Cavaliers, Tar Heels come full circle

It was on a September day three years ago in Chapel Hill, N.C., when the fortunes of the Virginia field hockey team began to take a turn for the better. There, in enemy territory, UVa exorcised its demons — a 21-game losing streak to ACC opponents.

After a 2-1 win over North Carolina, the scene was emotional.

“The team was just in tears and crying,” said Virginia coach Michele Madison. “I was like, ‘Why are you crying?’

“They were like, ‘We’ve never won an ACC game!’”

Oh, how times have changed.

In three short years, Madison — the only Division I coach to take three different programs to the NCAA tournament — has helped put Virginia field hockey back on the map.

Today, third-ranked UVa hosts second-ranked North Carolina (14-0, 3-0 ACC) at 1 p.m.

Already this season, Virginia (14-1, 1-1) has knocked off No. 11 Penn State, No. 8 Michigan State, No. 9 Boston College and No. 4 Wake Forest.

The only blemish on the Cavaliers’ record is a 3-1 road loss to No. 1 Maryland, the defending national champion.

Madison says the victory over the Demon Deacons on Oct. 11 gave her young team, which has just two seniors on the roster, a lot of confidence.

“I think it was important for us to get that win,” said Madison, who has previously coached at Temple and Michigan State, “because it was a top-five win…

“It justified to them that they were in the big leagues.”

This season, Virginia is led by senior Traci Ragukas and sophomores Paige Selenski and Inga Stockel.

Selenski leads the team with 19 goals and six assists. She’s coming off her second hat trick of the year in the team’s 7-0 win over Longwood on Tuesday.

Ragukas was originally recruited by Madison when the coach was at Michigan State. She was all set to go to East Lansing, but then decided to follow Madison to Charlottesville.

“I just felt like, that all of the coaches who I had gone to visit, she was the easiest one to talk to,” said Ragukas, who is from Sweet Valley, Pa. “I figured we’d get along real well.

“I thought it would be exciting to come down and help start a new program.”

In each of the last two seasons, Virginia has lost to North Carolina, but Madison — who has taken the Wahoos to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament in two of her first three years — said it was that win back in 2006 over the Tar Heels that started everything.

“It gave them a lot of belief,” she said, “and they saw it was possible.

“From then, it just snowballed.”