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Virginia's unbeaten 2006 season was a team effort, according to coach Dom Starsia. After the game, he spoke about the development of the Cavaliers lacrosse program.

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"It's no longer a star system," he explained. "When I got here, we had self-proclaimed 'gamers'; now we have 'practicers.' The country club image is long gone. We changed the culture for good in 1999 with players like Ryan Curtis, Tucker Radebaugh and Peter Ragosa. They were committed to the program first and the individual second."

Virginia's title run was triggered by the last 12 seconds of the 2005 NCAA semifinal game against Johns Hopkins. UVa.'s Matt Ward scored the apparent game-winner with 12 ticks left on the clock, but Hopkins won the ensuing faceoff and Jake Byrne tied the score with 1.4 seconds remaining. The Cavs would lose in OT.

"We went from the highest moment to the lowest in 12 seconds," Ward said. "We embraced unity, gave in to the team concept. We got a little more out of every sprint and every rep in the weight room."

"That was the spur," Starsia said. "They were shaped by past experiences -- winning the title as freshmen in 2003, going 5-8 in 2004 and not even making the playoffs. The seniors have a breadth of experiences to draw upon. They understand how fragile success can be."

Ward was the pulse of the Virginia team. He isn't about style points. Not flashy, just vanilla. "He wants to be clutch," said Rob Bordley, Ward's high school coach at Landon. "He's always been a winner, the guy you want to take the last shot."

Ward suffered through calf cramps in the NCAA semifinal. His broken right hand, newsworthy in early May, became an afterthought as he broke Gary Gait's record for goals in an NCAA Tournament. Ward was not the only senior who shined in Charlottesville this spring. Quiet and reserved off the field, Kyle Dixon played like a man possessed in 2006. His ability to run past the pole and make decisions on the fly is extraordinary. I sat with Kyle on Sunday before the national championship game as he explained his five options when attacking the goal.

"Shoot first, look inside to Matt Poskay and then I read the far defender -- I'm either going to throw back to where I came from or skip the ball across the field through the passing lane ... passing the ball to X is my safety valve."

Meanwhile, UMass was making school history. The Minutemen watched "Rocky" on their 4½-hour bus ride from Amherst to Philadelphia. Coach Greg Cannella jogged the steps in front of the Museum of Art on Friday afternoon. For some reason, like Rocky, Cannella believed.

Sean Morris was their leader.

"We just want to play our game," Morris said. "We have a blue-collar mentality. We go after it."

Morris' journey to UMass included a brief stop at Rutgers. He departed when Bill Dirrigl jumped ship to Loyola College. Morris felt out of place.

"I remember practicing on Sept. 11th," he said. "You could see the smoke from Manhattan rising on the horizon. It just didn't feel right -- I knew it was time to leave."

Cannella had kept the door open for Morris. Cannella himself was a nomad -- starting his career at Maryland, transferring to Nassau Community College, then finding a home at UMass with coach Dick Garber. Cannella felt at home in Amherst, playing for a coach who spent 35 years on the sidelines and racked up 300 wins. But Garber's Gorillas never reached the Promised Land.

Morris had never been to championship weekend in person. "I've taped every final four game since the mid-'90s," he said. "I studied the way Conor Gill managed a game and the way Mikey Powell operated."

Before Saturday's semifinal game against Maryland, Cannella addressed his players and asked them to play for all the great UMass players who never had gotten the opportunity to compete on the big stage. Guys like Brooks Sweet, Scott Hiller, Tim Soudan, Sal LoCascio, Marc Feinberg, Chris Fiore, Kevin Leveille, Dick Hoss, Jeff Spooner, Mark Millon, Tom Fallon and Jeff Zywicki. And for Eric Sopracasa, who tragically lost his life while playing for UMass in 1999. The team still wears "Soup's" No. 43 on their helmets. Cannella's speech galvanized the Minutemen. They had a cause bigger than themselves.

Once the game began, Cannella had the guts not to change a thing. He didn't tamper with his team's style or strategy. "Worry less about them and more about us," he said. Meanwhile, Maryland attackman Joe Walters broke his game stick in warm-ups and struggled with his backup.

UMass' motto during the playoffs was "Teflon." Don't worry about what you can't control. Roll with the punches. At times, the Minutemen were treated like unwanted guests to Philadelphia -- no police escort Saturday morning, a locked locker room greeted them Friday at Lincoln Financial Field, and on Sunday, they were forced to practice at high noon on a field without lacrosse lines.

On Saturday, as the mercury climbed, UMass faceoff specialist Jake Deane sat alone in the bowels of the Linc, iPod earplugs in, bobbing his head to Eminem's "Till I Collapse." Deane is a faceoff anomaly -- he's not technical, not quick, yet he finds a way to snare the ball. The long-armed senior would doggedly pursue every loose ball, scoring Saturday and finding the twine again on Memorial Day. Those goals gave many of the nearly 50,000 fans a reason to stand up and scream.

Saturday night at the Loews Hotel downtown, Starsia took a moment to exhale. His Cavaliers had just sent Syracuse packing for summer vacation.

"There's a tremendous sigh of relief when you know you're playing in the last game of the year," he said. "Either way, win or lose, at least you're in the last game of the year. We didn't play for 60 minutes. We made some bad decisions on the defensive end and some mental errors."

The Syracuse game was not a peak performance. It wasn't the type of game that would leave the Cavaliers drained Monday.

At the team breakfast the next day, the Cavaliers sang "Happy Birthday" to coach Starsia'a daughters Maggie and Emma -- a memorable moment for the young ladies, who were celebrating their 21st birthdays. They are part of the team, and the team is part of Starsia's extended family.

When Dave Ryan, our ESPN producer Steve Melton and I spoke with Starsia, he was feeling the effects of May, admitting he hadn't slept well during the week preceding the Georgetown quarterfinal match.

"If we had lost, I have no idea what I would have said to these kids," Starsia said. "Getting to Philadelphia has become such a goal for everyone, such a payoff for the participants."

Starsia did a masterful job of keeping his team on course. When Duke canceled its season, Virginia lost the most. The Cavaliers found themselves with two free slots on their schedule during late April and early May, a time when the Cavs played two games in a five-week period. The rust showed on the defensive end; the Cavs gave up double-digit goals in four of their last six games.

The veteran coach had been victimized by a similar layoff in 1991 while coaching Brown. The Bears had a 28-day layoff before the NCAA quarterfinals and lost to a lower-seeded Maryland team.

Monday's challenge would be to slow down Morris. The game plan was simple.

"We wanted to reduce Sean Morris' touches. Michael Culver will stretch him," Starsia said. "He will try to deny him the ball. When he does push to the goal, we'll collapse the corners and give them the outside shot. They don't have a shooter we fear from outside 15 yards."

Culver met the challenge. Whether he was covering Morris, Walters, UNC's Ryan Blair or Johns Hopkins' Kevin Huntley, Culver won his matchup.

"With Michael, there is no such thing as relax," Starsia said. "His footwork and speed are his best traits."

After breakfast, assistant coach Marc Van Arsdale remained perched behind his laptop. He tweaked the visual presentation of UMass. He loaded and organized UMass game clips -- next to Morris's No. 25 icon, there were dozens of video clips, categorized by different areas of the field he initiates from.

But this Virginia team won't be remembered for strategy. I'll always remember it for the way it attacked loose balls. The Cavaliers dominated groundballs. Longtime UVa. lacrosse SID Doyle Smith would always tell me, "Quint, stats are meaningless except for groundballs." Doyle, who died in 2004, would have loved watching this bunch fly around the field.

I spent time looking for cracks in Virginia's veneer. Not once did I sense tightness from Virginia. Not once did the Cavaliers deviate from their true personality. They stayed within character as they forged one of the most successful seasons in NCAA lacrosse history. They played hard and well every time out, and after notching 10 of the last 12 goals on Memorial Day, they left no doubt.

After the game, Starsia eloquently handled all references to the Duke situation. What if? Does this tarnish?

You got a sense he was tired of answering those questions. A national champion deserves better than making an excuse for a program that forgot its priorities. A day earlier he had told me: "We will not allow the Duke situation to diminish our accomplishments."

After 12 years of covering championship weekend, the games blur into one another. But the memories of the people remain crystallized in the mind. What will I remember most about the 2006 season? Duke doing line drills on CNN? No.

Virginia? Yes. I'll remember a senior class that put it all together and left no doubts. I won't forget a UMass team that went on a magical run; the legend of Sean Morris and Jack Reid will grow over time. How about the generous work Dave Werry has done at North Carolina, or the excitement Hofstra brought to its fans on Long Island, or the six laser beams Walters dropped on Johns Hopkins on a gorgeous night in Baltimore?

I'll never forget tapping Ryan on the shoulder and pointing across the way to an upper deck filled with fans, or seeing young players walking on the streets of Philadelphia with their lacrosse sticks in tow.

The dream is becoming more expansive -- and as the revolution rolls into Charm City in 2007, there are whispers of a sellout.

Quint Kessenich will be covering Major League Lacrosse this summer on ESPN2. The Game of the Week can be seen Tuesdays at 3 p.m. ET. Questions? Comments? E-mail Quint at quint@insidelacrosse.com. ESPN.com is working with Inside Lacrosse to provide you with news and analysis. Click here for more coverage.