There is an athletic team at Virginia that has won two consecutive ACC Championships, played for last year's national championship and returns an All-American and National Rookie of the Year from last year's team. That team is women's lacrosse.
The Cavaliers put up a solid 13-3 record in last year's regular season, but they had just begun their run of success. With convincing ACC Tournament victories against Boston College and Maryland, as well as North Carolina in the championship game, they brought a conference title back to Charlottesville. Two weeks later, they beat Princeton to begin their NCAA Tournament run, and after close wins against North Carolina and Duke, they found themselves in the national championship game facing Northwestern. The team lost a close one, 15-13, finishing with a record of 19-4.
Getting back to that stage is something this team is working hard to accomplish again this year.
"No matter how we finished last year we always want to challenge for an ACC and national championship title," coach Julie Myers said. "One of the good things about our team is that we are pretty consistently in that hunt."
The team will begin this season at No. 2 in polls from both Lacrosse Magazine and womenslacrosse.com, the highest ranking of any ACC team. The players know, however, that while they must work hard to keep that position, the rankings don't really matter until near the end of the season. At that point, the team hopes to return to the position in which it found itself at the end of last season.
"We don't really talk about ranking either in the preseason or down the stretch, but near the end we talk about whether we can get a home seed or not," Myers said. "I'm sure the girls are aware and proud of it. They realize we have people's respect, but we haven't earned that yet."
In addition to team accolades, team members have racked up their own individual honors. Junior midfielder Blair Weymouth returns as the leading scorer from last year, having tallied 86 points by scoring 58 goals and adding 28 assists last season. Her field-prowess garnered her All-American honors last year, as well as National Rookie of the Year honors in 2006. She currently is battling a sprained ankle, but should return to action in less than two weeks.
Sophomore midfielder Brittany Kalkstein also gained individual acclaim last year. On her way to being named National Rookie of the Year, Kalkstein set a school record for draw controls (69) and was fourth on the team in scoring with 52 points. She should once again share the responsibility of leading the team on the offensive end this year.
In addition to other conference and regional honors, the team returns three players named to the U.S. Lacrosse National Teams Program this summer. Senior attacker and captain Megan O'Malley, junior defender Jen Holden and senior goalkeeper Kendall McBrearty all gained experience? in that program, which McBrearty said should help the Cavaliers this season.
"Different girls and coaches all bring their perspectives," McBrearty said. "And bringing some of that back here is helping a lot."
All of this experience, along with the weight of team and individual expectations, will first be put to the test tonight at Virginia Tech in the team's season opener.
Virginia Tech is "a hard attack to stop," McBrearty said. "We need to make sure that we bring our best effort, and our attacks dominate the game"
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