PHILADELPHIA --- About a month ago, Andy Shay was still wondering whether his Yale lacrosse team would make the most of faceoff wunderkind TD Ierlan’s presence.

It wasn’t the Albany transfer’s fault. He was winning draws like he did with the Great Danes, gifting his new team with a bountiful possession advantage. But as Shay put it, would the Bulldogs use Ierlan’s presence as a crutch rather than a weapon?

The postseason has assuaged any worries in New Haven. Fifth-seeded Yale (15-3) has scored 59 goals in three NCAA tournament games, bringing it to the precipice of a second consecutive national title entering Monday’s final against third-seeded Virginia (16-3).

Ierlan was Ierlan in Saturday’s 21-17 semifinal defeat of Penn State, winning 10 of 13 draws in the opening 15 minutes as the Bulldogs built a 10-2 lead. He would finish 28 of 39 with 20 ground balls, a one-man firewall against an explosive Nittany Lions bunch that would never climb back after the opening 10 minutes.

Crutch or weapon? Definitely the latter.

“I think it's obvious that at least yesterday we were able to do that,” Shay said. “I think that for us, that has nothing to do with me or TD as much as it does with the entire team understanding how that works. I give our guys a lot of credit. They could have ignored that comment, but they've been great. The offense was incredibly efficient and the defense was as efficient as they needed to be against an incredible opponent. That's the way it's been for the last month.”

While Ierlan has provided exactly what Yale hoped he would when he opted to transfer, Virginia enters the final day of the season with a less heralded faceoff man with a penchant for getting hot at the right time. Freshman Petey LaSalla has claimed 60.4 percent of his faceoffs on the year, but flourished in the closing stages of back-to-back overtime victories.

He won the last seven faceoffs in the quarterfinals, helping Virginia monopolize possession down the stretch as it rallied from a four-goal deficit to beat Maryland 13-12. And he one-upped himself Saturday, collecting the final eight faceoffs as the Cavaliers came back from a three-goal hole to edge Duke 13-12.

“Late in the fourth quarter, it was kind of similar to Maryland,” LaSalla said. “We needed those faceoffs, so [assistant] coach Kip Turner drew up a new scheme with the wings. That opened up the backdoor by rotating so that gave me some more room and more time to get the groundball.”

For all of Virginia’s offensive skill, LaSalla is an especially critical face of the Cavaliers’ 5-0 record in overtime. In three of those victories, LaSalla won the faceoff to open overtime and Virginia proceeded to score on the first possession of extra time. In a March 10 defeat of Brown, the Bears had two failed clears in overtime and never got off a shot. Saturday was the first time Virginia actually played defense in an extra period this season.

Coach Lars Tiffany said LaSalla faced the same thing every college freshman deals with: Adapting to the speed of the game. But it was obvious soon enough LaSalla was a quick study, and he settled in as the Cavaliers’ primary faceoff man by the third game of the season.

He’s been a natural in the postseason, winning 37 of 59 draws despite missing much of the first-round rout of Robert Morris.

“He's one of those guys that we knew coming in that this kind of environment with a ton of fans and a lot of pressure, it really wasn’t going to faze him too much just because of how hard-nosed and gritty a player he was,” midfielder Ryan Conrad said. “It doesn’t seem like anything really fazes him. He just goes down for the faceoff, wins it and gets off the field.”

There was some aggravation Saturday, even as LaSalla won the clamp even early on against Duke. But he was vulnerable to getting the ball poked away on the exit, a problem he gradually solved as the day unfolded.

“What you saw happen yesterday was a bit of a microcosm for Petey’s development this season,” Tiffany said. “His exits continue to get better and better. Obviously. we’re very fortunate to have first-team All-Americans on his wings most of the time. Watch Petey LaSalla sometimes fake an exit one way and then go the other direction. That’s older-man tactics.”

LaSalla, wings Jared Conners and Conrad and the rest of the Cavaliers will need all the tactics they can muster --- old-man, new-age and anything and everything in between --- to counter Ierlan.

The junior, the last Tewaaraton Award finalist standing in this year’s tournament, has won at least two-thirds of his draws in all but three games this season. All came against Penn, and Ierlan was 48 of 93 (51.6 percent) in that trilogy of one-goal games against the Ivy League-champion Quakers, mainly working against Kyle Gallagher.

Yale lost the first two encounters, but its 19-18 overtime triumph in the quarterfinals backed up Shay’s message: The best thing the Bulldogs’ offense can do is complement Ierlan’s efficiency with some of its own. Yale shot 21 of 51 (41.2 percent) against Penn State in the semifinals.

“I think that's something that helped our offense learn that even if we're only getting 50/50, we still need to play just as well, and we still need to try and hit our metrics and I think that's something that helped us,” attackman Jackson Morrill said. “I think getting through those games was very good for us, and obviously when he goes in the 70, 80 percent, we're ready for that, and hopefully it will be the same way on Monday. But if not, I think we're ready for sort of any game.”

For as much scrutiny as the faceoff receives, it’s rarely been a true difference-maker on Memorial Day. The only eventual champion in the last 11 years to win at least 60 percent of its draws in the title game was Duke in 2013 as Brendan Fowler earned most outstanding player honors as the Blue Devils claimed 21 of 30 draws.

Four times this decade, the title game winner was below .500 at the X, and Yale evenly split 28 draws with Duke in last year’s title game. Still, Ierlan’s value is difficult to argue with, and he could prove the difference Monday while contending primarily with LaSalla.

“At this level, all the FOGO are really good and he's no exception,” Ierlan said. “His reaction time is very good, he's very well-schooled, Long Island guy. He's solid. We're going to have our work cut out for us. Their wings are very talented, so we're going to have to bring it.”

As he stood outside his locker room Saturday, a couple hours before Virginia learned who it would play in the final, LaSalla knew there would be a challenge awaiting him Monday regardless of who won the second semifinal. It turned out to be Ierlan, who leads the country in faceoff percentage at 75.8 percent.

“I really think it’ll be a great opportunity for me to see how I am,” LaSalla said. “I’m just going to go out there with the most confidence I can.”

He and the Cavaliers ultimately drew Ierlan, who has been anything but a crutch over the last month for Yale. Much as Shay hoped, the Bulldogs have made the most of an exceptional talent, and it will be up to LaSalla and his wings to prevent the sort of early push Yale has unleashed on Georgetown and Penn State in this year’s tournament.

“We’re watching him in front of our very own eyes emerge as an elite faceoff man,” Tiffany said of LaSalla. “Now, obviously he’s going against the elite faceoff man and maybe the elite faceoff man of the past decade and there’s a good argument maybe in the history of the game of college lacrosse. This will certainly be a big obstacle for our entire team, and Petey himself.”