Cavaliers, Big Red set to battle in Boston

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Last spring, right here in this Boston suburb, the Virginia men’s lacrosse team was on the precipice of an NCAA championship. Playing in the tournament semifinals, UVa had a five-goal lead over Syracuse in the second half.

But Virginia was outscored down the stretch, 9-3, and lost in overtime, 12-11.

Making the defeat especially excruciating: Duke — the odds-on favorite to win it all —wound up losing in the other semifinal to Johns Hopkins, whom the Cavaliers had beaten during the regular season.

It was Syracuse who would go on to win an NCAA title.

Now, 364 days later, Virginia finds itself back in a nearly identical predicament — the only difference being the opponent.

This afternoon at Gillette Stadium, top-seeded UVa (15-2) looks to get back to its first championship game since 2006 when it takes on Cornell. The winner plays the Duke-Syracuse winner on Monday.

“They’re a very talented team,” said Virginia junior Max Pomper, “but I think as of late we’ve been playing really well, really unselfishly, and I think our defense has been clicking.

“We’re very confident.”

Today’s game will be a rematch of a March 8 clash that Virginia won, 14-10. In that contest, Cornell outplayed UVa in the first half. The Big Red led 7-6 before the Cavaliers, behind Shamel Bratton and Steve Giannone, turned it on in the second half.

One of the keys to the victory was the play of Virginia defender Mike Timms. The fifth-year senior put the clamps on Max Seibald, Cornell’s top player.

This season, Seibald has 25 goals and nine assists, but against UVa in March he was held to just one goal.

“Even though it would appear that Mike controlled that matchup, I would tell you that we need to be prepared to help Mike out,” Starsia said. “I don’t think that you can hang Mike out against a player like Max Seibald all by himself.

“He’s strong enough to be able to get his own shot against anybody … he’s a handful.”

Timms is looking forward to another battle with Seibald — this time on a national stage.

“Going up to the Final Four is probably the coolest thing you do in the sport, in my opinion,” he said. “It’s great.”

Cornell (12-3), which won the first-ever NCAA title in 1971, is no stranger to the Final Four. The Big Red lost a semis heartbreaker to Duke back in 2007.

Virginia, having manhandled Villanova and Johns Hopkins in the first two rounds of the tournament, comes in riding a huge wave of momentum. UVa has seemed to put two demoralizing losses to Duke in its rear-view mirror.

Cornell, behind great defense, held off Princeton in its quarterfinal win last weekend.

“I think we’ll have to do the same against Virginia with our team-defensive scheme,” said Cornell coach Jeff Tambroni, “and think less about each individual matchup.

“They’re so deep. Even their third-line middie, who they’ve got on the bench — they’ve got high school All-Americans. We’re going to have to play well on both ends of the field, and as a team, if we’re going to have a chance to generate the success we need to win this game.”

If Virginia can beat Cornell, it will get a chance at avenging last year’s tournament loss to Syracuse or possibly an opportunity to get off the schneid versus the Blue Devils.

“Your final goal is so close now,” Starsia said. “You just have to find a way to make it happen.”

Ground balls

Today’s game will be broadcast on ESPN2. … Virginia leads the all-time series with Cornell, 5-2. … Recently, Seibald won the USILA Lt. Raymond J. Enners Award, for the Outstanding Division I player of the year, as well as the USILA Lt. Donald MacLaughlin Jr. Award as the outstanding midfielder. …  Of the four teams in Foxborough, Cornell has the most history. Founded in 1892, the Big Red has fielded a men’s lacrosse team for all but four seasons (1897; 1917-1919). Virginia, which had a team from 1904-07, took a 12-year hiatus before resuming the program in 1925. Syracuse began fielding a team in 1916, while Duke began play in 1938.