Cavaliers bounce their way to Boston

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Published: May 17, 2008

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — When Saturday’s quarterfinals game of the NCAA men’s lacrosse tournament crept into overtime, only one team was smiling.

Deadlocked at seven with Maryland, Virginia coach Dom Starsia looked around the Cavaliers’ huddle and noticed that everyone had a smile on their face. Perhaps it was confidence showing through. The Cavs had won all three of their previous overtime games this season and had displayed a penchant for success in tight, late-game situations.

No wonder Starsia felt comfortable with the situation.

Just as their recent history

suggested, the Cavaliers prevailed, taking an 8-7 sudden-death victory over the Terrapins when senior attackman Ben Rubeor scored on a bounce shot with 31 seconds remaining in the four-minute extra period. Rubeor supplied most of the overtime drama, having turned the ball over only a couple of minutes before, only to redeem himself and send Virginia to next weekend’s Final Four at Gillette Stadium outside Boston.

“I think we were very intent on what we had to do to make a play,” Starsia said of the overtime huddle. “We talked about winning a ground ball or winning the opening faceoff to give us an opportunity.”

That’s exactly what UVa did, taking the opening faceoff and setting up the high-scoring Rubeor for a potential winning play. But he turned it over with 3:16 remaining, giving the seventh-seeded Terps a chance for the win.

Maryland called a timeout to set its strategy and Starsia made a pointed statement to his squad.

“All I said to the team was, ‘Let’s give Ben another chance with the ball,’” Starsia recalled. “We got that stop and got it back down and made the play to win.”

Virginia made that stop with 1:13 on the clock, digging out the ball with midfielder Max Pomper making a long pass downfield. Middie Kevin Carroll’s shot was wide with 43 seconds to go, but Rubeor saved the day.

“It was the same play that we ran about a minute before when I turned the ball over,” Rubeor explained, cracking a smile.

He could afford to, having rode to UVa’s rescue once again, scoring his third goal of the game.

“I was stripped by the short goal the first time I went on it, but we liked the matchup where [Virginia attackman Garrett] Billings had a short goal covering him and I came off the pick,” Rubeor said. “They switched at first, but then the short goal didn’t stay on me, and I had an open look and put it in the cage.”

The goal was the second-seeded Cavaliers’ only lead of the game, having overcome a 3-0 deficit managing to knot the score at 3-3 and eventually 7-7 on another Rubeor shot with 8:43 remaining in regulation.

Virginia actually had an unexpected Hail Mary opportunity at the end of regulation when Maryland turned it over and the Cavaliers called time out with seven seconds to go. They would start the play from 60 yards away from the net.

The following sequence revealed as much about Virginia’s calm demeanor than any other play.

During that time out, Starsia turned to assistant Marc Van Arsdale, who usually handles the offensive strategy.

“I asked Marc, ‘You got something? And he said, ‘Yeah, I got something.’ So, I said, ‘OK, you talk.’”

Ken Clausen threw the ball in and Pete Lamade zipped a shot that sailed just over the cage.

When the team returned to the huddle to start the overtime, the first thing Starsia said to his team was, “Well, that was a better option than mine.”

The coach wasn’t in such a good mood earlier in the game as the Cavs quickly fell behind 3-0, managed to draw even at the end of the first quarter and then trailed 6-4 at the half.

Just as had been the case in the first of the three meetings with Maryland this season, the Terps were taking it to the Cavaliers in every phase of the game.

“I haven’t been that angry at my team in a long time,” Starsia said. “It’s not in my nature to get after my guys so much. At halftime I almost couldn’t believe that we were only down by two and still had a chance to win.”

Maryland had the edge in every statistical category at the half, including 19-2 in groundballs, shots on goal (14-7), faceoffs, turnovers — you name it.

Starsia made sure he regained his team’s attention at halftime and the Cavaliers never panicked. Instead, they came back with a fury, cutting the Terps lead from 7-4 to 7-6 on goals by Danny Glading and Rhamel Bratton. Virginia also seemed to take Maryland by surprise with using some zone defense in the second half.

The Terps also failed to take advantage of their early lead. Up 5-3 with nearly 11 minutes left in the first half, they would score only two more goals the rest of the game, a span of 45 minutes.

“We stayed patient all day and that was the key,” said Glading, who finished with two goals and an assist. “When we have a tendency to push, we get forced into making some mistakes.

“We made a point to remain calm and we knew that if we were going to come back, we were going to have to do it one goal at a time,” Glading said. “There was no panic on our end and I think that helped us to climb back into the game.”

Virginia, now 14-3 on the season, had won overtime games against Syracuse, Johns Hopkins and North Carolina (in which the Cavs also trailed by three goals twice), and had won close decisions in at least three other games, including last week’s 10-9 win over UMBC in the NCAA opening round. Maryland, which ended the season 10-6, including two of its three meetings against UVa, had lost its only regular season overtime contest.

“This one just hurts a little bit because we were in a position to win this game,” said Maryland coach Dave Cottle, visibly distraught with the loss. “No one gave us much of a shot coming into the game. If you look at the stats we played awfully hard. We just held Virginia to eight goals, seven in regulation. That’s a pretty good job.”

The Cavaliers move on to next weekend’s Final Four semifinals game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. On Saturday, Virginia will face the winner of today’s quarterfinal matchup between No. 3 Syracuse and No. 6 Notre Dame in Ithaca, N.Y. The championship game is set for Monday, May 26 at 1 p.m.

Fifth-seeded Johns Hopkins the host, unseeded Navy 10-4, in yesterday’s other quarterfinal game at Annapolis, which attracted an NCAA quarterfinals record crowd of 17,007 for the doubleheader.

Groundballs

UVa’s first shot of the game was a good one, a goal by Steve Giannone with 5:41 showing in the first quarter. ...The Cavaliers won by scoring their second-fewest goals in a game this season (they scored seven in a loss to the Terps on March 29). ...Glading’s two goals marked the ninth game this season he has scored multiple goals. ...An apparent Maryland goal at the 13:57 mark of the fourth quarter was waved off by game officials, who ruled that a Terrapin player was on the crease when the ball crossed the goal line. ... “Words can’t describe how I feel,” said a choked up Maryland sophomore Brian Farrell (two goals) after the loss. “We played our hearts out.”