From the outset of the 2000 season, the Virginia men's soccer team has tried to live up to lofty preseason expectations. Even in September, the Cavaliers seemed to have all the right ingredients to reemerge as a national title contender: experience, depth and talent.
The Cavs faced one of the nation's most grueling schedules in college soccer's best conference. With a 5-1 record against ACC opponents, Virginia captured a share of the regular season conference crown. In a spectacular ACC championship game Sunday in Winston-Salem, the Cavaliers lost to top-seeded North Carolina in overtime, 1-0.
Now that Virginia has gotten the regular season out of the way, it's time to reclaim their championship birthright in the NCAA Tournament. The fifth-seeded Cavaliers (15-5-1) face Lehigh in the first round of the tourney Sunday at 2 p.m. at Klockner Stadium.
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In its 56th NCAA Tournament appearance, Virginia, ranked fifth in the nation in the coaches' poll and sixth according to Soccer America, sets out to bring back its first NCAA title since Bruce Arena took the 1994 Cavs to the championship.
The Lehigh Mountain Hawks (12-5-3) earned their first NCAA appearance by defeating Lafayette 5-3 in the Patriot League championship game Sunday. The Lehigh offensive attack is led by the conference Offensive Player of the Year, sophomore forward Evan Bruno, and the conference Rookie of the Year, midfielder Doug Cusick. Bruno ranks ninth in the country with 2.2 points per game.
Defensively, Virginia anticipates that the Mountain Hawks will concentrate their defense to contain a pack of Cavalier attackers who are eminently capable of crushing teams when the spirit moves them.
As Virginia sophomore midfielder Kyle Martino put it, the Cavs will try to "break through [Lehigh's] backs the whole game because their defense is going to be compact. It's going to be hard to play the kind of soccer we want to play, so we're just going to have to match their intensity and just outplay them physically. Hopefully we can capitalize on their mistakes."
Freshman forward Alecko Eskandarian, the Cavaliers' leading scorer, echoed his teammate's comments.
"We're not really going to change our strategy," Eskandarian said. "They're probably going to change their style [and] drop off, so we're just going to have to be sharper in the offensive third. It's going to be frustrating at times. We just have to take our time, find our spots and find a way to win."
The Cavs will be without senior defender Chad Prince, who suffered a knee injury in the first half of the ACC championship. Gelnovatch said the injury will be reevaluated next week, and Prince hopefully will return if the Cavaliers advance in the tournament.
Without Prince, the Cavaliers know they will have to be at the top of their game to defeat an eager Lehigh squad.
"They're obviously going to be pumped up," Martino said. "They don't have anything to lose because they can just come in here and show well and get a lot of respect. They're going to come in and probably play the game of their lives, and we're just going to have to match them"
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