Virginia Announces Men's Lacrosse Head Coach Lars Tiffany Won't Return

Virginia Lacrosse made a stunning change in leadership this morning.

The univerisity announced that two-time national champion head coach Lars Tiffany would no longer be leading the program and that a national search would begin immediately. Tiffany posted a 108-51 record, including back-to-back national championships in 2019 and 2021, in 10 seasons at Virginia.

Virginia Announces Leadership Change for Men’s Lacrossehttps://t.co/ZObVIvIp0V
— Virginia Men's Lacrosse (@UVAMensLax) May 18, 2026

Tiffany is responsible for two of the seven national championships in program history and his firing comes after an up and down season for the Hoos.

The season started with ranked losses to Richmond and Maryland, but the Cavaliers seemed to have figured things out when they knocked off No. 1 Notre Dame, which they would later do again in the ACC Tournament Championship. After their first win over Notre Dame, UVA was able to win their rivalry matchup against Duke before dropping back-to-back matchups against North Carolina and Syracuse.

Virginia got hot in the ACC Tournament and defeated the Fighting Irish and avenged their loss to UNC in a blowout in the tournament championship. UVA looked like they were going to be one of the favorites to win the national championship, but lost in a really poor showing at home against Georgetown and Tiffany had this to say after the game:

“I feel like I need to apologize to our fanbase. The ups and downs of this season will give you an ulcer, a headache, or whatever. We can play some great lacrosse at times and unfortunately today was one of those we [didn't] put our best foot forward. Granted, Georgetown’s a very good team. Their goalie kept stoning us. Anderson Moore really stepped up when they needed him today.

“Too many turnovers by us. Just so grateful for all the people who stuck through it with us when we weren’t very good in the early part of the season and supported us through ACC play. But yeah, this is certainly disappointing. This isn’t too the level that Virginia lacrosse is supposed to be at.

“The fight – I love this team. It was really hard in there saying goodbye to some guys who won’t play again ... I’m a very lucky man to coach such warriors.”

Here is Tiffany's record by year as well as how they finished the season:

2017: 8-7, No NCAA Tournament appearance
2018: 12-6, Lost in the first round
2019: 17-3, national champions
2020: 4-2, COVID Year
2021: 14-4, national champions
2022: 12-4, NCAA Quarterfinals
2023: 13-4, Final Four
2024: 12-6, Final Four
2025: 6-8, No NCAA Tournament Appearance
2026: 10-7, Lost in the first round

So what does Virginia do now? I think some very early candidates to watch include assistant head coach Kevin Cassese, Richmond head coach Dan Chemotti, and Dartmouth head coach (and former Virginia assistant coach) Sean Kirwan.

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