Cavaliers happy with No. 1 seed

This season, the Virginia men’s lacrosse team has lost two games to Duke by a combined score of 31-15.
Apparently, that didn’t mean a whole lot to the NCAA Tournament selection committee.
Late Sunday night, Virginia was tabbed as the No. 1 seed in the tournament.
UVa (13-2), whose only losses were to Duke, is set to host Villanova (11-5) on Sunday at Klockner Stadium. Duke (13-3), the No. 3 seed, hosts Navy on Saturday.
Since Virginia coach Dom Starsia had previously served on the selection committee, he knew to expect just about anything when the draw was announced on ESPNU.
“I don’t think we’ve been feeling like the No. 1 seed for the last couple of weeks,” said Starsia, whose program has made the tournament in 16 of the last 17 seasons, winning titles in 1999, 2003 and 2006. “Over the last couple of days, for me anyway, I’ve sort of had a chance to
consider the entire season and I knew that we had an argument for it.
“I felt like there were times that we almost felt a little guilty about [being No. 1] because we didn’t play our best lacrosse in the last couple of weeks, but I think that overall it’s something we can be really proud of. We’ve been at this thing since January and have reached this point in May and we’ve earned the No. 1 seed in the playoffs.”
Villanova played its way into the tournament with a dramatic 10-9 win over Towson on Sunday in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament. Virginia assistant coaches Marc Van Arsdale and Hannon Wright were in attendance, scouting the Wildcats.
“[They] were impressed,” Starsia said, “particularly with Villanova at the defensive end of the field. The kid in the goal did a really nice job and they have a longstick middie that Mark was very impressed with and a couple of veterans on the
attack.
“They were kind of impressed overall with a good solid team.”
Last season, Virginia lost to Syracuse in a heart-breaker at the Final Four in Foxboro, Mass. The Orange, who went on to win the championship, is the No. 2 seed this year. Syracuse (12-2) will open at home against Siena.
All four ACC teams qualified for the tournament. North Carolina (11-5) earned a No. 6 seed and will host UMBC, while Maryland (9-6) takes on No. 7 Notre Dame.
If Virginia can get past Villanova, it would face the Brown-Johns Hopkins
winner at Navy on May 17 in the quarterfinals.
But the challenge for the Wahoos now, according to Starsia, is to put rankings and reputations out of their minds and hone in on the task at hand.
“I’m not sure that there’s a more challenging thing in sports than to start out as No. 1,” he said, “and to finish up that way.”