BALTIMORE — Loyola waited long enough simply to take the field Saturday. It had no interest in wasting time before pouncing in Virginia in its NCAA men’s lacrosse tournament opener.

The sixth-seeded Greyhounds shrugged off a lightning delay of more than two hours, building a seven-goal lead in the first half before holding on for a 14-12 victory at the Ridley Athletic Complex.

Loyola (13-3), which had dropped one-goal decisions to the Cavaliers to open the last two regular seasons, advances to Saturday’s quarterfinal against third-seeded Yale in Hempstead, N.Y.

“We were ready to go,” attackman Pat Spencer said. “The locker room had a lot of energy today. We definitely owed them from last year and this year again, so we were pretty amped to get out there and get after it.”

Spencer had two goals and three assists, while Kevin Lindley scored four goals to help Loyola reach the quarterfinals for the third time in seven seasons.

For part of the night, the biggest question was whether the lightning strikes would allow a game to be played without a postponement. The teams observed the national anthem and proceeded through pregame introductions, only for a weather delay to send both teams to their respective locker rooms just before the opening faceoff.

On the plus side, it didn’t interrupt the game’s flow. But it did leave players restless as they waited to find out what time — and what day — they would return to the field.

“It was tricky,” Loyola midfielder Jay Drapeau said. “We’re all fired up and ready to go, walking out to the dot and head back in. At first, we were all looking at the clock and it says 30 minutes and we’re [thinking] ‘All right, we’re going to chill for a little bit and stay in our gear.’ Then it gets down to 27 minutes and then goes back up to 30 minutes and back up to 30 minutes. We just relaxed and everyone did their own thing. … Everyone just decompressed the way they needed to and got ready.”

The feeling was similar for the Cavaliers (12-6), who were playing their first NCAA tournament game since 2015 and endured the 2-hour, 14-minute delay in their locker room.

“It was kind of a waiting game,” Virginia midfielder Dox Aitken said. “You’re sitting in the locker room not knowing when. The 30-minute countdown just kept resetting every few minutes. It throws you off a little bit … but you can’t blame it on that. Loyola had to do it as well. They jumped on us early and they caught us off guard a little bit. It’s just something we have to fix. We have to be ready to go at all times.”

Indeed, it was striking how much more comfortable the Greyhounds were in the game’s early stages. Faceoff man Mike Orefice scored twice in the first half. Long pole Ryan McNulty delivered a transition goal in the second quarter. Loyola scored a pair of goals with the timer on. And it did all of it even though Virginia committed to shutting off Spencer in the first quarter.

In the first 24 minutes, Loyola built a 10-3 advantage, and its lead was never seriously threatened.

“They played at a higher level than we did, especially in that first half,” Virginia coach Lars Tiffany said. “They scored goals in transition that we knew they could. It was a bit like looking in a mirror. That’s something we do often to our opponents, where we score goals in bunches, winning faceoffs and certainly frustrate the opposing defensive coordinator. Well, I was that defensive coordinator today.”

Loyola was well aware of Virginia’s explosiveness, and never let the Cavaliers go on a meaningful run when the outcome was in doubt. Virginia scored back-to-back goals only twice prior to a pair of spurts in the final period.

“We did a really good job for three quarters of just keeping our foot down,” Loyola coach Charley Toomey said.

Credit some of that to Orefice and Loyola’s faceoff game, which claimed 10 of 16 draws before the break. Yet the Greyhounds’ greatest strength was an efficient, crisp defense that buttoned up Virginia’s knowns in impressive fashion.

Neither Aitken nor attackman Michael Kraus scored a goal in the first half, and they shot a combined 1 for 9 over the first three quarters.

Loyola senior defenseman Ryder Harkins caused three turnovers and had an assist for his first career point, while Foster Huggins bottled up Kraus for the second time this season.

“They played a great game defensively against us, but I think the biggest thing we did was we didn’t play aggressive like we normally do,” Kraus said. “We didn’t get into our groove in those first three quarters and that really shot us in the foot.”

Aitken scored four goals — all in the fourth quarter — for Virginia, which has not reached the quarterfinals since 2012. The Cavaliers didn’t trim their deficit to fewer than four goals in the second half until scoring twice in the final 28 seconds.

Still, it’s hard to view the season as a whole as a massive disappointment in Charlottesville. Virginia wasn’t without its limitations, but Aitken finished with 39 goals (the second most ever in a season for a Cavalier midfielder) and Kraus (44 goals, 39 assists) was an assist shy of becoming Virginia’s first 40-40 player.

Those two sophomores in particular provide some promise for the future. Loyola, with its tested defense and a stellar centerpiece in Spencer, clearly was the superior team for much of Saturday night and is more dangerous in the present.

As a result, the Greyhounds are part of a fascinating quarterfinal matchup with Yale that pits a pair of Tewaaraton finalists (Spencer vs. Ben Reeves) in the programs’ first meeting since the 1990 NCAA semifinals — a thriller Loyola claimed in double overtime.

“They play a little bit like us,” Toomey said. “There’s going to be fireworks up on Long Island next weekend.”

Dane Train’s Next Stop: Quarterfinals

Second-seeded Albany dominated Richmond 18-9 to advance to the NCAA quarterfinals for the second straight year and fourth time in the last five seasons.

Connor Fields, held out of the Great Danes’ win over Vermont in the America East championship game last week due to a lingering knee injury, returned in style with two goals and five assists. Fields’ seven points moved him into second place all-time in NCAA Division I history with 355, behind only former teammate Lyle Thompson (400).

TD Ierlan won 24 of 29 faceoffs and scooped 21 ground balls, giving him 240 ground balls this season, a new NCAA Division I single-season record. Ierlan eclipsed the record previously set by Bryant’s Kevin Massa (231) in 2013.

Albany will play the winner of Sunday’s first-round game between Denver and Notre Dame next Saturday in Hempstead, N.Y.