ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 27, 1996 TAG: 9605280133
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: HOLIDAY
DATELINE: COLLEGE PARK, MD.
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
THE CAVALIERS WILL FACE top-seeded Princeton for the national championship.
There have been many times in the past 24 years when Virginia has had the personnel to think it could win the Division I men's lacrosse championship.
``This is the best chance we've had,'' said fourth-year coach Dom Starsia, enjoying his third trip to the final four in three years and second to the title game.
It has been Starsia's mission to contend for the championship on an annual basis, but when the season started almost three months ago, he thought he might be a year away from fielding his best team.
The Cavaliers (12-3) will have only three fourth-year players in uniform when they meet top-seeded Princeton (13-1) at 11 a.m. today at Byrd Stadium, where they won their last title in 1972.
The torchbearer for Virginia's senior class, recruited by Starsia predecessor Jim Adams, is attackman Tim Whiteley. Whiteley on Saturday set the school record for points in a career with 241.
``I'd throw away all my statistics for a national championship,'' Whiteley said. ``It's what I've wanted my whole life. My career won't be complete if I don't get one. This game is huge for me.''
Whiteley had two goals and three assists Saturday as the Cavaliers defeated Johns Hopkins 16-10. It was the most goals UVa has scored against the Blue Jays, whom they beat twice in one season for the first time.
The Cavaliers also defeated Princeton during the regular season, 12-9, in a game that was 10-0 with 71/2 minutes remaining in the first half. UVa had seven goals in 11 shots on goalie Patrick Cairns.
Pancho Gutstein replaced Cairns in that game and again Saturday, after Syracuse had overcome a 7-1 deficit to force a 9-9 tie after three quarters. Gutstein had four saves as the Tigers prevailed 11-9.
``I've decided on a goalie,'' Princeton coach Bill Tierney said Sunday afternoon. ``The goalies don't know. The team doesn't know. Maybe I should get that done. I guess I'll tell them at dinner.''
Princeton will face an attack featuring Doug Knight, who, with 55 goals and 28 assists, leads Division I in scoring. Michael Watson has more goals, 44, than any past or present UVa player except Knight.
Then, there's Whiteley. But, the Tigers do not take a back seat on attack. Ivy League player of the year Jesse Hubbard has a school-record 50 goals and fellow sophomore Chris Massey has 45, including six Saturday.
Princeton, which won Division I championships in 1992 and '94, never had entered the tournament as the No.1 seed. Virginia is attempting to become the fifth consecutive No.3 seed to win the title.
``Frankly, I think we should have been seeded No.2,'' Starsia said. ``I think our schedule was considerably more difficult than [No.2] Maryland's. When you look at that, you wonder, `Do we need to be playing all these teams?'''
The Cavaliers played regular-season games against No.1 Princeton, No.2 Maryland, No.4 North Carolina (twice), No.5 Syracuse and No.7 Johns Hopkins. Princeton did not play a seeded team from March 16 until the tournament.
``I look at the two of us and when you think of March 9 and [May 27], you've got two teams who have traveled very different routes to get here,'' Starsia said. ``It's a question of who's better served?''
That's no knock against Princeton because the Tigers met Johns Hopkins, Virginia and Syracuse in the season's first three weeks. Princeton then settled into an Ivy League schedule with which Starsia is very familiar.
Tierney and Starsia were coaching rivals for Starsia's last five years at Brown, 1988-92, and both were interviewed for the Virginia vacancy. Tierney was a little out of UVa's price range, but the Cavaliers liked Starsia then - and now.
Virginia has made the NCAA Tournament every year under Starsia, including 1994, when Princeton defeated fifth-seeded UVa in the championship game, 9-8 in overtime.
``I think we surprised everybody when we got here in '94,'' Starsia said. ``But, what I felt then was, `Well, there's an opportunity we lost to win the national championship.' You never know when the next one's going to come.''
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP Princeton's Kurt Lunkenheimer (right) and Syracuse'sby CNBMatt Doyle go for the loose ball during first-quarter action in
their NCAA Division I semifinal on Saturday. Lunkenheimer and the
Tigers face Virginia in today's final.