Virginia men fall one short in ACC championship
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
April 25, 2004

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - In its most decisive and defining game of the season, the Virginia men’s lacrosse team put forth an effort that was a microcosm of its entire season.

Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, that meant a 12-11 loss to Maryland in the ACC championship game Sunday at Fetzer Field.

With the loss, the defending national champion Cavaliers (5-7) will be unable to secure a .500 or better season and thus be unable to defend its title nor return to the NCAA tournament for a 12th straight season.

“It wasn’t a complete effort by us. There were too many mistakes. We just seemed a little flat in the beginning and I’m just mystified to try to explain that,” said Virginia coach Dom Starsia, who will suffer his first losing season in 22 years as a collegiate coach regardless of the result of Virginia’s season-finale against Penn State on May 8.

Maryland’s Joe Walters netted six goals and had an assist to earn tournament MVP honors. Xander Ritz and J.R. Bordley each added two goals for Maryland (10-2), which won its first ACC title since 1998.

“We know who we are as a team. We work hard. We’re not a great team, but we’re a doggone good team. Our kids compete and I’m very proud of them,” said Maryland coach Dave Cottle.

Joe Yevoli had three goals and Matt Ward registered two goals to pace the Cavaliers.

As Cottle noted, the game was one of ebbs and flows. The Cavaliers had the last flow but it wasn’t quite enough.

The teams played a frenetic first quarter as it was a goal-a-minute-pace for a while. A goal by Ritz with 3:35 left in the quarter vaulted the Terps to a 7-3 advantage but tallies by Nathan Kenney and then Yevoli to end the quarter reduced it to 7-5 entering the second quarter.

The pace slowed considerably in the second but not quite enough for the Cavaliers to catch up as the teams simply exchanged goals, allowing the Terps to take an 8-6 advantage into intermission.

While the game was far from out of reach at the half, the Cavaliers already had a sense that it had squandered first-half opportunities and even the momentum it entered the game with.

“I think we came out and just put ourselves in too big of a hole from the start. We certainly could have played better in the first two quarters but also in the entire game,” said senior defenseman Brett Hughes.

The Terps would seize the apparent control of the game at the dawn of the third quarter.

Maryland outscored the Cavaliers 4-1 in the quarter and when Walters ripped his sixth and final goal past UVa goalie Tillman Johnson, the Terps had a 12-7 lead with 5:24 left in the third. Maryland would take that lead into the fourth and would need every bit of it.

“We knew we had the advantage at that point but we also knew it was a 60-minute game and Virginia is too good a team not make a final run at it,” Cottle said.

The Cavaliers, a talented but young unit plagued by inconsistent performances all season, showed certain flashes of their ability in the fourth quarter.

A Ward goal with 12:27 left made it 12-8 and then Matt Poskay’s laser-like shot past Maryland goalie Ted McGinnis brought it to 12-9 with 8:37 remaining. Eventually, Hunter Kass’ goal made it 12-10 with 3:33 left.

The next three minutes or so was a somewhat sloppy affair as Maryland couldn’t control the ball to hold on for the win and Virginia couldn’t control the ball enough to score.

Finally with 40 seconds left, Yevoli scored to cut it to 12-11.

The Cavaliers won the ensuing faceoff and seemed very much on the verge of tying the game and sending it to overtime. Yevoli made a move from behind the cage with approximately 12 seconds to play and sent a pass in front, intended for a charging teammate. The pass sailed a little high and it rolled away as the seconds ticked off for the game and Virginia’s NCAA hopes.

“After my goal, I definitely thought we had the momentum. … I thought I saw someone open right on the crease but the pass just didn’t connect,” Yevoli said.

As one would expect, the Cavaliers’ mood was quite somber in the postgame. The faces of Starsia, Johnson, Hughes and Yevoli easily expressed the disappointment of not reaching the NCAAs but they were asked to verbalize it as well.

“This was a game we need to win to stay in it. This hurts. Now we only have the one game left and that’s pretty disappointing,” said Johnson, who plays and saves guided the Cavaliers to the title last season.

Starsia managed to find some words to summarize Sunday’s game and also the season as a whole.

“I’m real proud of my team. We’ve come a long way over the course of the season. Some of the qualities we demonstrated toward the end of the game weren’t always there with this group. I’m just disappointed that we didn’t play a little better today,” Starsia said.
 

UVa women roll to ACC title
Appelt tallies five goals, two assists in victory
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
April 25, 2004

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try, try and try again. That could have been the specific motto for the Virginia women’s lacrosse team.

The Cavaliers, playing in their fifth ACC tournament final in eight years and aiming to win their first title since 1998, dispatched top-seed Duke 17-7 in Sunday’s ACC title game to gain that elusive crown.

Amy Appelt had five goals and two assists and tournament MVP Ashleigh Haas had three goals and two assists for the No. 3 Cavaliers (15-3) in their record-tying performance. The 17 goals tied Maryland for the most in an ACC title game. The Terps defeated North Carolina 17-6 in the 2000 final.

“Somebody told me that we’ve been to the ACC final five times in the last eight years and I know that we’ve been to the national title game four times in that span and have been blanked there, too, so my first thought was thank God we showed up for a championship game,” said Virginia coach Julie Myers, whose team has won six straight games. “We must have done something right this time. To show up in a big game is tremendous and good sign for the program.”

The Cavaliers “did something right” for all but a very small portion of the game.

The Blue Devils jumped out to a 3-1 lead but Virginia responded with seven unanswered goals and when Haas scored with 4:33 remaining before intermission, the Cavaliers had seized an 8-3 lead, the momentum and, well, essentially the game. The Cavaliers ultimately took a 10-5 lead into halftime.

“We were transitioning the ball well. We wanted to push the pace and make them play defense. We wanted to get their defense in a transition state where they couldn’t prepare for where the shots were coming from and just settle the defense in general,” Myers said.

Added Duke coach Kerstin Kimel: “We didn’t play our best today but Virginia played very, very well. They played an excellent game.”

Virginia maintained its momentum as the second half began. Appelt scored two goals and Courtney Young and Tyler Leachman each added one to stake the Cavaliers to a 12-4 advantage with 15:32 remaining in the contest.

A goal by Duke’s Katie Chrest ever-so briefly halted the momentum to make it 12-5 but the Cavaliers scored three of the game’s final four goals - two by Appelt - to complete it’s dominating performance.

“We came out strong. We wanted to win the title badly and they were the last team to beat us. Every team has a little competitive revenge,” Appelt said.

What actually seems to be the true driving force for this team are the unpleasant memories of the not so distant past. The Cavaliers fell to Princeton 8-7 in overtime in last season’s NCAA title game and those painful remembrances seems to add a certain motivation, especially at this time of year.

“I don’t think there can be anything worse than losing in overtime in the national championship. That is inspiration for us. At the beginning of the season, we all told ourselves we didn’t want to feel that again and we’re taking it one step at a time trying to get back there,” Appelt said.

Notes. Appelt’s five goals give her 75 on the season, which is a new UVa record. … The Cavaliers’ victory gives UVa its school-record sixth ACC title of the 2003-4 academic year. Virginia has won ACC titles in men’s soccer, men’s and women’s swimming, rowing, men’s tennis and now women’s lacrosse.
 

When the Atlanta Falcons chose Virginia quarterback Matt Schaub in the third round on Saturday night, there were some questions about how he would fit into the depth chart. The Falcons, after all, have been pursuing a veteran quarterback to fill the No. 2 slot behind Michael Vick and in front of Ty Detmer, the graybeard signed as a free agent to be the third signal-caller on the roster.

But it appears there is actually a chance that Schaub, widely regarded as the fifth-best player among the quarterback prospects, could compete for the No. 2 as a rookie. That is not the ideal situation but, given the circumstances, it could happen.

The Falcons opted to bring Schaub into the mix after their efforts to trade for a veteran on Saturday were unsuccessful. The quarterback Atlanta most coveted was Drew Brees of San Diego, and the Falcons made an offer to the Chargers, feeling they might decide to part with their incumbent starter now that first-rounder Philip Rivers is onboard. But the Chargers, after brief deliberation, decided to keep Brees for now.

Atlanta also inquired about the availability of Seattle backup Trent Dilfer on Saturday. The Falcons were waiting to see what transpired with Jon Kitna, demoted to the backup role behind Carson Palmer by the Bengals last month, but Cincinnati early this week signed its former starter to a one-year contract extension through 2005.

 

Gillen interviews Shyatt
By Doug Doughty
doug.doughty@roanoke.com
981-3129

Larry Shyatt, head men's basketball coach at Clemson from 1998-2003, met with Virginia coach Pete Gillen in Charlottesville this past weekend to discuss the assistant-coaching vacancy created when Rod Jensen left UVa's staff earlier this month.