people really only care about how you perform in the May playoff games. Virginia will definitely make it to the NCAA tournament. So will Syracuse. And unless they fall apart down the stretch, expect to see Cornell and Hopkins there, too. If Virginia faces off against one of these teams again, no one will care who won during the regular season — especially considering the insignificant margins of victory. A regular season win doesn’t automatically translate to a postseason victory. Just last season, the Cavs defeated Syracuse during the regular season, but it’s the Orange wearing the 2008 championship rings.
What Virginia can get from its regular season games, other than just another notch or two in the win column, is experience, confidence and momentum. The Cavaliers had an opportunity to play against a tricky team with an experienced coach and experienced players. The Cavalier defense proved quite easy to beat Saturday — something to find out sooner rather than later. Young players like Steele Stanwick and Adam Ghitelman got a chance to test themselves against the cream of the crop and season their games before their first NCAA tournament.
So, in actuality, there is a lot the Cavaliers can take from Saturday’s nail-biter. They found a way to come back in the fourth quarter and win yet another close game — skills that could prove useful down the stretch. But far more important than just celebrating their victory will be to put what they have learned toward their ultimate goal of winning it all.
To put together a truly historic season — maybe even an undefeated season — the team must experience a great deal of success before May. But you definitely can’t win a national championship in March.
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