Blog: We?re In. Game on.

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Hello and thanks for clicking on my blog! My name is Ginger Miles and as Virginia’s women’s lacrosse volunteer assistant coach – and former goalkeeper – I’ve decided to give anyone who’s interested a behind the scenes look at life on the road with our women’s lacrosse team. We’re certainly a fun bunch and I’ll be posting weekly with the inside scoop. Thanks for reading!

Monday, May 4 2009

We made it in!!!

For the first time in a long time, our team sat around anxiously waiting on Selection Sunday to find out whether or not our season would be over. Some sat in front of computers, some found a place that had CBS Sports on TV and some just sat and waited to hear the news. Usually this time of year we’ve done enough to erase any doubt about our postseason chances, but this year’s rollercoaster season left us on the edge of our seats. This season, fraught with its ups and downs, could have ended last night.

Around 10:15 pm, after a long anxious day, we could all breathe a deep sigh of relief as the bids rolled out and we were in! And with this bid, we can officially lay to rest our precarious regular season and get our minds and hearts set on winning the next four games.

With no games and only exams and practice, this week moved along rather slowly. Even though we didn’t know our fate (and Stanford’s upset over Penn certainly had us on the ropes Sunday), we still battled every day at practice to improve our game. We had to practice like we were in and continue to get better. We knew that if we got in, that our first game would be a dogfight and that’s how we had to practice.

The energy at practice has been the best I’ve seen it all year and despite the rain and the cold, the girls have been upbeat and willing to push themselves and each other every day. The old Myers charm that could will away clouds in years past has worn off, but that won’t stop us from making the best of every opportunity we have on the practice field. Not rain, nor sleet, nor snow, right?

This is our last chance to prove ourselves and there’s a lot left for us to prove this postseason. After we heard we were in, the next question was obviously “so who did we get?” Answer: DUKE.

We knew our first round would be tough and Duke is certainly a formidable opponent. As I said the last time we played them, UVa vs. Duke usually results in an epic matchup. There’s just something about playing Duke that brings out the dogfight in all of us. In my day, it was almost inevitable that we’d see Duke in NCAAs and it was a game that we always looked forward to. I think many of our girls circle the Duke game on their schedule at the beginning of the season. It’s that game that you can count on year in and year out to be one of the best of the year. Five of the last seven matchups between us have been decided by one goal (one of those being the infamous “Comeback” game in 2007). True to form, our last Duke game came down to wire with us losing in the last 11 seconds. This will undoubtedly be one of the best matchups of the first round. We’re excited to get another crack at them and I’m sure they’re super excited to play us too.

Can’t wait to see what happens! I have a good feeling that the Virginia team you’ll see this postseason will be quite different than the unpredictable squad of the regular season. This bid has breathed new life into this team and we’re ready to “hit the ground running” and “take care of the little things.” Now that we’re in, game on.