Virginia reminds lacrosse community not to count out Cavaliers
In the wake of last week’s revelation that senior midfielder Shamel Bratton had been dismissed and senior midfielder Rhamel Bratton had been suspended indefinitely, it wouldn’t have been much of a stretch if No. 9 Virginia had faltered against No. 16 Penn on Saturday.
Instead, the Cavaliers (9-5) handled the visiting Quakers (8-5), 11-2. But coach Dom Starsia wasn’t sure whether the result sent a statement.
“I probably haven’t taken enough time to be able to consider anything other than the fact that we needed to play well, and we did so,” he said Monday. “It was a complicated week for everyone, and we were playing a good Penn team, and it was going to require a thoughtful, efficient effort on our part, and I thought we did that. With the people that we had available, we were a little different team, and so we needed to take better care of the ball and do some things like that, and that happened. I think it was an example of our whole being a little bit better than all of our parts have been in other situations.”
The victory convinced ESPN analyst and former Johns Hopkins midfielder Mark Dixon that Virginia deserved to be one of the top eight seeds in the NCAA tournament and get a subsequent home game in the first round. Starsia agreed.
“I feel like if we can improve on that performance a little bit, then maybe we can make a little noise in the playoffs,” he said. “I think we probably strengthened our position for the playoffs. We’ve been practicing well. We just hadn’t played well in the last few weeks, and I think if nothing else, it gave the players a little chance to kind of catch their breath a little bit. They only want to hear the ‘You practice hard and practice well’ so much. They want to see it manifest itself on gameday, and it just hadn’t been happening for us. And so if nothing else, it just feels like it gives us a little breathing room. And in a year when it feels like a lot of things are still unsettled, maybe we’ve planted a little seed for ourselves as we enter into the month of May.”
The Cavaliers won’t play this weekend and will wait until the first round of the NCAA tournament before facing an opponent. Starsia said the time off could be beneficial.
“I think the bye comes at a good time for us,” he said. “I think everybody could stand a couple days off. We start our exam period on Thursday. So we’re going to give the guys off a couple days at the end of the week. And we’ve got a couple guys that are nicked up like [junior attackman] Steele [Stanwick] and then some guys are a little run down like [sophomore midfielder Chris] LaPierre, whom we’ve asked to do so much for us. I think a couple days off comes at a good time for them.”
