UVa rolls to win despite a slow start
By Sean McLernon / Daily Progress correspondent
March 20, 2005

It took the Virginia offense awhile to get going Saturday afternoon against Towson. But once it did, the Tigers never had much of a chance.

After 15 minutes of scoreless play, the Cavaliers found the back of the net seven times in the second quarter to jump to a 7-1 halftime lead en route to a 14-3 victory over the 13th-ranked Tigers at Klockner Stadium. The Cavaliers had similar early struggles against Princeton last weekend before pulling away for the win.

“I’ve never been on a team before that’s failed to score in the first quarter in two games against two good teams and still been in it,” attackman Matt Ward said. “Not scoring in the first quarter is usually detrimental to a team, but our defense plays great and gives us an opportunity to go on runs, and that’s what we did in the second quarter.”

Ward led the way for the Cavaliers, notching five goals and an assist in the victory, which moves second-ranked Virginia to 6-0 on the year going into next weekend’s showdown at top-ranked Johns Hopkins.

Virginia got on the board just more than a minute into the second quarter, when attackman Ben Rubeor maneuvered through the Towson defense, cutting across from the right side to fire an overhand bounce shot past Towson goalkeeper Reed Sothorn.

Just seven seconds later, Rubeor, whose practice time has been limited due to injuries to both of his ankles, found the back of the net again. Midfielder J.J. Morrissey threw an outlet pss off the faceoff to the freshman attackman, who fired a sidearm shot into the top left corner of the net to put Virginia up 2-0.

“Cripes, that kid doesn’t even have one good wheel,” Virginia coach Dom Starsia said of Rubeor’s performance. “That was remarkable how he went into the game and got those two goals early like that.”

Rubeor recorded an assist on Virginia’s next goal, tallied by midfielder Matt Poskay with 12:46 on the clock. After Towson got on the board with a goal from attackman Kyle Fiat with just more than

12 minutes left, the Cavaliers answered back with another pair of quick goals. Ward came from left to right behind the net to sneak one past Sothorn on a diving shot with 11:47 showing on the clock. Midfielder Jack deVilliers won the ensuing faceoff and found attackman John Christmas open in front of the net for an easy score just six seconds later, giving the Cavaliers a 5-1 lead.

“People talk about the ingredients of face-offs and goalie play and I think in both cases we had a dominant performance,” Starsia said. “As much as anything, you knew we were going to get this thing under control at some point because we kept winning the face offs.”

Poskay and midfielder Kyle Dixon each registered tallies later in the quarter, and Virginia goalkeeper Kip Turner kept Towson off the board for the remainder of the half. Turner continued his stellar play in the second half, finishing the game with 15 saves on 18 shots on goal, before freshman Bud Petit replaced him midway through the fourth quarter.

Towson played the Cavaliers even in the third quarter, getting a goal from attackman Jonathan Engelke with five seonds left in the third quarter to make the score 9-3. The Cavaliers pulled away at the end, however, scoring all five of the fourth quarter goals for a double-digit margin of victory.

The Cavaliers are averaging over 13 goals per game, up from 9.6 last season, but still have plenty of room for improvement, according to Starsia.

“I don’t think offensively we’re playing the way we’re capable of playing yet,” Starsia said. “A lot of it has to do that we are a little hurt up there. Our attack hasn’t been together in practice for three straight days since the start of the season. Once we can get all of these guys on the same page, I think we have the potential to play a lot better.”
 

Cavalier women's lacrosse captures convincing victory
By Jim Furlong / Special to the Daily Progress
March 20, 2005

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - If the Virginia women consistently produce a performance like they did Saturday, the Cavaliers will certainly improve their hopes to earn back-to-back ACC and NCAA championships.

Starting the first half with a 4-0 surge and beginning the second half with a 5-0 run, coach Julie Myers’ team dominated North Carolina, 11-5, at Fetzer Field.

Amy Appelt - who will soon become UVa’s career leader for goals - scored three times and Tyler Leachman and Nikki Lieb each contributed two goals. Junior goalkeeper Ginger Miles, a first-year starter, made a career-high 15 saves.

“We had great energy today,” Appelt said. “We wanted to start off strong and that is what we did. Our energy compiled into a snowball effect and that is what took us to the win.

“I think we can be stronger and better.”

In the opening 15 minutes, Courtney Young, Kate Breslin, Appelt and Cary Chasney all scored for the sixth-ranked Cavaliers, who are 4-1 overall and 2-0 atop the ACC standings.

“I think the coaches were satisfied,” midfielder Kim Connors said. “Our transition was better. The past couple of games we have gotten off to a slow start. We wanted to change that by picking up the pace and getting after it.”

The Cavaliers, with one of the nation’s most-experienced lineups, have won 14 of their last 15 games, but Young said remembering the lone loss in that span, a 10-7 home setback against Penn State on March 11, is useful motivation.

“I definitely don’t think we are at where we were last year at the end of the season,” Young said. “But this game [against North Carolina] was, definitely, a step in the right direction.

“After Penn State, we were pretty down. That game we realized that we can be beaten. We are not invincible.”

The Tar Heels, who started nine freshmen and sophomores (including Meg Freshwater, who is from Charlottesville), led 28-26 for shots, but often misfired wide of the cage and mishandled many passes.

After trailing 5-3 at halftime, UNC (6-2, 1-1 ACC) had its six-game winning streak stopped.

“Virginia did a nice job controlling the tempo of the game,” UNC coach Jenny Levy said. “I think that was a big key. They like to run and gun, but they limited our possessions by really controlling their settled offense, which I know they are working on.

“We can play better, and that is not to take anything away from Virginia. We did not play our typical, energetic style. ...We were flat. We lost focus [in the second half].

Levy, who was a UVa offensive standout in the early 1990s, said “It is too early” to clearly say who are the front runners to win the 2005 NCAA title.

“Virginia returns almost everybody on the field and they really don’t have any holes on the team,” Levy said. “They obviously have plenty of talent. With their offense, all their guys are dangerous.”

Leachman boosted her team-high goal total to 20. Appelt’s hat trick gives her 12 goals this season and 213 for her four-year college career.

Appelt needs four more goals to equal Lauren Aumiller (2000-03) for most career goals at UVa (217).

The NCAA Final Four is still two months away (May 20-22) and the Cavaliers need to be patient and not be overanxious, Appelt said.

“I think a lot of times we get ahead of ourselves,” Applet said. “We are so excited to be in May and be playing there that we forget we have to take care of the ACC and all the other teams we have to face.

“We really want to be in the National Championsip Game again so sometimes we lose sight of the games at hand, but I think we are doing a better job adjusting to that.”

The Virginia players may face their biggest regular-season test next Saturday when they host top-ranked Princeton (4-1). The Cavaliers conquered the Tigers, 10-4, in the 2004 NCAA final.

Princeton, however, lost 14-13 in overtime Saturday against Penn State, which ended the Tigers’ 24-game regular-season winning streak.

Freshwater, a former standout for St. Anne’s-Belfield, made her first collegiate start Saturday as a UNC freshman attacker.

“We think she gives us a good spark and she has been doing a good job off the bench,” said Levy, who owns a 7-7 career record against Virginia.



 

Tubby on their minds
Search for new coach has Virginia hoops fans thinking big time
On the Front Row
Chris Graham
chris@augustafreepress.com

Before University of Virginia basketball fans get used to the idea that Tubby Smith is going to lead them to the NCAA Promised Land, they might want to consider the source of the rumors regarding how the Kentucky coach is supposedly so interested in the UVa. job.

"Unless there's something going on behind the scenes that none of us know about, I would be surprised to see him leave. I think it's just wishful thinking on the part of Virginia fans," CBS and Fox Sports Net college-basketball analyst and University alum Dan Bonner told The Augusta Free Press.

Perhaps it is wishful thinking that Smith or one of a host of other big names in the hoops coaching ranks - Texas head man Rick Barnes, for one, or former Stanford leader and current NBA sideline stalker Mike Montgomery - is waiting with bated breath to hear his name called as the new man in charge in Charlottesville.

But after a 14-15 campaign that led to the departure of veteran coach Pete Gillen earlier this week, wishful thinking might be all that is keeping Wahoo Nation going right now.

"There is a lot of excitement out there right now. And it will probably continue, unless they fail to get one of the high-profile coaches that they're going after and have to settle for somebody on the second tier," said John Galinsky, the editor of www.thesabre.com, the self-styled mecca for independent coverage and discussion of UVa. athletics.

"But there's no doubt that this has people talking in a positive way about the program," Galinsky told the AFP. "Really, since the team started the ACC season on the losing streak that started turning things south, the bulk of the discussion on our basketball board has been about who the next coach would be. That's been topic number one for the past few months, and it's only going to become more popular as the speculation intensifies between now and the date of the announcement of the new coach."

As for Coach #1 on the Wahoo Wish List, the aforementioned Mr. Smith, Bonner, who broadcast the Southeastern Conference tournament from Atlanta this past weekend, said not one word was said in his presence in the Peach State about Smith and Virginia linking up after the current season comes to a close.

"And personally, I would be flabbergasted if Tubby Smith were to even express interest in the Virginia job. A lot of the speculation that we're hearing in Virginia is that he is interested in leaving Kentucky because of pressure that he is feeling in Kentucky. But that's not the impression that I have from talking to him," Bonner said.

"Kentucky is a place where there is going to be more pressure to succeed. But there's a reward to that. People in Kentucky are fanatical about Kentucky basketball. That's not the same thing at Virginia, where people generally don't go to the games during the nonconference part of the schedule and even during parts of the conference schedule in the ACC," Bonner said.

"Even during the Ralph Sampson years, it was hard to fill up University Hall unless it was a big game. But when you're at Kentucky, it doesn't matter who they're playing, or even where. They could play in Australia and feel like they're playing in front of a home crowd. People there love their basketball, and they love Tubby Smith," Bonner said.

 

Virginia takes care of Towson
Cavaliers' victory sets up showdown against No. 1 Johns Hopkins
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Mar 20, 2005
MEN'S LACROSSE
U.VA. 14 TOWSON 3

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Virginia's Dom Starsia didn't allow himself to look ahead, and he hoped his lacrosse team would focus on the challenge at hand, too.

The unbeaten Cavaliers didn't disappoint their coach. Second-ranked Virginia trounced No. 13 Towson 14-3 yesterday before 1,879 at Klockner Stadium. That set the stage for the most-anticipated matchup of the young season: No. 1 Johns Hopkins vs. No. 2 U.Va.

The perennial powers will meet Saturday at 1 p.m. at historic Homewood Field in Baltimore.

"That's a game I personally marked on my schedule," said Virginia goalie Kip Turner, who recorded 15 saves against Towson. "One vs. two: What more could you ask for?"

Turner, a sophomore from Severna Park, Md., sparkled from the start yesterday, making two saves in the first 40 seconds, and Virginia's strong play on defense carried the team until its offense came alive.

Neither U.Va. (6-0) nor Towson (4-2) scored in the first quarter. In the first five minutes of the second period, however, the Cavaliers rang up six goals to one for the Tigers. Freshman attackman Ben Rubeor, playing on injured ankles, scored U.Va.'s first two goals, and junior midfielder Matt Poskay got the third. The fourth came from the stick of junior attackman Matt Ward, Virginia's leading scorer.

Like Rubeor, Ward is playing through nagging injuries, but by game's end he had five goals and one assist. Rubeor, Poskay and Ryan Kelly, a freshman attackman from Virginia Beach, added two goals apiece.

A win at Hopkins would make the Cavaliers 7-0 for the first time since 1973.

"I think we're generally working at it, but we just got to get sharper," Starsia said. "If we get a little sharper, we're going to be a dangerous lacrosse team."