Reeling after three consecutive losses to conclude the regular season, Virginia men’s lacrosse is entering the ACC Tournament void of momentum. It does not help that the Cavaliers will, again, be faced with No. 1 Notre Dame — whom Virginia lost to in the national semifinal in 2023 and failed to enact revenge upon Saturday, falling 11-9 in the regular-season finale.
For players like graduate attackman Connor Shellenberger who have done just about everything there is to do in a Cavalier uniform, this opportunity is a first. Shellenberger, along with the entire roster save graduate attackman Payton Cormier, has never played in an ACC Tournament — there has not been one since he entered college.
The conference canceled its postseason tournament because of COVID-19 and has neglected to resume it until now. The tournament returns this week, for its first playing in five years, and the forecast calls for fireworks.
“The men are excited,” Coach Lars Tiffany said. “They love the idea. A second tournament? Great.”
The most recent ACC Tournament championship game occurred at Klöckner Stadium in 2019. Shellenberger, a Charlottesville native, attended, probably either perched in the stands or leaning over the fence.
“It was such a cool atmosphere,” Shellenberger said. “In the ACC, it’s funny. Because you’re excited. But you’re also like, wow, we’re gonna have to play Duke, Notre Dame, Syracuse — those types of teams — again … It’s a little daunting.”
The ACC Tournament is a curious phenomenon in the college lacrosse world. It is the only conference tournament without the power to grant its winner an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Its five-team membership is just short of the six-team threshold, and this perhaps steals some of the tournament’s luster.
But it also makes for an arguably more pure version of the game — a simple four-team brawl whose winner gets bragging rights and not a whole lot else. It exists in its own category of the lacrosse world — and so do the contestants of Friday’s imminent rematch.
Notre Dame and Virginia seem this week to be locked together, fighting it out with every move on display. Their ACC Tournament semifinal matchup Friday will be their second confrontation in just six days. Nonetheless, the two teams will have plenty of tactical changes on display when they take the field.
“It’s a little weird,” Notre Dame graduate attackman Pat Kavanagh said. “But we just prepared all week for them, watched a ton of film. So I guess it makes it a little easier in that aspect. But their coaches are awesome. They’ll have adjustments ready, and so will we.”
In Saturday’s portion of this doubleheader, the Fighting Irish trailed nearly the whole game, languishing a couple goals behind their opponents, then shrugged off the then-No. 6 Cavaliers in the final quarter to snatch an 11-9 win. The 6,497 fans who set an 11-year attendance record at Klöckner Stadium witnessed something special. Players and coaches alike displayed a level of unharnessed passion, summed up by Tiffany’s hopping sideways along the sideline, screaming at an official — galvanizing an energetic Virginia squad.
“It’s a fun way to play,” senior defenseman Cole Kastner said.
The game featured some of the best players in college lacrosse — arguably some of the best players in the world. But it sometimes possessed the ethos of a pickup game — none of it really made much sense.
Virginia, on the one hand, lost the ground ball battle 50-26 while committing 27 turnovers and still almost dethroned the best team in the country. The Cavaliers also stumbled through a fourth quarter in which they were out shot 12-2, went 0-5 on faceoffs and lost the ground ball battle 17-3.
“We gotta put our heads down,” Tiffany said about the ground ball issue. “We gotta be craftier. I don’t question the heart of our men. But, yeah, the skillset.”
The general postgame emotions seemed not to be too upset, all things considered. Some players retreated to the parents’ tailgate, Kastner managed a couple genuine chuckles during his talk with reporters and freshman attack McCabe Millon laughed with a young fan outside the gates.
The mood felt subdued and frustrated, but nobody in orange and blue seemed demoralized. Perhaps that is because of the immediate chance for revenge against the Fighting Irish. The instant rematch now seems a welcome prospect for a team hoping to right itself before the NCAA Tournament, though the quick turnaround is physically brutal.
“That is a tough stretch,” Tiffany said last week. “The physicality of the game these days — bigger, faster, stronger, playing faster, slashes, there’s more hitting allowed, there’s more checking allowed. It takes a toll on the bodies.”
Shellenberger similarly expressed his misgivings about the succession of grueling games. But this, ultimately, is just how the postseason works. The Cavaliers will invite any opportunity for quality lacrosse, and they have only this weekend to prove themselves before the NCAA Tournament selection committee begins deliberating.
“We gotta come at [the postseason] like a dangerous, wounded animal,” Tiffany said. “Because we just don’t have the knowns.”
A win Friday against Notre Dame would help mightily in securing a top-eight seed and earning the right to host a first-round NCAA Tournament game. If Virginia can be resilient, they will get a massive opportunity to carve their path back to the Final Four in Philadelphia. Redemption awaits, but for now, all the Cavaliers can do is go out and play outstanding lacrosse.
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