When the Midshipmen (9-5) take the field against fourth-seeded North Carolina (8-5) tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. in a NCAA tournament first-round matchup, it will have been 16 days since Navy lost to Colgate in the Patriot League semifinals on April 25.

So will the Midshipmen be energetic or lethargic? They pick the former.

"The week off helped us," sophomore midfielder Basil Daratsos said. "It almost made us more hungry to play lacrosse because we didn’t think we were going to be here. So it’s a second chance that we never thought we would get. So I don’t think we can take it for granted."

Many Navy players thought they would never get this chance. Daratsos said he was pained when he saw senior attackman Nick Mirabito shed a few tears while embracing his mother after the Colgate setback.

But then Princeton lost to Brown and Army was upset by Pennsylvania last Saturday, and the Midshipmen discovered they were in the NCAA tournament Sunday night. The wait was excruciating, but coach Richie Meade said a valuable lesson was learned.

"When you get something taken away from you, you start to appreciate it even more," Meade said of the automatic bid that comes with winning the Patriot League. Navy had captured the qualifier for the previous four years before Colgate's win this season.

"So for us to have the opportunity to play again and see what level we can play at is obviously very rewarding and appreciated," Meade said.

The Midshipmen have an arduous task in trying to knock out a Tar Heels squad that has beaten Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame and Cornell this season. North Carolina bounced Navy from the first round last spring, winning 12-8.

"We owe them one," senior midfielder Terence Higgins said. "We’re excited. They’re good. They’re always good. … We just have to be sound in what we do. Every team has an agenda, their own M.O., and we just need to worry about what we do. We do everything 100 miles per hour, and we need to enjoy it."