Exhausted from an emotional weekend, the U.Va. lacrosse teams practiced yesterday at the start of what will be another grueling week.
Returning from the Baltimore funeral of slain U.Va. athlete Yeardley Love, the teams learned their opponents in the NCAA tournament. The men will face Mount St. Mary's on Saturday night, and the women will meet Towson on Sunday afternoon. Both games will be at Klockner Stadium.
U.Va. coach Dom Starsia spoke with reporters after the announcement, as he prepares to cope with a loss of his own. His father died Friday, and Starsia will head to New York today to be with his family for those funeral services. Dominic Starsia, 86, had been living with his son in recent months.
"You feel like you know it's going to happen and you're prepared for it, and I simply found that I was not," he said. "I was fortunate to have family close by and we leaned on each other."
Before leaving, Starsia led a practice for his team, which hasn't played since senior midfielder George Huguely was charged with murdering Love. The Cavaliers are the No. 1 seed in the tournament and have beaten many of the top teams.
In what could be a good omen, they've also beaten The Mount before in first-round tournament play. The year was 2003, and that team went on to win the national title. Saturday's game will be a rematch of a 15-7 U.Va. road victory earlier this season.
Practices were held yesterday for both teams as they tried to get in some work before a busy academic schedule. Many of the players already have to make up final exams they missed while at the funeral.
The women's team practiced in Baltimore before leaving yesterday, arriving in Charlottesville in the evening.
Starsia said that there has been a high level of communication and support between the men's and women's programs. Some of the men's players served as pallbearers at Love's funeral, and the men waited until the women and their coach, Julie Myers, made a decision about their season before following suit. Both teams elected to continue their seasons after receiving the support of the Love family.
"I think you saw yesterday that these programs are close and that they will try to help each other," Starsia said.
He described being in Myers' office Tuesday and asking her what her team planned on doing.
"She gave me kind of a surprised look and said, 'well, we're playing,'" he said. "I felt like it was helpful for the women to make a decision before we did anything."
The U.Va. women's team its looking for its 10th trip to the national title game as well as its fourth championship. The game will be played at either noon or 1 p.m., and no broadcasting decision had been made as of last night. Tickets to both games go on sale today at 9 a.m.
The Towson Tigers enter unseeded but are hosting this year's final four and will be playing for an opportunity to have home-field advantage there. Virginia has won the past 16 meetings between the teams, with the last one being in 1996.
The men's team, if victorious, would play its second-round game in Stony Brook, N.Y., against the winner of the game between No. 8 seed Stony Brook and Denver. Stony Brook was chosen as a second-round host before the field was set.
With Starsia in New York, the team's practices early this week will be run by associate coach Marc Van Arsdale. Starsia spoke with his captains before leaving.
"They were able to communicate to me that they were anxious to get back out on the field and start playing again," he said, adding that "there's just no roadmap for us here right now."
Contact Michael Phillips at (804) 649-6546 or mphillips@timesdispatch.com.
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