Cavaliers Host Princeton in First Round of NCAA Championship
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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – No. 8 Virginia has received a bid to the 2012 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship as the No. 5 seed and will host the Princeton Tigers in the first round on Sunday (May 13) at 1 p.m., inside Klöckner Stadium. The game will be televised on ESPN. This marks the fifth season (1974, 1981, 1993 and 1994) where Virginia was seeded as the tournament’s No. 5 team. The last two times it happened where head coach Dom Starsia’s first two seasons in Charlottesville.
Virginia, ranked No. 6 in the Nike/Inside Lacrosse media and No. 8 in the USILA coaches polls, enter the NCAA Tournament with an 11-3 overall mark. Princeton, ranked No. 10 in media poll and No. 9 in the coaches poll, earns the at-large bid and enters the NCAA Tournament with an 11-4 record and winners of five of its last six games.
This is Virginia’s 35th tournament appearance overall, second behind Johns Hopkins (41). Virginia won the national championship a year ago and has received a bid in 19 of the last 20 seasons.
The Tigers return to the NCAA tournament for the 20th time in program history and for the first time since 2010. Virginia is 13-10 all-time against Princeton. The series started in Charlottesville in 1948, a 13-8 win by the Tigers. The teams met again in 1952 and 1971 before the series went on hiatus until 1992. From 1992-2008 UVa and Princeton met at least once every season. Three of the meetings have taken place in the NCAA Tournament and Princeton holds the advantage, 3-0.
The winner of this game faces the winner of Sunday’s Yale at Notre Dame (No. 4 seed) game in the quarterfinals at PPL Park, in Philadelphia, Pa., on Sunday (May 20). The quarterfinals will be televised on ESPNU in HD.
Fans may purchase tickets beginning at 9 a.m. on Monday in person at the Virginia Athletics Ticket Office in Bryant Hall or by calling (800) 542-8821. Tickets can also be purchased online at VirginiaSports.com on Monday beginning at 9 a.m. General admission tickets are $8 for adults and $6 for youth 18-and-under and students of participating schools with a valid student ID.
Reserved season ticket holders will have until Wednesday at 5 p.m. to purchase their same seats for $10, after that they will go on sale to the general public.
There will be a $5 cash parking charge for the University Hall and McCue Center parking lots, the JPJA surface lot and the JPJA Parking Garage for the men’s lacrosse game. Free parking is available in the Emmet/Ivy Parking Garage.