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#14 Virginia opens 2017 season at #6 Loyola

Courtesy of VirginiaSports.com

The Virginia men’s lacrosse team, ranked No. 14 in this week’s USILA coaches poll and No. 15 in this week’s Cascade/Maverik media poll, opens the 2017 campaign and the Lars Tiffany era on Saturday in Baltimore against Loyola, ranked No. 6 in the coaches poll and No. 5 in the media poll. The game will be contested at the Ridley Athletic Complex with faceoff slated for 1 p.m.

Live stats will be available at VirginiaSports.com. There will be a live radio broadcast in the Charlottesville area on WINA 1070 AM and 98.9 FM, and it will be a simulcast as an audio webcast on VirginiaSports.com. Luke Neer will bring the play-by-play and Doug Tarring will provide the analysis. There will be a live video web stream courtesy of the Patriot League Network. The game will also be the very first lacrosse game to ever be streamed through Twitter. The Campus Insiders Official Twitter account will stream the game live.

Tiffany is in his 13th season as a collegiate head coach and his first as Virginia’s 17th head coach in program history. Tiffany brings a 113-69 career record to Charlottesville after stops at Stony Brook and Brown.

Saturday marks the 20th all-time meeting between the Cavaliers and the Greyhounds in a series that began in 1938. The series took a 23-year hiatus before being rekindled for the 2014 season. Saturday marks the second time in three seasons these teams have met at the Ridley Athletic Complex. Virginia leads the all-time series with a 13-6 margin.

Loyola head coach Charley Toomey is in his 12th season at the helm of his alma mater and returns 34 letterwinners from last year’s 14-4 squad that fell in the NCAA semifinal to eventual champion, North Carolina.

UVA’s last trip to Baltimore in 2015 to face Loyola produced a 13-12 triumph over the then-No. 7 Greyhounds. The Cavaliers used a five-goal third quarter and survived a late rally by Loyola. Zed Williams scored with 3:11 left in the game to cap the UVA scoring, while Loyola was only able to manage one more score as the Cavalier defense held.

The Cavaliers are 49-33-1 (.603) all-time in season openers, including a mark of 16-16 (.500) when opening up the season on the road, including winning the last five. Saturday’s game will mark the seventh time in the last 18 seasons the Cavaliers have opened on the road.

Virginia enters 2017 after finishing with a 7-8 record in 2016 and missing out on the NCAA Tournament for only the third time in 24 seasons. With 30 returning lettermen, including six starters, Tiffany’s inaugural Cavalier squad is ranked in four preseason polls. Lacrosse Magazine has UVA at No. 11, while Inside Lacrosse’s Face-Off Yearbook places the Cavaliers at No. 14. The media poll has UVA at No. 15, while the coaches poll has the Cavaliers at No. 14.

Virginia returns to action on Feb. 18 when the Cavaliers host Drexel in the home opener at Klöckner Stadium. Faceoff is set for 1 p.m. and the game will be web streamed on ACC Network Extra.

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