Bateman provides spark for Virginia
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
May 21, 2005

Virginia coach Dom Starsia frequently uses the term “unorthodox” in reference to senior defenseman Rob Bateman. It is used - actually - as a compliment in reference to Bateman’s on-field play.

An athletic, 6-foot-4 transfer from Penn State, Bateman has stick skills unmatched for a defenseman or long-stick midfielders. He leads Virginia’s longsticks with 41 groundballs and has often kick started the Cavaliers’ transition game as he’s accumulated a goal and nine assists entering today’s NCAA quarterfinal contest with Navy. He’s disruptive seemingly all over the field and his play has earned him All-ACC honors and likely a first-team All-American spot.

Yet, unorthodox is hardly the appropriate term for Bateman off the field. Mild-mannered and quiet, Bateman is a consummate team player, even trying to defer to teammates and fellow defenseman when pestered about an interview request.

“He’s one of the most unique players I’ve ever been around. … I don’t think I’ve been around a player like Rob Bateman with his stick handling ability and how he sees the game and makes plays. He’s as good with his stick as many offensive players,” Starsia said. “He’s a different kind of kid. He’s very quiet. He takes care of himself. Even when he decided to do this, we said we’d help him with housing and such here and he was like, ‘No, I’ll take care of it.’ It was the same way when he was signing up for classes. We don’t get that all that often. He’s a confident and mature kid.”

Starsia was referencing Bateman’s decision last spring to leave Penn State and come to Virginia to compete his senior season as a graduate student.

In three seasons at Penn State, Bateman was a standout performer who earned second-team All-American honors in his junior season. During his senior year, however, Bateman suffered a hamstring injury that kept him out the entire season. He received a redshirt year and then began to examine his long-term objectives both athletically and academically.

“When I took the redshirt year, I was already on course to graduate and get my degree. I started to look at some schools that had graduate programs I was interested in and then I looked at schools that might be able to combine those graduate programs with lacrosse,” said Bateman, who earned a degree in real estate management from Penn State. “Ultimately, Virginia was the combination of things for me both athletically and academically. Certainly lacrosse-wise it was the best fit.”

Bateman is currently enrolled in the Curry School of Education’s professional development program and has taken a variety of courses over the academic year. Bateman still needs a few credits to earn a Master’s degree and will opt to pursue that this summer.

Transitioning in lacrosse terms was perhaps a little easier then the architecture, business and education classes Bateman completed. It seemed to almost be a perfect fit for both him and Virginia. After winning the national title in 2003, Virginia was 5-8 last season and missed the NCAAs for the first time in 12 years. As Starsia also frequently says, the beginning of this season was something of a rebirth for the entire program and thus Bateman’s entrance and transition was a smooth one.

“It has gone really well. The coaches and players have been great and that has made the transition very easy,” Bateman said. “Coach Starsia and his staff made Virginia attractive and I was able to fit in with the players. … I think all in all it was a blessing in disguise if you look at my injury and my leaving Penn State. They needed someone to fill in at the long-stick here a little bit and it just all worked out pretty well.”

Certainly it has worked out well from Virginia’s end of things as well. The Cavaliers realized during the fall that Bateman would indeed be a major contributor but then Starsia and his staff had a post-fall meeting with Bateman that could indeed be labeled as “unorthodox.”

“He is so modest. We all knew at the end of the fall that he was going to be player but one day he came to my office and he apologized for not playing well in the fall. We were like ‘what are you talking about? If you can play better than that great.’ And actually he has,” Starsia quipped. “He’s been appreciative of the opportunity and he’s been a joy to be around in every way. He has skills that I just marvel at.”

No doubt Bateman specifically enjoys this opportunity as Virginia continues on its trek to return to the NCAA Final Four. Penn State is a program that has made sporadic NCAA appearances, though the Nittany Lions did earn a NCAA bid this season before losing to Maryland last week. Today, Bateman will play in his first NCAA quarterfinal and he and his teammates certainly hold higher hopes of winning the NCAA title.

“We’re still playing and hopefully we’ll keep playing and that’s a great opportunity. Here at Virginia, the aim is to win the national championship every year and if you don’t reach the NCAAs, it’s a big letdown,” Bateman said. “It’s just more intense and people are more into lacrosse here. I think more is expected out of you.”

Starsia ready to face nephew
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
May 21, 2005

In the Charlottesville area, the Starsia family’s connections to the game of lacrosse are hard to miss.

Dom Starsia is of course the UVa men’s lacrosse coach. Dom’s wife, Krissy Lasagna, was formerly an assistant lacrosse coach at Western Albemarle and in the past has been a referee at area girls’ lacrosse contests. Dom’s eldest daughter, Molly Starsia-Lasagna, and son, Joey Starsia-Lasagna, were both standout lacrosse players at Western Albemarle.

Dom’s brother, Gerry, a dean at UVa’s McIntire School of Commerce, has been a youth lacrosse league coach in the area. Gerry’s son and Dom’s nephew, Jeremiah, is currently an attackman on the St. Anne’s-Belfield roster.

Say the name Starsia around here, and lacrosse comes to mind. Today, the rest of the nation is about to get the same notion.

Starsia will lead his Cavaliers into a NCAA quarterfinal contest against Navy today at Homewood Field in Baltimore. One of Navy’s best players? Senior midfielder Graham Gill, who just happens to be the son of Dom’s sister, Christine.

Earlier this week, Starsia quipped that he was ready for all the uncle-nephew stories that undoubtedly would be written.

Anyone who spends a few minutes with Dom Starsia is left with the impression that he is a deeply caring family man. Thus, logic would say that today’s contest could be difficult for him. Starsia claims otherwise.

“It’s the opposite really. There is no doubt what I want to have happen in this game. There is no part of me that hasn’t fully enjoyed Graham’s career. Graham Gill is playing on the other team and we’ll have to deal with that,” Starsia said. “I have my team and I know we want to win this game and move on. … It might be complicated for some people in the stands but it won’t be on the sidelines. Again, though, it has been enjoyable watching Graham develop as a lacrosse player.”

Gill has 15 goals and 17 assists this season for the Midshipmen. Interestingly, his lacrosse path is somewhat similar to that of his uncle’s. Like Starsia, Gill did not play lacrosse in high school but rather for a club team as his South Jersey school did not offer the sport. Actually, even the club lacrosse experience was more than his uncle. Starsia had not seen a lacrosse game before entering Brown University in the fall of 1970.

“He was a very good soccer player in high school and they only had a club lacrosse team. He was recruited by Navy for soccer and I didn’t know if he’d ever play lacrosse in college,” Starsia said. “I called [Navy lacrosse coach] Richie Meade and said there is a kid interested in your school that is a terrific athlete but was raw as a lacrosse player. Richie picked it up from there and the soccer stuff then sort of dropped off.”

Starsia has since watched Gill develop as a lacrosse player to the point in which he’ll likely have to gameplan to defend his nephew today. Of course, Starsia has seen his nephew develop in other ways as well. Ones that surpass certainly surpass lacrosse.

“Graham was a little wild coming out of high school and I think the discipline of the Naval Academy has been good for him,” Starsia said. “At one point, we all just thought that Graham would never get through Navy but he has and that makes you have such respect for both the lacrosse program there and the institution. … My daughter Molly’s fiancée is in active service right now and you cannot help but be humbled being around these young men. They make such sacrifices for the rest for us. They are potentially in harm’s way. We owe a lot to these young men that are willing to do a lot of things for the rest of us.”

Third time a charm for Cavs
Virginia tops Duke to advance to national title game
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
May 21, 2005

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – On a dark and stormy Friday night, the Virginia women’s lacrosse team exorcised their collective Devils (not demons in this case) and earned a one-game chance to defend its national title.

Tyler Leachman and Amy Appelt each had three goals and Cary Chasney had two goals and two assists as the sixth-seeded Cavaliers dispatched second-seeded Duke, 15-13, in the NCAA Semifinals at rain-swept Navy Marine Corps Stadium.

The Cavaliers (17-4), who captured the championship last May with a 10-4 victory over Princeton, now advance to face top-seeded Northwestern in Sunday’s NCAA final. Northwestern will enter the game with a perfect 20-0 record. It will be the Cavaliers’ third-straight title game appearance, having fallen to Princeton in overtime in the 2003 finale.

“I’m incredibly proud of the effort these players put forth tonight. We knew it was going to require a great effort from the opening whistle,” Virginia coach Julie Myers said. “Our girls put their hearts and everything that they had out on the field.”

Duke (18-4), which had beaten Virginia in the two previous meetings this season, including a dominating 9-6 victory in the ACC Championship three weeks ago, was paced by three goals each from Kristen Waagbo and Katie Chrest.

In that ACC title game, Appelt, the school’s all-time leading scorer and fifth all-time in Division I history, was held scoreless for the first time in her prep and collegiate career. She left that game with five minutes remaining after suffering a gash on the head while fellow attackers, Chasney and Leachman, combined for just two assists.

Myers had said earlier in the week that she almost guaranteed Appelt and the others would be sufficiently motivated for Friday’s game.

“I guess the third time is the charm. We wanted to show them that the team they beat those two times was not the team we know we are,” Appelt said. “I think Cary, Tyler and I knew what we had to do differently. I think in a way, that played very well into our hands.”

The sloppy conditions clearly favored the offensive players as the muddy field produced a shootout and not a quagmire.

After Virginia led 9-7 at halftime, Duke scored three of the first four goals of the second half to tie the score at 10 with 20:44 left.

At the point, the game’s most critical and ultimately decisive moments arrived. It was the veteran Cavaliers, a few of them of whom proclaimed the postseason as their time a few weeks ago, who seized them.

The Cavaliers notched five unanswered goals over the next seven minutes and vaulted to a 15-10 lead on a tally by Appelt with 13:17 left in the contest.

“We played a composed game. We knew what we had to do when we were up and when we were tied. We just handled every situation as we knew we could,” Appelt said. “We knew we had to play Virginia lacrosse.”

It was Duke’s turn for a spurt and it scored three unanswered goals but was unable to get closer than the 15-13 final margin.

Virginia held a 9-7 advantage at intermission as it erased an early three-goal deficit. The Blue Devils jumped out to the early lead and when Stefanie Sparks scored off a feed from Waagbo, they held a 5-2 advantage with 21:18 left in the half.

Sparks’ tally immediately drew a timeout for Myers. It was a stoppage that likely changed the course of the game.

The Cavaliers responded by reeling off six of the game’s next seven goals. When Kim Connors one-timed a pass from teammate Kate Breslin into the goal with 6:24 left before halftime, the Cavaliers had rallied to snare an 8-6 lead.

The season, especially the losses to Duke, might not have gone exactly as scripted at times for the Cavaliers but yet here they are back in the championship game again.

When asked if there was ever a moment they doubted they would be back in this same position, the Cavaliers collectively shook their heads.

“Maybe some of you doubted we’d be back here,” said Myers, cajoling some Virginia media members. “But we never doubted it.”

Cavs aim to tame Huskies
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
May 21, 2005

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Unfinished business. That’s how Virginia’s No. 2 ranked men’s tennis team views today’s Sweet 16 bout with Washington in the NCAA Championships at Texas A&M’s Mitchell Center.

The Cavaliers still have bittersweet memories of last year’s short trip to the Sweet 16, the first in school history. They were summarily dismissed by Ohio State, 4-3.

“Last year I don’t think we knew how good we were,” said UVa’s Doug Stewart, who plays in the No. 1 singles spot for the Wahoos. “We started out at the beginning of the year ranked really low and finished top 10, but we didn’t know how far we could get. This year we’re going to be disappointed if we don’t win it all.”

Virginia is 26-2 on the season, the only two losses coming against No. 1 ranked Baylor. The 26 wins, including a school record

15-match winning streak heading into today’s noon (Central Time) showdown against Washington, is most in Wahoo history.

The Cavs enter today’s matches with plenty of momentum from the streak, including a sweep of Richmond and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi last weekend in Charlottesville. But Washington won’t be a pushover.

“Washington is really strong at the top,” said Brian Boland, the ACC Coach of the Year. “They have one of the top 10 players in the country and three of them are nationally ranked, and all lefties.”

Washington tied for the Pac-10 title with UCLA.

“I think this trip continues to build in terms of our intensity,” Boland said. “I could tell with the guys in their practices this week. They were focused and intense.

“We need to keep working hard as we get ready to play four days in a row in 80- to 90-degree heat down here,” Boland said. “It’s going to be a grind. We’ve worked for this all year.”

Should the Cavaliers get past the Huskies as expected, they will face the winner of today’s UCLA vs. Tennessee match on Sunday at 1 p.m. (all times Central). The NCAA team semifinals are Monday at 3 p.m. and the National Championship is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

Singles and doubles tournaments begin on Wednesday with those championships set for Monday, May 30.

The Cavaliers have multiple selections in the singles and doubles events, including Stewart, a junior, who is making his third consecutive appearance in the singles competition. He is joined in singles play by teammates Somdev Devvarman and Rylan Rizza, who are competing in the event for the first time. Devvarman, the ACC Freshman of the Year, is also up for National Freshman of the Year.

Virginia’s doubles team of Rizza and Nick Meythaler are making their second appearance in the NCAAs.

The Cavaliers would like nothing better than to earn another shot at Baylor, a team that defeated UVa 4-1 in the National Indoor Championships in February, then defeated the Cavs 4-3 in Texas in early March.

“We’d love to play Baylor again but our focus this week has been on getting ready to play Washington,” Boland said. “That has been our motto from the beginning.”

Virginia’s tennis team got some unexpected motivation last week when Cavaliers head football coach Al Groh delivered a pre-NCAA tournament talk to the netters the day before the Hoos hosted Richmond.

“Coach Groh told us we have to focus on beating the next team,” Boland said. “He did a really good job on getting the team focused on not looking at things that we can’t control and the big picture.

“I ran into [Groh] this week and he asked me, ‘Is your team ready to beat Washington?’” Boland said. “That’s the mentality you have to have. It’s six matches [in the NCAAs] and you can never look ahead. We’d love to play Baylor again but we have to earn that. It starts today and if we don’t take care of business, we’ll never get that chance.”

The Cavaliers will likely go with the standard singles lineup of Stewart at No. 1, Devvarman at No. 2, Rizza at No. 3, Treat Huey at No. 4, Marko Miklo at No. 5 and Darrin Cohen at No. 6.

Doubles teams are Rizza and Meythaler at No. 1, the freshmen Devvarman and Huey at No. 2 and Cohen and Stewart at No. 3.

UVa's Wigger nabs second at NCAAs
From Staff Reports / Charlottesville Daily Progress
May 21, 2005

SUNRIVER, Ore. - Virginia’s Leah Wigger closed with a 69 in the final round to finish second in the individual standings of the NCAA Women’s Golf National Championship at 3 over.

“She had a fantastic and wonderful week. She is such a strong player.” Virginia golf coach Jan Mann said. “We realize she can compete with anyone in the country and she played that way this week.”

As a team, the Cavaliers, who were making their first-ever appearance in the NCAA National Championship, shot a 293, one stroke shy of the school record low round, for a 1200 (+64). Virginia finished 13th overall

“The team did a great job and really hung together all week,” Mann said.

Anna Grzebien led Duke to its third NCAA Division I women’s golf title in seven years Friday, closing with a

2-over 73 in cold and rainy conditions for a one-stroke victory in the individual competition.

Grzebien, who shot a tournament-best 65 on Thursday to help top-ranked Duke take an eight-stroke lead into the final round, finished with a 2-over 286 total on the Sunriver Resort’s Meadows course. Lang and UCLA’s Amie Cochran (68) tied for third at 4 over.

VIRGINIA MEN IN 14TH IN NCAA: In Nashville, Tenn., the No. 17 seed Virginia men’s golf team is tied for 14th after the rain-delayed second round at the 2005 NCAA East Regional on Friday.

Junior Brad Tilley is tied for 24th with a 3-under 139 after shooting a two-under 69 on the day. Sophomore Daniel McGurk is tied for 30th with an even-par 142 after tying his career-low of 68.

“Obviously, Daniel played a great round today with a 69,” UVa head coach Bowen Sargent said. “We had a couple of players that played strong the last three holes. Carter, as a first year, really helped out. Overall, it was a solid round of golf. It kept us in contention [for the national championship cut].”

Cavaliers roll again
Virginia clinches seventh spot in ACC standings
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
May 21, 2005

After fifteen conference games, the UVa baseball team stood at 5-10 overall.

Avoiding the play-in round of the ACC Tournament seemed almost impossible.

After dropping that 15th game, a heartbreaking 3-2 loss to the Clemson Tigers, Virginia coach Brian O'Connor said he remained confident in his team. He repeatedly stated that his team could still do some damage in the league if they focused only on their next game.

That one day at a time mentality paid off.

Virginia cruised to a 7-2 win over Duke on Friday night at the Davenport Field in front of 1,211 fans, sealing a seventh-place finish in the league for the team and a bye from the play-in round of next week's ACC Tournament. UVa will face the No. 2 seed, which is yet to be determined, on Wednesday in Jacksonville, Fla. at 1 p.m.

The Cavaliers also improved to 37-17 overall and 13-14 in the ACC with the win. Duke (14-37, 5-24) remains winless on the road this season in conference play. The two teams will finish out the three-game set today at 1 p.m. in Virginia's final regular season home game.

"Seventh place feels great," said O'Connor, who improved to 81-32 in his two years at UVa. "When you start out 0-3 in this league on the road, and I know it is a long season, but that is tough to come back from. These kids have shown a lot of resolve and we have figured out what it takes for this ballclub to win. We are proud of where we are at right now."

O'Connor was able to take another positive from the game in addition to the win.

Junior Matt Avery, who had lost his last three decisions, hurled eight solid innings on the mound and earned his first win since April 8.

Avery scattered six hits and allowed two runs ? one earned ? and struck out seven Duke batters. He also avoided walking a batter for just the second time in his 13 starts.

"I felt like Matt turned the corner, especially in the back-half of that game," O'Connor said. "Obviously, if we are going to go anywhere this season, Matt Avery has to give us real quality starts and pitch deep into the game and he is very capable of doing that.

"I thought he pitched well tonight. It was one of the best outings he has had in a while and hopefully he can use that to roll into the conference tournament next week."

Avery (5-5) was given an early lead to work with when the Cavaliers scratched out a single run in the second when Brandon Guyer extended his hitting streak to 14 games and later scored on an RBI ground out by Scott Headd.

Avery, who has been a victim of allowing big innings all season, worked out of a jam in Duke's portion of the fourth. Thanks to a double play ball in the inning, Avery only allowed one run on three hits and a hit batter and stranded a pair of runners.

"I said to myself that this could not be one of those innings, a Florida State inning," said Avery, referring to a seven-run fourth inning on April 29. "I said I couldn't let that happen. I had to get a ground ball or a fly ball to someone in the field, and luckily I was able to do that and rely on the fielders."

Virginia regained the lead for good in the bottom of the fourth as they sent nine batters to the plate, slapped out four hits and took advantage of three miscues by Duke's defense to score five runs.

Kyle Werman delivered the biggest blow of the frame, a two-run single to right field with one out that plated Headd and designated hitter Patrick Wingfield.

Both teams exchanged single runs in the fifth. Duke scored an unearned run on an RBI single by Adam Murray and UVa scored an unearned run when Guyer scored on a throwing error by Blue Devil starting pitcher David Torcise as he tried to throw out Wingfield (2 for 4) on an infield hit.

That proved to be more than enough run support for Avery as he got into a groove and retired six of the seven batters he faced in the sixth and seventh innings.

Despite being at around 100 pitches for the game, O'Connor elected to have Avery throw the eighth inning.

"He was at 100 pitches after seven innings, but he threw so well in the seventh inning that I felt he was getting better," O'Connor said. "We wanted him to go back out there in the eighth and hopefully throw well again just so he knows what it takes to win and to be effective. It was more for his confidence to send him back out there than his pitch count."

Avery, who has now won 12 of his last 13 decisions at home, said he tried to approach his start by concentrating on one inning at a time.

"From the get go, I was pretty focused on what I had to do each inning and not trying to look at it as though I had to go nine innings," Avery said. "I was [pitching] almost as if I was a reliever."

While many followers of the program had mentioned that O'Connor should have turned the ball over in weekend starts to one of his mid-week starters (Pat McAnaney or Robert Poutier), the coach kept his faith in Avery. That went along way with the pitcher.

"That gives me confidence," Avery said. "When you have a head coach who just believes in you that much, and I have had some rough outings and I have given up some big innings, and he still has the confidence to pitch me and say something like that.

"That is something that I don't know if many people are fortunate enough to have, a coach and coaches that are confident enough in you to put you out there and believe that 'we have a chance of winning when this guy goes out and pitches.'"

News & Notes. Virginia finished with 12 hits and improved to 31-5 when it outhits an opponent. ? Junior Mike Ballard will start on the mound today for the Cavaliers. ? Third baseman Ryan Zimmerman, who will likely be playing his final home game today, went 0 for 4 at the plate and saw his lofty batting average dip to .397 on the season. ? O'Connor will honor the senior class before the contest today in a ceremony that will start at 12:30 p.m. ? The Cavaliers will host a free baseball clinic today after the game (from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.) for all kids from kindergarten to 8th grade that are interested. The clinic will teach kids a variety of fundamentals in fielding, pitching and hitting and each kid should bring just their baseball glove.

Diener makes move to U.Va. staff
Richmond Times-Dispatch
May 21, 2005

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Drew Diener has followed Dave Leitao to the University of Virginia.

Diener was a graduate assistant under Leitao at DePaul in 2004-05. Leitao took over as U.Va.'s basketball coach last month, and his first hire was assistant Gene Cross, who'd been with him at DePaul for three seasons. Leitao has since hired former Siena coach Rob Lanier and, now, Diener, whose family ties to the sport are extensive.

A 2003 graduate of Saint Louis University, Diener will serve as U.Va.'s director of basketball operations.

"I think he'll bring a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the position," Leitao said yesterday. "He has all the makings of being a terrific coach, and this will begin to put him in that direction."

Coaching is in Diener's blood. His father is a highly successful high school coach in Wisconsin, as is one of Diener's uncles. Before joining Leitao at DePaul, Drew Diener coached the team at Northridge Prep in Niles, Ill., in 2003-04.

As a player, Diener was a renowned 3-point shooter who helped Saint Louis advance to the NCAA tournament once and to the NIT twice. His brother Drake was one of DePaul's top players in 2004-05. Their cousin Travis starred at guard for Marquette.

Leitao still has an assistant's position to fill on his staff. He said he hopes to do so soon.

-- Jeff White

U.Va. continues rise to the top
Youthful roster gives Cavaliers a shot at the men's title they crave
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
May 21, 2005

By Monday night, only two teams will be left in the NCAA men's tennis tournament, and they'll meet the next day for the national title at College Station, Texas. Virginia expects to be one of those teams.

"I think it goes without saying that the players will be disappointed if we don't finish the job we started, which is to play on the 24th," fourth-year coach Brian Boland said.

Sixteen teams remain in the NCAA tournament, including top-seeded Baylor, the defending national champion. Baylor is the only team to have beaten U.Va. (26-2) this season -- first in February and again in March. Second-seeded Virginia plays Washington today at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center in College Station, with the winner advancing to meet UCLA or Tennessee in tomorrow's quarterfinals.

A season ago, U.Va. captured its first ACC title. The Wahoos then won two matches in the NCAA tourney before losing 4-3 to Ohio State in the round of 16 at Tulsa, Okla.

"This year we're there to win the whole thing," said junior Doug Stewart, the Cavaliers' No. 1 singles player for the third straight season.

Such a statement would have seemed preposterous before the 2001-02 school year, when Boland took over at U.Va. Under his predecessors, the Cavaliers generally had won more matches than they lost but weren't considered contenders for ACC championships, let alone NCAA titles.

Enter Boland, a relentless recruiter who'd won big as coach at Indiana State, his alma mater. He saw no reason why he couldn't do the same at U.Va.

"It was certainly someplace you could bring in the best and brightest kids," Boland recalled. "It made it easier from Day One for me to sell the university, because I believed in it so much myself."

The Cavaliers' facilities are good and getting better, with an indoor tennis center under construction at the university-owned Boar's Head Inn. Even so, he concedes, his rebuilding project is "ahead of schedule. I always have had high expectations, but this had come a little faster than I thought it would."

U.Va. finished 12-12 in 2002 and, after adding a highly regarded recruiting class led by Californians Stewart, Rylan Rizza and Darrin Cohen, 20-8 in '03. The Cavaliers went 24-4 last season with a starting lineup made up of freshmen and sophomores.

Boland still doesn't start any seniors, but two freshmen have earned spots in the lineup. Somdev Devvarman is 37-6 at No. 2 singles, and Treat Huey is 29-10 at No. 4 singles.

Not so long ago, Boland struggled to simply get prospects of Devvarman's and Huey's caliber to return his phone calls. Case in point: Stewart, who had scholarship offers from such perennial powers as Stanford, Cal, UCLA and Southern Cal.

"I'd never heard anything about the University of Virginia growing up in California," said Stewart. "When [Boland] called me, I didn't call him back."

But Boland's perseverance paid off. And now that U.Va. is a national-championship contender, he said, prospects will "call me back. At least I get a return phone call or e-mail after enough tries."

His phone may be ringing off the hook by the middle of next week.

Gut feeling leads to good fit
Virginia's risk turns into a big reward after Poskay's journey to Cavaliers' starting lineup
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
May 21, 2005

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Matt Poskay stands alone. Never in high school lacrosse has anyone topped the mind-boggling numbers he put up at A.L. Johnson High.

In four seasons on the varsity, Poskay scored 362 goals -- a national high school record. He also totaled 106 assists, giving him 468 career points. Yet most of the perennial powers in college lacrosse showed no interest in him.

Never mind that he was an accomplished athlete and excellent student. Poskay came not from the lacrosse hotbeds of Long Island, N.Y., or Baltimore or Central New York, but from a small public school in Clark, N.J., that faced suspect competition and wasn't known for producing Division I talent.

"This is the 'Hoosiers' story," University of Virginia coach Dom Starsia said. "This is Jimmy Chitwood."

Syracuse and Johns Hopkins and Princeton may not have been enamored of Poskay, but U.Va. had one scholarship left for 2002-03, and the scoring sensation from Jersey intrigued Starsia.

When he visited Clark, Starsia saw the regard in which the town held favorite son Matt Poskay.

"Every coach he's ever had is at the house," Starsia recalled, laughing, "and you feel like they're going to erect a statue of him when he leaves."

And so Poskay received his first -- and only -- scholarship offer, from one of the sport's most storied programs.

"It was a gamble," Starsia said, but it's one the Cavaliers are delighted they took.

A 6-0, 204-pound midfielder, Poskay was a valuable reserve on the team that won the NCAA title in 2003. He became a starter in '04 and, now, as a junior, is second on the team with 24 goals. He's enrolled in U.Va.'s McIntire School of Commerce and is among the most well-liked and respected members of the team.

"Even though I feel his best lacrosse is ahead of him, it's been well worth every cent of personal and scholarship investment," Starsia said.

Fourth-seeded Virginia (10-3) plays fifth-seeded Navy (12-3) in an NCAA tournament quarterfinal today in Baltimore. A season ago, the Cavaliers failed to advance to the NCAAs for the first time under Starsia, and his veterans have savored the team's return to prominence.

"You learn that things aren't given," Poskay said. "You gotta work at it. You gotta do it. You're not guaranteed anything."

Starsia's comments notwithstanding, Poskay said, A.L. Johnson High isn't as small as the fictional Hickory High depicted in "Hoosiers." He admitted, however, to having wondered at times how he'd fare at U.Va. playing with and against products of the nation's elite high school programs.

"But then you get out on the field and realize you can play with them," Poskay said.

Starsia calls him an "unusual player," and the statistics reflect that. Poskay, who had four assists in 2004, has yet to collect his first this season. He's not a selfish player, but his job is to put the ball in the back of the net. Poskay finishes.

"He definitely has a knack for it," Starsia said, "and the kids have developed great confidence in throwing him the ball in unusual spots."

UVa. drops Duke, 15-13, in women's semifinal
Cavs in 5-2 hole early but avenge two losses behind Appelt, Leachman
By Kevin Van Valkenburg
Sun Staff
Originally published May 21, 2005

It was fairly clear coming into the 2005 season that Virginia, the women's lacrosse defending national champion, had nearly everything.

The Cavaliers had talent, experience, the best player in the country - and a mountain of pressure on their shoulders. That pressure looked rather burdensome at times this season, when Virginia's focus wavered a bit in some games.

But the Cavs appear dialed in now.

Virginia got three goals each from Amy Appelt and Tyler Leachman to knock off Duke, 15-13, last night in the NCAA semifinals in front of 3,218 at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

The Cavaliers (17-4), who entered the tournament as the No. 6 seed, advanced to play No. 1 Northwestern (20-0) in tomorrow's final.

With the victory, Virginia avenged two previous losses to Duke (17-4) this season, and they will now make their sixth appearance in the NCAA final under coach Julie Myers.

"I'm incredibly proud of the effort the girls put out their tonight," Myers said. "I think from the opening draws to the final whistle, our girls put their hearts and everything they had out on the field."

It was also a measure of redemption for Appelt, the 2004 Tewaaraton Trophy winner. In the previous meeting between Virginia and Duke for the Atlantic Coast Conference championship, Appelt was held scoreless for the first time in her career.

Last night, two of her goals helped Virginia pull away in the second half, and she also set a record for career goals in NCAA tournament history with 39, passing Maryland's Jen Adams, who had 37.

"We played composed today," said Appelt. "We knew we could play better than the first two teams they saw this year."

Things didn't start out in Virginia's favor. Duke outran and outmaneuvered the Cavs in the early going, taking a 5-2 lead behind a goal and two assists from sophomore Kristen Waagbo, a former Mount Hebron star and two-time Sun All-Metro Player of the Year.

In fact, the Blue Devils were so sharp early, it looked, at least momentarily, as if the game might go the way it did the first time the teams met this season. In that April 2 game, Duke jumped out to a 10-2 lead in the first half, and Virginia never really recovered as the Blue Devils won, 16-12.

Myers wasn't interested in seeing that happen again, and so with 21:18 left in the first half, she called a timeout that seemed to change everything. The Cavaliers settled down, won the next draw (the start of a run of several by Ashleigh Haas), and amazingly, didn't relinquish control of play for the rest of the half.

Haas scored twice and had an assist, and Leachman also had two goals and an assist as Virginia went on a 7-1 run over the next 14 minutes.

The Blue Devils' offense, which controlled the action early, couldn't seem to catch a break even when things were going right. Leigh Jester broke free, but had an apparent fast-break goal taken off the board because of a crease violation, and Virginia capitalized on the mistake, getting back-to-back goals from Kim Connors and Leachman to go up 9-6 with 4:49 to play.

Waagbo scored her second goal of the half to cut it to 9-7, but by then, Virginia was getting warmed up.

During a two-minute stretch in the second half, the Cavs scored five straight goals, turning a 10-10 tie into a 15-10 game.