U.Va. could meet its archnemesis—Duke—in lacrosse title game

Every obstacle they've encountered this season, they've cleared -- except one.

Duke.

In men's lacrosse, nothing has brought out the Virginia Cavaliers' worst in 2009 like a date with the Blue Devils. Duke whipped U.Va. 15-10 during the regular season and 16-5 in the ACC tournament.

Both teams are in Foxborough, Mass., this weekend, and a third meeting may occur Monday, on the game's largest stage. For that to happen, though, each must win in today's NCAA semifinals.

At noon, third-seeded Duke takes on No. 2 seed Syracuse, the defending NCAA champion. Top-seeded Virginia (15-2) and No. 5 seed Cornell (12-3) follow around 2:30 p.m.

For U.Va., one of the more memorable regular seasons in school history included wins over Syracuse at the Carrier Dome, Johns Hopkins at Homewood Field and North Carolina at Giants Stadium. At Klockner Stadium, the Cavaliers rallied to beat Cornell 14-10, and they edged Maryland 10-9 in a seven-overtime epic.

The Wahoos' final game before the NCAA tournament, however, was their 11-goal loss to Duke. Nobody knew how they'd bounce back from that debacle, but the Cavaliers have been dominant in the NCAA playoffs thus far.

They opened with a 18-6 rout of visiting Villanova, then hammered Hopkins 19-8 in the quarterfinals last weekend at Annapolis, Md.

"They played like the team we expected to see at the beginning of the season," Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala said.

So what's come over Virginia since the end of the regular season?

"I've been asked a lot about that," said U.Va. coach Dom Starsia, who's seeking his fourth NCAA title. "I would tell you that I'm not sure I know exactly what the answer is. I don't think it's a simple thing. But what I would tell you is that 1, I've got a bunch of quality older guys on the team; and 2, this is a group I really like.

"When the regular season ended, frankly, we had been punched in the nose pretty good, and we were rocked back on our heels. It may have been that there was a little bit of fear mixed in with sort of the disappointment of how it ended and the increased focus of knowing that we were about to start the playoffs . . . There was no waving of a magic wand or anything like that. It was simply trying to do the best we could in getting back to fundamentals on the practice field."

Little seemed to come easily on offense for the Cavaliers for most of March and April, but they've produced goals at a furious clip in the NCAA tourney.

"I think we've just been moving the ball really well and being patient on offense, trying to get a good shot," sophomore midfielder Shamel Bratton said after scoring five goals against Hopkins. "We're not settling on offense and taking average shots, which we can get pretty much anytime we want."

Associate head coach Marc Van Arsdale, U.Va.'s offensive coordinator, said: "When the ball starts going in early, like it has in both those games, then I think that tightness goes away. Guys loosen up, and you just play . . . If you have a possession and it doesn't go well and the ball goes to the other end, you're not freaking out and thinking, 'Man, we gotta get that back and score in two seconds the next time we get the ball.'"

Contact Jeff White at (804) 649-6838 or .