Doughty College Notebook: Lacrosse legacy returns to Salem

Pilat is in his second season as an assistant men’s lacrosse coach at Wesleyan, a Middletown, Connecticut, program that visited Roanoke College Wednesday night for the first meeting between the schools.

“It’s something I’ve never experienced,” said Pilat’s father, Bill, who is in his 28th season as Roanoke’s coach. “When Will was applying to graduate school, we sent out a bunch of letters and then Coach [John] Raba responded back.”

Raba is in his 22nd season as the head coach at Wesleyan, an 11-time conference champion and an NCAA Division III Tournament participant last year.

“I told Will, ‘Hey, that would be a great spot,’” said Bill Pilat, careful to stress that his son did most of the legwork.

“Once Will was up there, I got to know Coach Raba and as the [2017] season went on, I said, ‘Hey, what do you do for spring break? Why don’t you come down?’”

The Pilats have spoken regularly during the season, but not as often this week.

“We don’t talk much about our teams and about who’s doing what,” Bill Pilat said. “In the past, I’d be saying, ‘This guy’s playing well,’ or ‘I’m really happy with this other guy,’ but not this week.”

In some cases, those guys might be former Will Pilat teammates.

“First of all, it’s weird being in a hotel in Roanoke,” Will said of his return to the Roanoke Valley. “It’s something that doesn’t happen much in sports in general. It’s definitely something special.”

With a little research, he determined that Wesleyan and Roanoke once were on the path for a regular-season meeting.

“In 2006, Roanoke had a real good year and got to the [NCAA] semifinals before losing to Salisbury in overtime,” Will Pilat said. “On the other side of the bracket, it was Wesleyan playing Cortland State and they lost in overtime.

“The first conversation [the head coaches] had, they didn’t even talk about me going up there. They talked about their [2006] games and how similar it all was.”

Dawn Staley in demand

It was predictable that one of the first names mentioned in connection with the women’s basketball opening at Virginia was Dawn Staley, a two-time national player of the year during her playing days at UVa.

After an earlier stint Temple, Staley has been the head coach at South Carolina since 2008 and led the Gamecocks to the 2017 national championship. This year’s team is preparing for a Sweet 16 match-up after a 66-56 victory over Virginia on Sunday.

Within 48 hours of the loss to South Carolina, UVa coach Joanne Boyle retired after seven seasons as the Cavaliers’ head coach.

Speculation immediately centered on Staley, who already had a pre-Sweet 16 news conference scheduled for Wednesday at South Carolina.

“I don’t have any interest in Virginia,” Staley said at Wednesday’s news conference, adding that she was left with a “sour taste” in her mouth when the UVa job last came open.

Staley might have felt conflicted following the 2011 retirement of her college coach, Debbie Ryan, and the perception that Ryan’s departure wasn’t completely voluntary.

First-year UVa athletic director Carla Williams played at Georgia from 1987-89 and scored more than 1,000 points in her career. Staley was at UVa from 1989-92 but never played against Georgia.

• A coach whose name frequently comes up as a possible Virginia target is Princeton’s Courtney Banghart, a former national coach of the year whose Tigers were 24-6 this season. It was their eighth season with 20 or more wins in the last nine.