About two months ago, laughter rang through Briggs Cage as the Harvard women's lacrosse team celebrated its first practice of the season with orange juice and powdered doughnuts.

But tomorrow afternoon, when Harvard (12-2 overall) steps onto the field at Byrd Stadium in Maryland to duel top-ranked Virginia (13-1) in the NCAA semifinals, such memories will seem distant.

The time for joking is over. This is the Final Four.

"We struggled a little bit earlier in the year, but now we're starting to come together as a team," Co-Captain Rachel Burke said. "We hope we peak this weekend."

The team's confidence is actually higher now than it has been any time this season. Harvard is riding a 10-game winning streak, its last loss being a 9-7 loss to Princeton over spring break.

A pair of late-season wins over Dartmouth clinched Harvard's seventh straight Ivy title and a berth in the national semifinals, and the Crimson is ready to claim greater glory.

Co-Captain Liz Berkery, the Ivy League's second leading scorer and the subject of a Boston Globe profile earlier this week, talked in the preseason of her desire to reclaim the NCAA title that Harvard last won in 1990. This week-end, she and her teammates will get their chance.

The first obstacle to the championship will be Virginia, the 1991 national champions. The Cavaliers are a work-manlike squad which has stayed at or near the top of the national polls all season.

"[Coach Kleinfelder] once said to us in passing that they aren't that flashy as a team but that they are really consistent," Burke said. "We need to play a full game with intensity if we want to beat them."

Consistency--or lack of it--has been one of Harvard's weaknesses this season. Against weaker opponents, the Crimson often sprinted out to early leads, only to lapse into lackadaisical play later in the game.

Another problem for Harvard could be ball skills. Kleinfelder has pointed all year to her team's need for better fundamentals, like passing and catching on the run. These are areas in which Virginia excels.

The Crimson's hopes lie in its one unique advantage in this matchup--explosive offensive potential.

The up side of inconsistency, after all, is panache and skill, and Harvard's Berkery, Sarah Downing and Francie Walton can provide plenty of that on offense.

Downing showed a glimpse of her ability in the Crimson's last game, against Dartmouth, when she tallied three scores in five minutes.

The Crimson will have to hope for something similar this weekend.