Virginia men’s lacrosse coach Lars Tiffany had a premonition on Feb. 10 not long after Dox Aitken scored in double overtime to secure a season-opening home win over Loyola (Maryland).
“I walked away from that game going ‘Wow, that could be a big win that helps us get in the [NCAA] Tournament,’” Tiffany said by phone during Sunday’s live selection show on ESPNU.
That premonition proved true.
After a two-season hiatus, the Virginia men’s lacrosse team is back in the NCAA Tournament.
Virginia will be on the road for the opening round at 7:15 p.m. on Saturday against No. 6 Loyola (Maryland), which led the Cavaliers, 7-3, at halftime of the regular-season meeting before eventually falling, 13-12.
“In a lot of ways, Loyola was the better team for most of that game,” Tiffany said. “We were able to score with our transition game and score goals in bunches in the second half.”
Four of the Cavaliers’ last five meetings with Loyola have been decided by one goal and two went to overtime. Saturday’s game will be televised on ESPNU.
“It’s a really exciting matchup,” Tiffany said. “[Loyola] is aggressive on offense, and they’re going to push in transition. They’re going to try to outscore us instead of trying to keep it a low-scoring game.”
The game will be played at the 6,000-seat Ridley Athletic Complex in Baltimore, Maryland.
A win in the opening round pits Virginia against the winner of No. 3 Yale and Massachusetts on May 19 or 20 at Hofstra University’s James M. Shuart Stadium in Hempstead, New York.
Loyola (12-3) comes into Saturday’s game as the Patriot League champion, and the Greyhounds enter the tournament on a seven-game win streak. Loyola ranks fifth in the country with an average of 21.4 points a game.
Pat Spencer leads the Greyhounds with 86 points (31 goals, 55 assists). Jay Drapeau leads the team with 39 goals; Kevin Lindley has 33.
It’s the first time UVa has made the tournament under Tiffany, who is in his second season since replacing longtime coach Dom Starsia. Johns Hopkins ended the Cavaliers’ last NCAA appearance in 2015 with a 19-7 opening-round upset in Charlottesville.
For a team that withstood an 18-game conference losing streak and four years without an ACC Tournament bid, Sunday’s announcement was a welcome one to the players who took time off from studying for final exams to gather Sunday night in the locker room.
“We have a tremendous legacy of lacrosse here at UVa, and we want to honor those great teams and great players,” Tiffany said. “This is one more step toward rebuilding that legacy.”
Four ACC teams made this year’s field.
Duke earned the No. 4 seed and will host Villanova in the opening round. Syracuse came in at No. 8, which earned the Orange a first-round home game against Cornell. Notre Dame is No. 7 and will play host to Denver.
Defending national champion Maryland is the No. 1 overall seed for the third year in a row, and the Terrapins will host the winner of this season’s play-in game between automatic qualifiers Canisius and Robert Morris.
Richmond also made the field after winning a Southern Conference title, and the Spiders open the tournament at No. 2 Albany.
This season, Virginia went 12-5 overall and 1-3 in the ACC. The Cavaliers upset top-seeded Syracuse in the conference tournament before suffering a lopsided, 17-7 loss to Notre Dame in the championship game.
Virginia finished the season ranked No. 10 in the Inside Lacrosse poll and No. 11 in the USILA poll. Its RPI is ranked No. 9.