Gillen likely will not coach next year
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
March 23, 2005

The search for his replacement continues but it appears that former UVa basketball coach Pete Gillen will remain out of the profession for at least a season.

Gillen, who stepped down as Virginia’s coach on March 14, is no longer a candidate for the opening at Siena.

Gillen called Siena Athletics Director John D’Argenio last Friday to inform him that he was not interested in the position, the Albany Times-Union reported in Monday’s edition.

Siena, located in the Albany, N.Y., suburb of Loudonville, has been without a coach since earlier this month when Rob Lanier was dismissed after four seasons.

Sources originally indicated that Gillen was unlikely to take the position because of his desire to take a year away from coaching for personal and family reasons.

Gillen received approximately $2 million from UVa as part of a buyout settlement.

Cavalier women's lacrosse wins third straight
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
March 23, 2005

William & Mary scored the first goal Tuesday night at Klockner Stadium. It turned out to be a fleeting moment of the glory for the Tribe.

The Virginia women’s lacrosse team responded with nine unanswered goals en route to a 16-7 decision for its third straight win.

Amy Appelt, helped off the field twice with the same injury, had four goals and two assists for the Cavaliers (5-1). Cary Chasney added three goals and an assist while Tyler Leachman finished with three goals.

Colleen Dalon led William & Mary (3-4) with three goals.

It was Dalon that scored less than a minute into the contest to give the Tribe what proved to be a very precarious 1-0 lead.

“I think that makes you step back and be like, ‘wow’. It’s a wake-up call, especially on your home field,” Chasney said. “It was really important for us to wake up.”

And they did.

The Cavaliers’ scoring spurt began with a goal by Appelt with 28:00 remaining before intermission and ended with a tally by Megan Havrilla with 9:47 left before halftime. Havrilla’s goal staked the Cavaliers to a 9-1 lead and Virginia eventually held a 10-4 lead at the break.

“Something we’ve been consistent with this year and in years past is that it’s unusual for teams to rattle a couple of goals in a row off against us. I think we are able to stop the bleeding before there is too much blood,” Virginia coach Julie Myers said. “Our team rallies, got the next draw and then dictated the game from that moment on.”

As the Virginia offense was peppering the net, UVa reserve goalkeeper Kendall McBrearty was excelling at not allowing William & Mary to do the same.

McBrearty, starting in place of the injured Ginger Miles, made several spectacular saves to diffuse the Tribe’s hopes. Ultimately, McBrearty finished the game with a career-high 11 saves.

“Ginger had an injury for the game against North Carolina last Saturday and we thought it was a good opportunity for Kendall to get a little time and she what she could do,” Myers said.

After that opening goal by William & Mary, the only upsetting first-half moment for the Cavaliers came when Appelt injured herself on a move toward the cage. Appelt, the national player of the year last season and Virginia’s leading scorer again this season, stayed down on the ground for several minutes as the game was halted.

Appelt did later return to the contest but was visibly hobbled.

“I think when anyone goes down, your heart skips a beat. When it’s Amy and someone who is so important to a team, it may skip a few beats,” Myers said. “My initial reaction was that she wanted a call [on the play]. She moves so fast that she’s going to get hit and to be honest, sometimes the defenders just don’t know how to get out of her way.”

Added Appelt: “It was unfortunate. I hit someone’s knee and it hit my quad [quadricep muscle]. If I didn’t get hit there, I think it would have been totally different.”

Even hobbled, however, Appelt was almost able to make history.

Appelt returned to the game and then scored back-to-back goals in the second half to push Virginia’s lead to 13-5 with 16:47 remaining in the game. The second of those goals was the 217th of Appelt’s career, tying her with Lauren Aumiller atop Virginia’s all-time list.

Appelt, however, was unable to set a new record on this evening. With 9:42 left in the game and Virginia holding a 15-6 lead, Appelt went down again and again had to be helped off the field. This time she did not return.

“I feel like I just got beat up,” said Appelt, whose 308 career points ties her for 12th on the all-time collegiate scoring list.

Virginia returns to action Saturday when it hosts Princeton at 1 p.m. The game with is a rematch of the last two NCAA title games. Princeton defeated Virginia in the 2003 championship and then Virginia knocked of the Tigers last season for the crown.

Bernardino's Cavaliers lap field
Swimming coach Mark Bernardino has easily won more ACC titles at UVa than any other coach in school history.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129
The Roanoke Times

Ask a cross-section of University of Virginia fans to identify the best coach in UVa athletic history and you'd get names like George Welsh, Terry Holland and Debbie Ryan.

If you're talking championships, it's no contest.

No two Virginia coaches have as many ACC titles as Mark Bernardino, who, in 25 years at the helm of the UVa swimming and diving program, has nine men's titles and five women's titles.

The UVa men's team recently won its seventh straight ACC championship, the second-longest active streak in the ACC next to the nine straight titles won by the Duke women's golf team.

Granted, Bernardino can win his championships two at a time, but there's no comparing men's swimming to women's golf. Until 2000, only four ACC teams sponsored women's golf.

Ten of the 11 ACC programs have swimming and diving teams.

"As a conference, the ACC was much, much stronger in men's and women's swimming this year than it has been in the last several years," said Bernardino, referring specifically to the addition of Virginia Tech and stepped-up commitments by Florida State and Georgia Tech.

And, yet, Virginia won the ACC men's meet by 146 1/2 points and didn't have to worry about a winning relay team that was disqualified at a cost of 32 points.

"It was my mistake," Bernardino said. "I turned myself in. [The swimmers] covered my back."

Bernardino and 10 swimmers left Tuesday for Minneapolis, site this weekend's Division I men's swimming and diving championships. Virginia has enjoyed six consecutive top-15 finishes and has a chance to improve on its best finish, 10th in 2003.

It will be the final meet for Luke Anderson, twice named most valuable swimmer at the ACC meet, and fellow seniors and All-Americans Mike Raab and Bo Greenwood.

"We graduate an incredibly gifted class this year," said Bernardino, who adds that the challenge facing his program in 2006 "is enormous. It's probably the greatest challenge we've faced in the last eight years.

"We will not be the favorite going in, on paper, next year. Florida State returns significantly more championship points on paper than we will and that will be the first time that's happened in a long time."

Virginia is not a traditional swimming power, having won two ACC men's titles in its history prior to 1999. North Carolina State won 12 consecutive championships between 1971-82 and North Carolina won six in a row between 1993-98.

"I wish I could say it was part of a master plan," said Bernardino, who swam at UVa from 1971-74, when the Cavaliers never finished higher than fourth in the ACC. "We were fortunate to have a new pool in 1996. That attracted some very fine recruits, and we had a scholarship increase over three or four years to the point where we were fully-funded.

"We also had a group of athletes four or five years ago who were really, really hungry to win. If anything has gone wrong in the program, it's been that we haven't been able to develop that great hunger for championships that we had when we first started to do this. Nobody in our [men's program] has ever lost an ACC championship meet. They take it for granted.

"That has to stop if we are to harbor any hope of moving beyond seven straight championships."

Bernardino already has seen some slippage in the women's program, which finished second to Maryland this year after capturing back-to-back championships. Bernardino coaches both programs with the full-time assistance of Bill Smyth, Sharon Krueger and Doak Finch.

"I was hired to do both," said Bernardino, who estimates that 50 percent of Division I programs have separate head men's and women's coaches. "It's what I've always done; it's all I've ever known. The challenge of recruiting is what's most stressful and difficult. You've only got so many hours in the day."

None of his athletes would say that Bernardino is cutting any corners. The perception of UVa swimming is that it isn't for everybody, but Bernardino gets tremendous support from his former swimmers, both in their attendance at meets and in their financial contributions.

"I think I have changed," Bernardino said. "I don't know if I would use the word 'significantly,' but I think I'm more patient, I think I'm a better listener, I think I'm more mellow on a daily basis on the pool deck.

"I don't think there's as much emotion and high intensity on a daily basis as there was. If it's because I write tough workouts that I have that reputation, yes, we do, we did, we still do. We challenge them every single day. But, for those people who stay at Virginia and swim for four years, they've found the experience very rewarding."

Plus, they've got the rings to show for it.

Martinez back home on U.Va.'s diamond
Former Patrick Henry star finds his joy with Cavs' baseball team
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Mar 23, 2005

CHARLOTTESVILLE If you attended a University of Virginia baseball game at Davenport Field last season, you probably saw Anthony Martinez. Not in the dugout, though, or on the field. He was in the crowd, watching with keen interest as the Cavaliers piled up victory after victory.

He arrived at U.Va. in 2002 on a football scholarship, but Martinez never lost his passion for baseball. As a Patrick Henry High senior, he'd been the All-Metro third baseman, hitting .473 with nine home runs.

"I was missing it all along," Martinez said last week. "Last Year,I came to almost all the home games. Just being around the crowd and the atmosphere, I wanted to be a part of that."

A year later, he's living his dream. After quitting the Cavaliers' football team in September, Martinez passed an extended tryout for baseball coach Brian O'Connor last fall. The stocky guy wearing No. 40 for Virginia this spring? The same Anthony Martinez who started one game at quarterback for U.Va. in 2003.

"All I wanted was a chance to show what I can do, and he granted that wish," Martinez said of O'Connor, the reigning ACC coach of the year.

A third baseman and pitcher at PH, Martinez now plays first base. O'Connor also has used him at designated hitter. In seven games, four of which he's started, Martinez is 6 for 19 (.316) at the plate with two RBI. He singled in his first collegiate at-bat, against Fordham. He's made 30 putouts and hasn't committed an error.

"I'm loving it," said Martinez, a junior academically who'll have two seasons of baseball eligibility after this year. "I love the team, and I love the coaching staff."

Virginia (17-6) entertains Richmond tonight at Davenport Field.

"It's difficult for him," O'Connor said, "because he's been away from the game for 2½ years . . . But he's done very well, and he's a great kid."

At 6-3, 240 pounds, Martinez is more physically imposing than most of his teammates, and in batting practice he belts more home runs than any of the other Cavaliers.

"But there's a huge difference between batting practice and games," O'Connor said, "when they're throwing 90 miles per hour and mixing change-ups and curves."

Martinez's challenge, O'Connor said, is to regularly produce extra-base hits. "That's going to need to be his niche. He's not a guy you're going to steal bases with."

Coming out of high school, Martinez said, he hoped to play both football and baseball at U.Va., but "it didn't really work out." The demands of football were too great, and his goal was to succeed Matt Schaub as the Cavaliers' No. 1 quarterback. But after he fell to No. 4 on the depth chart - and out of coach Al Groh's long-range plans - Martinez gave up football and shifted his focus to baseball.

Several schools offered him the opportunity to play both sports, but transferring didn't appeal to Martinez.

"I didn't want to leave the University of Virginia," he said. "I knew I had an opportunity to get a good education, and I have a lot of friends here."

His experience with football at U.Va. left him "unhappy, to be honest," Martinez said.

"But my mom always said things happen for a reason, and I'm thinking right now, this could be the reason."

Virginia dominates in Princeton tune-up
Behind strong performances from Appelt, Chasney, Leachman, Cavaliers down William & Mary 16-7, improve record to 5-1
David Dexter, Cavalier Daily Senior Writer

With a rematch of last year's championship game on the horizon, the Virginia women's lacrosse team knew it had to take care of business against in-state rival William & Mary last night. The Cavaliers did exactly that, beating the visiting Tribe, 16-7.

The visitors from Williamsburg jumped out to an early lead on a goal by star attacker Collen Dalon just over a minute into the game. Yet their lead was short-lived as Virginia standout Amy Appelt tied the score less than a minute later. Appelt's score was the first of nine unanswered goals scored by five different players -- the Cavaliers rode their explosive first half to a 10-4 halftime lead. The 10 goals came on only 17 shots.

Junior attacker Tyler Leachman, who scored three goals in the game, explained the importance of playing well against William & Mary, a team many see as one of the top 20 in the nation. The Tribe defeated Penn State, the only team to beat Virginia this season.

"We knew we needed to win this game so we could keep up the momentum for Saturday's rematch with Princeton," Leachman said.

Leachman, Appelt and Cary Chasney were the stars for Virginia as they each scored at least three goals, with Appelt notching four and adding two assists. In all, nine Cavaliers scored goals as they maintained a comfortable lead throughout much of the game.

The highlight of the contest occurred when Chasney passed the ball behind her back to Appelt, who easily slipped it past the Tribe's goalie.

Freshman Kendall McBrearty started her first career game in the goal for Virginia. Regular starting goalkeeper Ginger Miles took the night off following minor injuries suffered in her 15-save performance during Saturday's win at North Carolina. McBrearty excelled in goal, compiling nine saves.

Virginia coach Julie Myers commended her young goalkeeper's ability to handle the spot start.

"Kendall did a great job," Myers said. "We told her to enjoy this opportunity and to not feel like it was up to her to win the game. I feel that she did a terrific job with that."

Despite sitting out last night's game, Miles was available for backup duty and will be in goal this weekend against Princeton, Myers said.

The game was not without drama -- the crowd at Klockner Stadium was left holding its breath when Appelt collapsed to the ground after spinning into the crease midway through the first half. She left the game for about ten minutes with a thigh bruise before returning at the end of the half. After scoring two goals in the second half, the senior standout aggravated the injury and sat out the rest of the game.

With Saturday's big game looming, Appelt's injury will be receiving increased scrutiny. Appelt, however, has already reached a diagnosis.

"The leg is good," Appelt said. "I'll definitely be ready to go this Saturday."