Cavaliers' chance at NCAA glory slides into night

BALTIMORE — For a fleeting moment Saturday night, it seemed as though Virginia’s men’s lacrosse team might be able to block out the sadness of the past month and perhaps have reason to celebrate.

Senior middie Brian Carroll had brought the Cavaliers back from a two-goal deficit and knotted the game at 13-all, scoring his third goal of the evening with 81 seconds to play in the NCAA Championships semifinals at M&T Bank Stadium. After jumping out to an 8-5 lead early in the second half, then falling behind 12-8 during a long, seven-goal Duke run, the Cavaliers clawed their way back to have a chance to advance to Monday’s title game against 20th-ranked Notre Dame.

That chance faded deep into the darkness of the night when the Blue Devils regained the lead 14-13 with 12 ticks on the clock before UVa turned the ball over on an offsides call in the waning seconds.

It was the second time within five days that a No. 1-ranked Virginia team bit the dust in a disappointing end to the season. Virginia’s top-ranked tennis team was ousted by eventual national champion Southern California last Tuesday.

A gloomy postseason

But the disappointment didn’t end there for Virginia’s lacrosse team. The death of UVa women’s lacrosse player Yeardley Love earlier this month — and the murder charges brought against men’s player George Huguely — has covered the postseason in gloom. While the Cavs played in Love’s honor and for the women’s team, they also played for their own seniors, a group that has experienced a bittersweet career.

While this was the fifth time in the last six years that UVa’s men’s team has advanced to the Final Four, only the 2006 squad managed to taste victory.

Virginia coach Dom Starsia, who also lost his father to a battle with cancer the same week as Love’s death, was almost at a loss for words to begin the post-game press conference.

He has been here before. The third-winningest coach in the sport’s history, Starsia had just about seen it all, lived it all until this year. This time, it was different.

“You know, it would have been so much easier had we won,” Starsia said. “We would have been able to play on Monday.”

Bedeviled yet again

Virginia would have been a favorite to take the title against Notre Dame, but instead ran into its biggest nemesis. The Cavalier seniors have lost just 13 times in four years, and eight of those have been to Duke, including two this year, ending the careers of the tight-knit senior class.

“I think [staying together] was really important,” Starsia said. “We’ve talked about it a lot the past few weeks. I think the ability to stay together has helped us all. I think it has helped the women that we were able to stay together ... that they were with us up until the past week. That these young people were able to help each other and in the end, I don’t want this [loss] to diminish for them what they have done this season. It’s hard right this minute. I hope I have the strength to do that for them.”

That was something Starsia probably tackled in the locker room and on the trip home and will be dealing with for some time to come. This team could be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

“The final score may be the least important part of what has transpired here throughout the spring,” Starsia said. “The final score wasn’t what we hoped for, but it doesn’t diminish who we are and what they battled through and the men that they are.”