UVA men's lacrosse is looking to turn the page from its four-game losing streak and regain its stride against Saint Joe's in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday at Klockner Stadium.
If the Cavaliers are going to continue their trend of playing their best lacrosse in May under Lars Tiffany, they'll have to reverse course and divert from the last four weeks that have been far from it. Virginia comes into the NCAA Tournament on a four-game losing streak, the longest losing skid for the program since dropping six in a row in 2013.
"Just getting back to the basics of what Virginia lacrosse is and what Virginia's defense is and what's been in the past. A big thing is aggression, we want to be a lot more aggressive and lot more confrontational on ball and we know that we can do that and we have the personnel who can do that," said senior defenseman Mike Prestipino. "We think we've gotten a little too complex in some of the things that we've been doing.
Virginia wants to return to its principles of aggressive, physical defense, but perhaps more importantly, get back to dominating ground balls. Virginia remains the nation's leader in ground balls as a team, but in UVA's 11-9 loss to Notre Dame in the regular season finale, the Cavaliers were destroyed by the Irish 51-26 in ground balls. A week later, Notre Dame won the ground ball battle again, 30-25. Virginia knows that must change if this losing streak is going to end.
"Just being able to hit that reset button and then just make a big run and it starts with Saint Joe's and that's what we're all focused on right now," said Prestipino. "And I know some of us have been looking at the 2011 team. They lost a couple games, they lost four to round out that season and they ended up doing pretty well in the tournament."
"We're pumping that, maybe more so than normal because of the losing streak," Tiffany said. "Whether we've won our last 12 games in a row like our opponent has or we haven't, it's NCAA Tournament time. We've got familiarity here. We're on our home field. Just bring back what we had... that ferocity of the ground balls, our decision-making. But it's confidence, right? It's a confidence game.
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