Photo by: Andrew Fielding

It’s not necessarily easy to draw similarities between the University of Denver and the University of Virginia men’s lacrosse programs, but there are some to be made going into tomorrow’s national semifinal contest. 

While Denver traveled cross-country trip to Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium on Thursday morning to play in the school’s first NCAA semifinal, three-time national champion Virginia made a shorter trip for its fourth consecutive Final Four appearance, which will be played a 2 p.m. MT on ESPN2. 

Although the programs aren’t comparable historically, this season has seen each team battle through adversity, particularly in the postseason.

No. 6-seeded Denver (15-2) became the first program to host and win a NCAA game west of the Mississippi River earlier this month when they came back from a three-goal deficit to defeat Villanova 13-10 in the first round of the tournament. Last weekend, the program won its first NCAA quarterfinal game when they beat No. 3-seeded Johns Hopkins, 14-9.

No. 7-seeded Virginia (11-5) nipped unseeded Bucknell in overtime of their first round game, overcoming a four-goal deficit earlier in the game to stay alive. Last weekend the team knocked off No. 2-seeded Cornell, 13-9.

“It’s hard to put similarities between us and Virginia, but in light [of the tournament] we are very similar,” said Denver head coach Bill Tierney. “We had a lot of pressure to get our first tournament win, and they had drew one of the toughest first round opponents in Bucknell and had to score a few goals late to pull out a victory. Last week both team’s played really well, they shut down a great Cornell team that I thought could have won the whole tournament.”

Before the tournament, similarities between the Pioneers and the Cavaliers run thinner. DU won its last 10 regular season games in a relatively weak Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC), while UVA dropped four of its last six contests in the grueling Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), which is home to three of the four remaining teams.

Virginia’s strength of schedule helped the team secure a non-automatic bid to the tournament, but Denver struggled to get into the tournament since its March 12 loss to then top-ranked Notre Dame, playing with a “playoff” mentality basically the entire regular season, according to Tierney.

The Pioneers earned the ECAC’s automatic berth to the NCAA tournament, winning the conference’s regular and postseason titles. 

“Coming to games here as a little kid, and seeing where this program has come is ultimately a dream come true,” said Denver native and senior captain Andrew Lay earlier this week. “To say that there are four teams left in the county and you’re one of them is pretty amazing to all of us.”

Although excited about the opportunity to play for a spot in the national title on Saturday, the Pioneers are not allowing their inexperience in the Final Four to be an excuse for why they can’t advance to play Monday.

“The more we think about it, the more it makes sense—why not us?” said senior captain Jamie Macdonald, explaining the Pioneers mantra for the Final Four. “We’ve all bought in and it’s taken us this far, so we’re excited to get out there.”

Lay and Macdonald are two of four senior captains this season for the Pioneers, but neither believe leadership is limited to only the upperclassmen.

Rather, this Denver team is special because it balances its talent throughout all four classes.

“Each class has leaders,” said Macdonald. “Jeremy Noble and Jamie Faus are freshmen, but they lead by example and when they say stuff to us captains, we listen to what they have to say.”

As for the Cavaliers, the team has also found leadership from all over, especially since the team dismissed two-time first-team All-American Shamel Bratton after he violated team policy for a third time. In addition, the team voted to indefinitely suspend Shamel’s twin brother Rhamel, following his second violation.

“They’ve had their ups and downs, so they’re going to be just as mentally tough as we are,” said Denver sophomore Chase Carraro. “At this point it’s anybody’s game, so it’s simply a matter of execution.”

Carraro will play a vital role in tomorrow’s game, as he will go against a trio of UVA midfielders in the faceoff circle to determine which high-powered offense gets possession of the ball.

Garrett Ince, Brian McDermott and Ryan Benincasa share the faceoff duties for a Virginia team that is just shy of 50 percent on the season despite dominating Cornell in last weekend’ 13-9 quarterfinal victory.

“If they switch guys up, so be it,” said Carraro. “With both offenses being so strong, we expect there will be a lot of faceoffs, but what’s been good is that in the past two games we’ve showed that we can win the game without winning a majority of the faceoff attempts.”

Tierney said the Cavaliers will have an advantage in the faceoff circle, because of the team’s size as bothInce and Benincase are six-feet, 200-pounds.

“We’re not a big physical team, we’re not going to knock anyone down and that’s going to cause problems for us,” said Tierney. “However, we move the ball pretty quickly, we’re a fast team and we’re not looking to band heads, we’re looking to win a lacrosse game.”

Second-Team All-American and Denver’s leading scorer Mark Matthews (69 points on 45 goals and 24 assists) says that the team has the right mixture of size and speed.

“Our defense can be our enforcer, we have some big guys back there, and then we’ve speed at the midfield that most people have been able to see,” said Matthews. “We’re not looking to slow down too much on offense, but we don’t want to rush it either, because they want us to shoot it right away.”

Last weekend, Virginia forced Cornell to shoot the ball early on its possession, capitalizing on 21 clears and 15 forced turnovers, while senior Adam Ghitelman coasted to the victory with 13 saves.

Virginia is stout defensively, holding their opponents to 9.88 goals a game; however, the team is strongest at the attack position, where juniors Steele Stanwick and Chris Bocklet provide the Cavaliers with one of the best scoring duos in the country.

Bocklet leads the team with 41 goals, but it’s Stanwick’s dual threat of passing and scoring (64 points on 29 goals and 35 assists) that could be the more difficult challenge.

“They have great players and as a defense we just have to stay tight and keep communicating,” said Macdonald. “Stanwick is great at starting and Bocklet is a finisher, so we need to find a way to neutralize those guys and make sure they don’t beat us.”

While UVA’s attack will give DU all it can handle defensively, Matthews and his fellow attackmen—AlexDemopoulous and Todd Baxter—are an equally skilled unit that features three players with 49 points or more.

Denver believes it can match-up with Virginia on the field, but the team still enters an unfamiliar setting this weekend as over 40,000 fans will fill M&T Bank Stadium to watch them play.

“We enter another uncharted territory for the University of Denver’s men’s lacrosse program, but another challenge that I’m confident our young man can handle as they have all year long,” said Tierney.

When the two program’s faceoff tomorrow with a spot to the national championship game on the line, differences will not matter as both team’s will share yet another similarity—the desire to win a national title