Offensive explosion
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
May 15, 2005

Lighting struck twice at Klockner Stadium on Saturday. Only one was a meteorological occurrence.

The fourth-seeded Virginia men’s lacrosse scored 11 unanswered at one point between the first and second quarters en route to a 23-9 victory over Albany in a first round NCAA Tournament contest that was delayed 45 minutes at the start by strong thunderstorms and lightning.

Virginia (10-3) now advances to face fifth-seeded Navy in the quarterfinals next Saturday at Homewood Field in Baltimore. The time of that game is yet to be determined. Top-seeded and host Johns Hopkins will face the UMass-Syracuse winner in the other quarterfinal at Homewood.

“We had not played in the last two weeks and that was a concern. We wanted to make sure we came out and played real hard. We wanted to establish our tempo early and control the pace of play and we did that,” Starsia said. “We did carry it to them early. … You think about every possibility before a game like this. I never imagined it would play out quite the way it did.”

Kyle Dixon paced the Cavaliers with a career night as he compiled four goals and three assists. Drew Thompson, Matt Ward and John Christmas each had three goals.

Both Dixon and Thompson had never scored more than two goals in contest before Saturday.

The goals were the most scored by Virginia in any game since a 24-3 win over Stony Brook in 1999 and the most in NCAA Tournament since a 23-12 win over Harvard in a first round contest in 1996. The

23 goals was also the most allowed by Albany in its six years in Division I.

Albany (10-6) was paced by four goals from Luke Daquino.

Virginia’s offensive explosion was preceded by the ferocious thunderstorms but it’s up for debate which displays were more impressive.

Less than a minute into the contest, Dixon unleashed a blast from 18 yards out. Fellow midfielder Thompson then scored moments later for the early 2-0 advantage.

Albany’s Frank Resetartis briefly halted the UVa surge with a tally with 9:43 left in the first quarter but the Cavaliers responded by scoring five unanswered to end the frame.

A goal by John Christmas and one more each from Dixon and Thompson pushed the score to 5-1 with 2:03 left in the quarter.

“I think the midfielders really stepped up today. We talked about the whole team stepping but especially the midfielders like me, Drew [Thompson] and Matt [Poskay],” Dixon said. “We knew that everyone would have to take a bigger role.”

Jack deVilliers followed Thompson’s goal by winning the faceoff, streaking down the field and unloading a successful shot past Albany goalie Kevin Rae to make it 6-1.

Hunter Kass completed the opening period with a goal in the waning seconds for the 7-1 advantage.

“We only go as far as Kyle Dixon, Matt Ward and John Christmas take us but we also need Matt Poskay and Drew Thompson,” Starsia said. “I don’t want to sound cliché but we are only as good offensively as the sum of our parts. When we hit on all cylinders we have a chance to be pretty dangerous.”

Virginia kept the barrage going in the second quarter with six more unanswered tallies and when Christmas scored with three minutes remaining before halftime, the Cavaliers had built a 13-1 lead.

The Great Danes responded by scoring two of the game’s next three goals but Christmas added his third goal of the half with just 1.1 seconds left before intermission for a 15-3 lead. It was easily the Cavaliers’ most dominating

30 minutes of the season as the previous best for goals in half was 10 in a 15-9 victory over North Carolina on April 9.

“I thought our first-half performance was pretty good. We started making some shots early and that changed their defense and who they slid to us and then we were able to take advantage of that,” Christmas said.

In addition, Virginia’s defense was suffocating. The Great Danes were outshot 22-4 in the first half and Merrick Thompson, the nation’s leading goal-scorer with 54, did not manage a single shot in the half. UVa defender Michael Culver, who usually defends the other team’s best scorer, draped Thompson throughout the contest.

“Frankly, I think the offense made it for defense. The offense was controlling the ball and the Jack deVilliers was winning the faceoffs,” Culver said. When it did come to our end, we played well together and got to a lot of ground balls. Overall, I was pleased with our defensive effort.”

Virginia outscored the Great Danes 5-2 in the third quarter to enter the fourth with a

20-5 advantage. The game began with much drama, ended with a fizzle, but at that point, no drizzle.

This was the third game this season that a Virginia game was delayed because of weather, Maryland and St. Mary’s were the other two. Virginia has won those three weather-hampered games by a combined score of 44-15.

“I don’t think it [the weather] has fazed us much each time,” said Starsia in answer to a question about the delay but which was clearly perhaps an understatement given the results.

Virginia falls one run short
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
May 15, 2005

Open a sports dictionary and next to the term hard-luck loser you might find a picture of Virginia right-handed pitcher Jeff Kamrath.

Facing one of the hottest hitting teams in the country in fourth-ranked Miami, Kamrath pitched a gem, allowing just one run.

That proved to be one run too many.

Miami (38-11-1, 19-6-1 ACC) scored the only run of the game in the fifth inning on a homer by Danny Valencia and three Hurricane pitchers made the blast stand up, beating Virginia, 1-0, in front of season-high crowd of 2,185 at Davenport Field.

"Jeff Kamrath has pitched his heart out all year," Virginia coach Brian O'Connor said. "To come out and do what he has done all year, I am so proud of him. He is a winner and he wants the ball in big games and not only does he want it, he pitches like a champion.

It marked the second time this season that Kamrath lost an ACC game 1-0. The previous outing came against N.C. State on April 10.

Virginia (32-17 overall, 10-14 ACC) drops its seventh one-run ACC game of the season with the loss and the Cavaliers will need to win today against Miami in the finale of the series and all three games against Duke (Thursday through Saturday) to finish at .500 in the league.

"Unfortunately in a number of these league games, we are falling a run short," said O'Connor, whose team lost the series opener to Miami 7-6 on Friday. "In the series opener, we get great offense and we don't get great pitching and tonight we get great pitching and not great offense. We need to put it together against a good club like Miami."

Virginia had several chances throughout the game, but the Cavaliers left eight runners stranded on base and five of those runners were in scoring position. When UVa had a runner on base, the team went 1 for 15.

"It is unfortunate for Kamrath and he gave his team the best chance to win," O'Connor added. "Unfortunately, we were not able to take advantage of our opportunities early in the ballgame."

In the fifth inning, Virginia looked primed to get the tying run across the plate.

UVa catcher Scott Headd opened the frame by drilling a 1-2 pitch from Dan Touchet over Miami left fielder Jon Jay's head for a double.

With Headd on second and no outs, shortstop Mike Campagna raced ahead in the count 3-0 only to watch Touchet battle back for a strikeout.

"We decided to let Campagna swing away and he wasn't able to execute," O'Connor said. "In that situation, Mike has to do the job that we do in batting practice everyday and that is hit a ball to the right side. You have to be able to execute and get that runner in scoring position."

With one out, Kyle Werman then lifted a fly ball to center that advanced Headd from second to third and not from third to the plate.

Tauchet (3-3) worked six innings on the mound for the Hurricanes, allowing five hits, two walks and the righty struck out four batters. After Andrew Lane threw a shutout inning in relief for the Canes', Chris Perez struck out five of the seven batters he faced, recording his sixth save of the season.

Miami scored its lone run in the top of the fifth when Valencia connected on a 2-2 pitch from Kamrath with no outs. The homer easily cleared the left field wall and after bouncing off a tree behind the fence, it rested on the warning track.

"You cannot get away with a mistake like that," said Kamrath, who falls to 7-4 on the season.

O'Connor agreed with his ace hurler.

"That kid put a great swing on that ball. Sometimes baseball works this way. One swing of the bat, one pitch can win a ballgame," O'Connor said.

Virginia will look to salvage a game in the series today against Miami as they send Mike Ballard (7-3) onto the mound. The game is slated to start at Noon.

Cavaliers ready for Terriers
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
May 15, 2005

Last Sunday, the Virginia women’s lacrosse team was a tad - just a tad - miffed in receiving the sixth seed in the NCAA Tournament. In a week’s time, their feelings have changed a little.

If it won its first-round contest against Johns Hopkins, sixth-seeded Virginia would have been bound for Boston today. Instead, graduation ceremonies at Boston University precluded the third-seeded Terriers from hosting today and thus the draw ended up working out just fine for the Cavaliers, who defeated Hopkins 10-8 on Thursday.

Virginia Assistant Media Relations Director Chip Rogers notified Virginia coach Julie Myers of the situation last Sunday night, well after the seeds and pairing were announced.

“I think Chip called me at home around 11 p.m. on Sunday night. … The next day we found out for sure that if we won Thursday, we would host. It’s so unusual to be the sixth-seed and get to host in the second round,” Myers said. “We’re certainly pleased to have this opportunity.”

Regardless of site, the Terriers will present a certain challenge for the Cavaliers today. The Terriers lone loss this season came to Yale and have notched victories over Dartmouth and Georgetown. This will be the first meeting between the two schools since 2000. The Hopkins-Virginia contest was the first meeting between the programs ever and the Cavaliers admit to favoring playing opponents that they have seen in a while instead of facing regular-season rematches.

“We will have to play a consistent game. BU is very capable of scoring a lot of goals quickly,” Myers said. “We are very happy to play two different teams that we have not faced. I think that helped in preparation to be preparing for new teams.”

Tech could fill Cooke’s spot soon
Big man could join Oak Hill point guard at UNC
By Doug Doughty
THE ROANOKE TIMES

Virginia Tech men’s basketball coach Seth Greenberg, once skeptical that he would be able to fill the scholarship opening created by Marquie Cooke’s departure, could have a promising wing player fall into his lap.

Puerto Rican product A.D. Vassallo, second-leading scorer for a Hargrave Military Academy team that finished 28-1, will be looking for a home if he is rejected for admission by Richmond.

Vassallo meets NCAA guidelines for freshman eligibility, according to Hargrave coach Kevin Keatts.

“When he came here, he was a qualifier out of Faith Christian,” Keatts said Friday. “He had a high [grade-point average] but his SAT wasn’t the highest and he decided to attend Hargrave to raise his SAT score, which he did.

“I think Richmond set some parameters as to what they said his SAT needed to be and I’m not sure that he met those.”

Keatts said that Vassallo knew what he had to do, and that Vassallo’s likely release from his letter-of-intent was not tied to the coaching change in which head coach Jerry Wainwright left Richmond for DePaul.

“I think he’s [Vassallo] going to get his decline of admission at the University of Richmond,” Keatts said. “Now, nobody can comment or start recruiting the kid until he has that letter in hand. He’s still under the national letter, basically.

“Once [the rejection] comes, I think there would be several schools in the area that would probably recruit him. I think he’s got a great relationship with Jerry [Wainwright] and his staff, but I think he wants to stay a little bit closer to his guardians, who are in Altavista.”

Vassallo came to the attention of Roanoke Valley basketball aficionados in January 2003, when Faith Christian, located in the Altavista “suburb” of Hurt, came to the Roanoke Civic Center as an 11th-hour replacement for Greensboro Dudley in Woody Deans’ SunTrust Roundball Classic.

Faith Christian, which already had won at Princeton, W.Va., several hours earlier in the day, drove to Roanoke and, with seven players in uniform, knocked off host Patrick Henry 58-48. The whole escapade was chronicled for The Roanoke Times by Nappy King, newly acclaimed for his work on Internet “podcasts.”

Vassallo had the go-ahead 3-pointer in that game and finished with a game-high 23 points. He averaged close to 18 points per game this year for Keatts, who saw 12 of his players sign with Division I programs.

“He’s very talented,” Keatts said. “He’s a 6-6 kid, a 2-3 type who can really score, rebounds well for his size and runs the floor. He’s a good finisher in side. He’s a complete player and really knows how to play the game.”

As soon as Vassallo becomes available, Tech can expect some competition for Vassallo. North Carolina State knows about him, West Virginia is likely to get involved and North Carolina might be interested.

“Some people don’t even know this is going on,” Keatts said.

AFTER FINISHING the 2003-2004 season as the No. 1 team in the national prep-school poll, Hargrave was second this year to Laurinburg (N.C.) Institute, which went undefeated and was the only team to defeat Hargrave this season.

Keatts indicated that there has been discussion about two of the state’s top junior basketball prospects, 6-9 Vernon Macklin from I.C. Norcom in Portsmouth and 6-2 Stefan Welsh from Woodside in Newport News, coming to Hargrave and playing for the postgraduate team as 12th-graders.

Keatts said it was possible Hargrave would get Stephen Kendall, a junior at the Blue Ridge School who committed to Virginia in October, but Keatts said he had heard Kendall’s name mentioned in connection with Oak Hill Academy. However, Kendall repeated the 10th grade when he went to Blue Ridge and Oak Hill does not take five-year players.

Kendall met with new UVa coach Dave Leitao this week, at which time it was decided that Leitao needed to take a longer look at Kendall before committing to the offer made by predecessor Pete Gillen. The Kendalls had expected that.

DON’T BE SURPRISED if Oak Hill post player Kevin Durant follows teammate and fellow Parade All-American Tywon Lawson to North Carolina. Lawson, a 6-foot point guard, committed to the Tar Heels on Thursday and also visited Connecticut, with Wake Forest and Georgia Tech among the schools he considered. Durant has visited UNC and Uconn and has a trip planned to Texas.

ON THE FOOTBALL scene, Virginia and Virginia Tech have made changes in their recruiting territories, with the result that both schools will be sending a new coach into the Roanoke Valley.

Assistant head coach Danny Rocco, who has recruited the Roanoke Valley for Roanoke since Al Groh’s arrival in January 2001, will take over the Peninsula District and Norfolk areas previously handled by Mike London, who resigned to work for the Houston Texans.

Rocco will be replaced in the Roanoke by London’s successor as defensive-line coach, Levern Belin. Anthony Poindexter will continue to recruit the Lynchburg area and Belin will be responsible for Roanoke and points west.

Tech has had a succession of coaches in the Roanoke Valley in coach Frank Beamer’s lengthy tenure. This year, it will be offensive coordinator Bryan Stinespring, who will keep the Tidewater area, where Tech has enjoyed considerable success.

JOE FOWLER, A RADFORD product who was the Group A football coach of the year this past season, said that VMI has received a commitment from the state’s No. 100-rated prospect Dennis Dunaway. Dunaway, a 6-foot-1, 195-pounder who made second-team All-Group A at linebacker, will attempt to make the Keydets’ lineup as a walk-on.

Tech's Hill back to court
By Joe Eaton
381-1665
The Roanoke Times

A Virginia Tech football player will be heading back to court soon for failing a drug test and being arrested while on probation.

Brenden Hill, who together with Hokie players Marcus Vick and Mike Imoh pleaded no contest in 2004 to contributing to the delinquency of a minor, tested positive for marijuana in a January drug test, according to a letter his probation officer, Jim Maher, filed last month in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

Hill, who spent most of Tech's spring football practices playing defensive back, also did not tell his probation officer he was arrested for driving without a license in February, the document said.

In the April 21 letter to Circuit Court Judge Ray Grubbs, Maher, said because of the violations, Hill should serve the 30-day suspended jail sentence he received in 2004.

The date for Hill's probation violation hearing has not been set. Maher was not available for comment Friday.

But in April, Maher did speak about Vick, the Hokie quarterback whose probation he also supervises.

In a February report to Circuit Judge Robert Turk, Maher wrote that Vick did not keep an appointment with him in January and had not returned several calls to his home. The report also says that Vick missed another appointment with a probation officer in November 2004.

Maher said that as part of Vick's probation, Vick has to take a drug test once a month when the two meet on campus. Vick was not tested in January, Maher said.

Maher said he gave Vick a verbal warning in February and since then Vick has made all of his probation meetings. Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer was out of town Friday. Neither he nor anyone else from the football office returned calls made by The Roanoke Times.
 

Virginia Men's Tennis Advances to NCAA Round of 16 With Win Over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
Cavaliers rally in singles to advance to College Station
May 14, 2005
Video Highlights

CHARLOTTESVILLE - The second ranked Virginia men's tennis team advanced to the round of 16 of the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year with a 4-2 win over No. 25 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi before a Snyder Tennis Center record 627 fans Saturday afternoon. The Cavaliers and Islanders battled for over four hours before Virginia was able to rally in singles to win the match.

The Cavaliers (26-2) fell behind early after losing the doubles point for the first time in 13 matches. The Islander duo of Javier Bacaicoa and Goncalo Figueirdeo upset No. 39 ranked Somdev Devvarman (Chennai, India) and Treat Huey (Alexandia, Va.) 8-4 at No. 2 doubles to give TAMU-CC an early advantage. Virginia drew even when Darrin Cohen (Lafayette, Calif.) and Doug Stewart (Malibu, Calif.) defeated Oscar Roman and Raul Mornat-Rivas at No. 3 doubles, 8-5. With the opening point on the line, Jeremy Blandin and Andre Kumantsov clinched it for TAMU-CC with a 9-8 win over No. 21 ranked Rylan Rizza (Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.) and Nick Meythaler (Owensboro, Ky.).

Virginia needed to rally in singles, and came out strong winning five of the six first sets. The Cavaliers tied the match when Huey finished a 6-2, 6-3 win over Kumantsov at No. 4 singles. The Islanders retook the lead with a win at No. 6, as Bacaicoa defeated Cohen 6-1, 6-4. The match was once again tied when No. 12 ranked Stewart posted a 6-4, 6-4 win over No. 59 Blandin at No. 1 singles. The match remained 2-2 for almost an hour as the two teams battled for two more points that would clinch victory for one of them. Virginia got those two points within a minute of each other as Rizza capped a three set win over Figueirdeo at No. 3 singles seconds before Devvarman clinched the match with a 7-6, 7-6 win over Morant-Rivas at No. 2 singles.

The Cavaliers' win extends their school record winning streaks of consecutive matches to 15 and consecutive home matches to 16. Virginia also improves to 4-0 all-time in NCAA Tournament matches at the Snyder Tennis Center. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, making its first NCAA Tournament appearance, finishes the season with a 22-8 record.

"Today was a great college tennis match, as strong of battle in a regional final as you will ever see," said Virginia head coach Brian Boland. "Texas A&M-Corpus Christi is a top 15-20 program and pushed us to the limits. I was really proud of our team to come back in singles after dropping a close doubles point. We hadn't lost a doubles point in a long time, so it was good for our team to fight through that adversity today."

Virginia will meet the winner of the Washington-Southern California match in the round of 16 on May 21 in College Station, Texas.

No. 2 Virginia 4, No. 25 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 2

Doubles:
1. Blandin/Kumantsov (TAMU-CC) def. #21 Rizza/Meythaler (UVa) 9-8 (4)
2. Bacaicoa/Figueirdeo (TAMU-CC) def. #39 Devvarman/Huey (UVa) 8-4
3. Cohen/Stewart (UVa) def. Roman/Morant-Rivas (TAMU-CC) 8-5

Singles:
1. #12 Doug Stewart (UVa) def. #59 Jeremy Blandin (TAMU-CC) 6-4, 6-4
2. #30 Somdev Devvarman (UVa) def. Raul Morant-Rivas (TAMU-CC) 7-6 (3), 7-6 (7)
3. #33 Rylan Rizza (UVa) def. Goncalo Figueirdeo (TAMU-CC) 6-4, 3-6, 6-3
4. Treat Huey (UVa) def. Andre Kumantsov (TAMU-CC) 6-2, 6-3
5. Max Godine (TAMU-CC) led #112 Marko Miklo (UVa) 0-6, 6-4, 3-2 DNF
6. Javier Bacaicoa (TAMU-CC) def. #81 Darrin Cohen (UVa) 6-1, 6-4
 

Virginia storms past Albany
Cavaliers score 15 goals in first half to fuel rout in tourney's first round
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
May 15, 2005
NCAA LACROSSE
VIRGINIA 23 ALBANY 9
SATURDAY:
Second round, Virginia at Navy, TBA

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Thunder crashed and lightning flashed around Klockner Stadium, but the storm's might could not compare with that of the University of Virginia men's lacrosse team last night.

U.Va., seeded No. 4 in the NCAA tournament, rarely has looked better. The Cavaliers scored 15 first-half goals, a relentless barrage that probably left Albany questioning the wisdom of leaving the locker room after the break.

The Great Danes, a high-scoring outfit that lost to defending NCAA champion Syracuse by a goal inthe regular season, traveled south to Virginia looking to pull off a first-round upset. Not a chance.

Playing with palpable intensity in its first game since an early exit from the ACC tournament, Virginia rolled into the NCAA quarterfinals with a 23-9 victory before a boisterous crowd of 1,555.

The 23 goals were the most by the Cavaliers in an NCAA tourney game since 1996, when they hammered Harvard 23-12 in the quarterfinals. Before last night, Albany (10-6) never had allowed that many goals in a game since moving to Division I in 2000.

Virginia (10-3) advanced to meet Navy (12-3) on Saturday afternoon at Homewood Field in Baltimore. The Midshipmen, last year's NCAA runners-up, edged Delaware 9-7 in a first-round game yesterday.

A thunderstorm delayed the start of last night's game 45 minutes, but the long wait didn't faze the Cavaliers. Fifty-three seconds into the game, junior midfielder Kyle Dixon fired a laser past goalie Kevin Rae from 18 yards, and the rout was on.

"I never quite imagined it was going to play out the way it did," U.Va. coach Dom Starsia said.

By halftime, the score was 15-3, and midfielder Drew Thompson and attackman John Christmas had three goals apiece for Virginia. Three other Cavaliers - Dixon, attackman Matt Ward and midfielder Hunter Kass - had two goals each, and Dixon had three assists.

Equally impressive were the faceoff work of Jack deVilliers, who won 15 of 21 draws, and U.Va.'s defensive effort, especially that of all-ACC defenseman Michael Culver. Matched against sophomore attackman Merrick Thompson, who leads the nation with 54 goals, Culver held him without a point.

Dixon finished with a career-high three goals and also contributed three assists in a spectacular performance. Thompson, who before last night had never scored more than two goals in a college game, collected a hat trick in the first 23 minutes last night.

U.Va's Brown gets his shot in NFL
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
May 13, 2005

Elton Brown expects May 22 to rank among the greatest days of his life. That's when he'll walk the Lawn and receive his diploma from the University of Virginia.

April 23 is not a day Brown, a consensus first-team All-American in 2004, will remember so fondly. That's when the first three rounds of the NFL draft were held. That's when Brown, who many draft analysts had predicted would be the first offensive guard selected, sat and waited with his mother at their home in Newport News for a call that didn't come that Saturday.

"It was kind of sad, but Sunday came around and it was one of the best days of my life," Brown recalled this week.

With the 10th pick of the fourth round, the Arizona Cardinals chose Brown, a 6-5 338-pounder who twice was honored as the ACC's best blocker.

"I expected that I would go higher than that, but I didn't," Brown said simply.

It no doubt stung to hear himself described during the draft as an "underachiever" who didn't dominate as much as he should have, but Brown is ready to move on.

"I wouldn't say it's like a chip on my shoulder or anything like that," he said. "I'm just excited about playing football. Arizona gave me an opportunity, and I want to take advantage of it. I'm in a blessed situation."

Brown has already participated in a rookie mini-camp with the Cardinals, and he's due back in Arizona the day after he receives his anthropology degree in Charlottesville. The Cardinals also drafted U.Va. linebacker Darryl Blackstock, and two other Cavaliers defensive back Jermaine Hardy and special-teams ace Isaiah Ekejiuba signed with the team as free agents.

Arizona's preseason roster includes numerous other ACC products, among them Eric Green of Virginia Tech, Antrel Rolle of Miami, Darnell Dockett of Florida State, Leon Joe of Maryland, Calvin Pace of Wake Forest, Lamont Reid of N.C. State and Bobby Blizzard of North Carolina.

"It's sort of like still playing in the same conference," Brown said.

He graduated from Hampton High School, but Brown played as a ninth-, 10th- and 11th-grader at Heritage High in Newport News, where his teammates included Blackstock. After three years together at U.Va., they find themselves teammates in the NFL.

"That's crazy," Brown said with a laugh. "Me and Darryl talk about it all the time. It's like we can't get rid of each other."