As No. 8 Virginia (6-1) prepares to travel to South Bend to face No. 4 Notre Dame (3-1) on Saturday, the Cavaliers are trying to ignore The Streak and stay focused on what needs to happen during two hours against the Fighting Irish.
Virginia also is trying to recover from the loss of junior midfielder Ryan Conrad.
On March 4 in Virginia’s ACC opener, Conrad went down against visiting Syracuse with a season-ending injury. The Cavs wobbled emotionally after losing one of their captains and fought back gamely from an 11-5 deficit to tie the contest, but watched Tucker Dordevic score with 12.4 seconds left.
That allowed the Orange to slip out of Charlottesville with a 12-11 win.
Losing Conrad, the team’s grittiest midfielder, was bad enough. But Virginia also had to swallow its 17th consecutive regular-season loss against the ACC. That streak, which began following a win over Syracuse four years ago, was part of the reason that Dom Starsia was let go after the 2016 season.
“We’ve spent a lot of time this year focusing on our mindset. We’ve made progress, but we’ve got work to do in that area,” said Lars Tiffany, UVA’s second-year coach. “We want to go into every game not worried about history and only worry about today. We also have to figure out life without Ryan Conrad.”
Conrad’s value shows up beyond the scoring column, where he had produced four goals and three assists in five games. Last year, no non-defensive player or specialist grabbed more ground balls in Division I than Conrad, a third-team USILA All-American and an excellent on-ball defender and faceoff wing man.
Virginia, which has missed three NCAA tournaments in the past five seasons and has not advanced to the quarterfinals since 2012, has another high-powered offense with attackman Michael Kraus (18g, 16a) setting the tone. But the Cavs need to close out opponents better, as they illustrated during an unusual two-game swing in New York City.
On March 7, after a bus ride of nearly 10 hours brought them to the Bronx less than an hour before game time, the Cavs survived against an inspired Manhattan team 8-5. New York then got slammed by a severe Nor’easter that kept the Cavs from practicing before Saturday’s trip to Long Island against Stony Brook.
The inclement weather interfered with Virginia’s practice time before its March 10 game on Long Island at Stony Brook. The Cavs impressively took a 15-8 lead against the Seawolves early in the fourth quarter. But after Tiffany started clearing his bench, the lead nearly evaporated. UVA held on for a 15-14 victory.
One unpleasant byproduct of the New York games was the ejection of junior starting close defenseman Zach Ambrosino at Stony Brook. An NCAA-imposed suspension of Ambrosino, who missed the Manhattan game after he got tossed in the Syracuse loss, could take effect this weekend.
“We’ve got to keep our composure better. We’re making mental mistakes at the end of games that we have to clean up,” Tiffany said. “This season is a race to improve.”
A previous version of this article misreported that Virginia defenseman Zach Ambrosino was ejected from games against Manhattan and Stony Brook. US Lacrosse Magazine regrets the error.