Cavs go for second straight national title
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
May 22, 2005

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Coach Julie Myers and the members of the Virginia women’s lacrosse team come across as confident, not arrogant. They no doubt believe in themselves, might question those who don’t or didn’t but arrogant is not the label that comes to mind at first glance.

It could be argued they even have a right to be. These Cavaliers are the defending national champions and reached the NCAA title game for the third-straight year with a 15-13 victory over Duke in the national semifinals here Friday night.

For only a moment after the win that earned her team the right to face Northwestern in today’s championship game did Myers slide slightly past confidence and into the slightly arrogant column. She gets a pass, however, as she was answering a somewhat misinformed and somewhat disrespectful question from the media.

The question referenced top-seeded Northwestern’s 20-0 record and how Virginia expected to ruin its’ perfect season.

“They’re trying to defend their perfect season. I always think experience is so key and last year, Princeton was trying to defend their perfect season as well,” Myers said.

Myers of course was referencing the Cavaliers’ 10-4 victory over Princeton last May that earned them the title.

“Northwestern has had a great season. They are a terrific program. We were able to scout their game [Friday night] and we will try to have some counters for their powerful attackers,” Myers said. “I think if we move the ball as well as we did [against Duke] and play as hard we did, they are going to have the hands full as well. I know it will be a tremendous battle that I know our kids will show up for.”

Immediately after that question, Myers and her players received another that might have irked them just a tad.

Did they ever doubt they would be back here in the title game?

Their collective answers: A couple of stern shaking heads with the word “nope” used prominently.

“I think you guys did. I know some people did but not us,” said Myers, addressing the media directly on that one.

Virginia seems to be a team that excels when driven by a single purpose. Last season, the Cavaliers were motivated by an overtime loss to Princeton in the 2003 title game. This season, the opportunity to defend their title and those losses to Duke seemed to propel the Cavs in the postseason.

Now, the tables will be perhaps turned on the Cavaliers. Virginia defeated Northwestern in the quarterfinals of the NCAAs last season, ending the Wildcats’ season. Thus, Virginia is the last team to beat Northwestern and there is little doubt that Virginia was the preferred opponent for the Wildcats.

“I think one of the best things [Northwestern] has going for them is that they really believe they are the best team and are impossible to beat,” Myers said. “They are a year more experienced. They had a heartbreaking loss to end last season and they haven’t lost since that game.”

UVa dispatches Navy to move to Final Four
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
May 22, 2005

BALTIMORE – The Virginia men’s lacrosse team is back in the Final Four.

Nothing about that statement is as simple or easy as the 11 words it took to write.

Drew Thompson cranked a 10-yard blast past Navy goalie Matt Russell with 5:21 left in the game to break an 8-8 tie and lift the fourth-seeded Cavaliers to a 10-8 victory Saturday in the NCAA quarterfinals at Homewood Field.

With the win, Virginia advances to the NCAA semifinals next weekend in Philadelphia. The Cavaliers (11-3) will face top-seeded Johns Hopkins, a 19-9 winner over UMass in the first of the two quarterfinals Saturday at Homewood.

While this will be Virginia’s eighth appearance in the Final Four under Dom Starsia, fifth in the past seven years and 24th overall, this quarterfinal victory was not like any of the others that preceded it.

Much of that is due to last season’s 5-8 campaign that saw the Cavaliers, who entered the season as the defending national champions, miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1992. Of course, style-wise this was also a “classic” game according to Starsia.

“There is no question this one is different. In the middle of 2004, I was terrified,” Starsia said. “You didn’t know if you were ever going to win a game, you don’t know who you are and you don’t know if you can coach anymore.”

Enduring that, however, made the smiles a little wider and the joy a little more joyful this Saturday.

“I think having gone through that, however, made us enjoy this more. Usually, getting to the Final Four is not special enough for folks but I think this year everyone appreciated hearing our name called for the tournament, appreciated beating Albany in the first round and certainly appreciated beating Navy today and going back to the Final Four.”

Midfielder Matt Poskay, now with 28 goals and no assists on the season, had four goals for the Cavaliers. Freshman Ben Rubeor, who added the finishing touches with a tally with 1:40 to play, had three goals and two assists. Kyle Dixon had a goal and three assists while John Christmas had a goal and two assists. UVa leading scorer Matt Ward, dogged all day by Navy defensemen, was held scoreless for the first time all season.

Billy Looney had three goals for Navy (12-4) while Graham Gill, Starsia’s nephew, and Ben Horn each had two goals and an assist.

Virginia led 5-4 at intermission when Poskay ripped a shot past Russell with 1:29 left in the half. Both Poskay and Rubeor were Virginia’s most valuable first half commodities as Navy concentrated on taking away Christmas and Ward. The strategy worked as that duo combined for just an assist in the first half but in turn, Poskay and Rubeor accounted for four first-half goals.

“We couldn’t have been more prepared to play Virginia but the problem was we had to play against Virginia,” said Navy coach Richie Meade.

Poskay’s unquestioned role on this team is that of a finisher and that was certainly the case Saturday. As Ward and Christmas were contained, it was Poskay that found the necessary space to maneuver.

“Today, I just did the same thing I did in every game. I was just doing my part and working to get open,” Poskay said. “My teammates did a great job of finding me.”

As for an assist this season?

“I don’t know. My teammates kid me about that. Hopefully, I will get one. We will see,” Poskay said.

Virginia managed to extend its lead to 7-4 with 11:25 left in the third quarter on goals by Christmas and another from Poskay.

With the Midshipmen dominating the faceoffs - Navy’s Chris Pieczonka won 16 of the 22 overall - one would have assumed that Navy would find a way to get back in the game and it did.

Goals by Looney, Horn and Nick Mirabito to end the quarter brought the Midshipmen to within 8-7 and then another tally by Looney to begin the fourth tied the game at 8.

The game stayed knotted at 8 for the next six minutes as both teams couldn’t seem to notch the decisive goal. Finally, it was Thompson –-left open on the backside of the Navy defense - that blasted a shot that Russell, an All-American last season, could not stop.

“My instinct has been to shoot low, but we practiced all week to prepare ourselves against [Russell], who is good stopping the low shots,” Thompson said. “That one I shot high and we got it past him.”

Virginia’s Jack deVilliers, perhaps proving it’s when you win faceoffs and not how many, snared the ensuing one to allow Virginia to control the final minutes. Rubeor then scored with 1:40 to play for the final margin.

“This was a gut-check win for us. That’s was a great lacrosse game, it was probably fun to watch,” Starsia said. “It’s been a bit of a ride for us in the last 12 months, well, actually 24 months. Certainly we are real proud to be going back to the Final Four.”

Virginia cruises past Washington in NCAA
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
May 22, 2005

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - All week long in practice leading up to the NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Championships, the most in-demand person on Virginia’s team was freshman Treat Huey.
The top four players on Sweet 16 opponent Washington’s roster were all left-handers, which meant different styles to make adjustments to, and a different look for most of the Cavaliers’ top players. Because Huey is also a lefty, UVa’s top three singles players all wanted a piece of him for court time.
Apparently, Huey’s efforts paid big dividends on Saturday as second-ranked Virginia downed No. 15 Washington, 4-0, and moved on to today’s Round of Eight. The Cavaliers (27-2) face Pac-10 co-champion UCLA, 24-3, in the quarterfinals at Texas A&M’s Mitchell Tennis Center in a 2 p.m. (Eastern) match.
“I’ve been hitting with them and serving to them the entire past week,” said Huey, who is the No. 4 player in UVa’s singles lineup. “That obviously helped.”
After taking two of the three doubles matches to start the day (the other was stopped after UVa won the doubles point), the Cavaliers won three singles matches to take the 4-0 victory.
Among the winners in the singles was Huey, who also faced a lefty, beating Washington’s Daniel Chu 6-1, 6-0, giving the Cavs a 2-0 lead early in the contest. Ironically, Huey is the only UVa player who didn’t have a left-handed guinea pig to work against in practice all week.
Still, he was so efficient under the blazing Texas sun that it really didn’t matter. His match was over in the blink of an eye.
“He did a good job in regards of staying focused,” said Virginia coach Brian Boland of Huey’s blitzing victory. “It’s easy when you get up 6-0 or whatever to let that slide a little bit. But he did a good job staying with the match.”
The freshman from Alexandria confirmed it was difficult to keep focused.
“[Chu] looked like he wanted to give up, so I kept hitting the ball in to make him work,” Huey said. “The entire time he looked like he didn’t care at all, so I definitely looked around a little to see how everybody else was doing. But I still played pretty well.”
Admittedly, Huey said his glances at other matches is a bad habit, but the young Wahoo probably liked what he saw.
While No. 1 singles Doug Stewart and No. 3 singles Rylan Rizza were locked in struggles against two tough Huskies opponents, UVa’s No. 2 singles Somdev Devvarman, and No. 5 singles Marko Miklo had cruised to first set wins and No. 6 singles Darrin Cohen had bounced back from a 6-4 first set loss to win a 6-3 second set.
Devvarman, who took a 6-3 first set, was deadlocked 5-5 in the second against Washington’s Christoph Palmanshofer. But the rookie from India and ACC Freshman of the Year, won each point of his serve to take a 6-5 lead before closing out Palmanshofer, 7-5.
That point gave UVa a3-0 lead with four matches still pending.
All Boland wanted was one more win to close out the match and get his players out of the boiling 90-degree temperatures.
Stewart won a 6-4 first set against Washington’s Alex Vlaski, the No. 6 seeded player in the tournament, but dropped the second set 7-5.
Rizza had bounced back from a 3-1 deficit to win the first set 7-6 (tiebreaker), but was trailing 3-1 in the second set.
Miklo had taken a 6-2 first set over Pete Scharler and was cruising in the second, while at No. 6, Cohen had dropped a 6-4 first set only to win the second 6-3 and was up 2-0 in the third when Miklo delivered the winning blows in a 6-2, 6-2 triumph.
That gave UVa the four points to capture the match and move on.
“The doubles gave us some momentum going into singles,” said Boland. “The guys were really focused on an extremely hot day.”
Well, relatively hot. For Devvarman, it was like a day at the beach.
“It was like home,” laughed Devvarman. “Back home in Chennai [India] it is much hotter than this, but with 92 percent humidity. Now, I’m really enjoying this weather and trying to use it to my advantage.”
It had to be encouraging to Boland that his two freshmen won key battles in the match.
“They have been so solid all year long and just keep getting better and better,” the UVa coach said of Treat and Devvarman. “This is really impressive for them considering this is their first experience in the Sweet 16. It’s tough to come out there and compose themselves the way those two young men did.”
Miklo, who hails from Bratislava, Solvakia, usually doesn’t get to finish his matches because he plays long games and sets. Knowing his teammates needed only one more point and that the remaining matches could have stretched long into the day, he took care of business.
“I was just thinking about winning that last game and getting off the court,” said Miklo, who was up 5-2 and 40-30 on the next point while trying to break serve.
“I knew Doug was at the end of his second set, so I really wanted to win and tried to do everything to win that game.”
He did to set up today’s showdown with UCLA, a team that Virginia defeated 4-2 during the indoor season. But the Bruins were without their top singles player, who was injured at the time.
“We played them indoors and that was totally different,” Boland said. “But today, I just didn’t want our guys to look ahead past Washington. The bottom line is you get to play this tournament once a year. You leave it all on the court. That’s our focus.”

UCLA presents a strong challenge to Virginia. The Bruins boast two of the top dozen singles players in the country, No. 1 Luben Pampoulov (seeded seventh), and No. 2 Benjamin Kohlloeffel (seeded 11th), who both glided to wins in UCLA’s 4-1 rout of Tennessee.
Of course, winning the doubles point was a big deal for Virginia.
At one point, he had an extensive chat with his No. 3 doubles team of Cohen and Stewart, who bounced back to win, 8-4.
“Here were a couple of things we weren’t doing well,” Boland said. “Obviously [Washington’s Mike] Ricks was going down the line a lot and beating us on his return, just consistently beating us down the line. That was one thing, just to stay at home so we wouldn’t get beat down the line.
“In reverse to them, when we were returning, we were able to get some free points by going right at them,” Boland said. “And we just weren’t moving enough. We weren’t making our returns, we missed too many first serves and started out really flat. Just to get the energy up. What I thought helped us break and get back in was that we threw up a couple of lobs.”

Devvarman a big asset for Virginia
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
May 22, 2005

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - He’s not an intimidating guy at 5-foot-11, 150 pounds, and a broad, quick smile.

But put a racquet in his hand and Somdev Devvarman (pronounced SOMM-dev dev-VAR-man) becomes your worst nightmare if you find yourself on the other side of the net.

That’s what happened to Washington’s Christoph Palmanshofer on Saturday afternoon when he was beaten 6-3, 7-5 by Somdev in Virginia’s 4-0 victory over the Huskies in the NCAA men’s tennis Sweet 16 matches at Texas A&M.

There’s a good chance that when the season ends Devvarman will be named the top freshman men’s tennis player in the country.

Dominant force

By his own admission, he didn’t come to Charlottesville thinking about dominating college tennis. But he has.

Saturday’s win was the 38th of his freshman campaign and only two victories away from tying former Cavalier legend Brian Vahaly’s single-season school record of 40 singles triumphs. The ACC’s Rookie of the Year could bag bigger game if his romp through the NCAAs continue here over the next week in both the team and individual matches.

When UVa coach Brian Boland began to work his miracles with the Cavaliers’ program, he believed that Devvarman would be a nice fit. But dominate? No way.

“I would love to tell you that I did, but the truth is that he has really improved so much in the last six months,” Boland said of the freshman from Chennai, India. “We knew he would be a really solid player and a strong freshman, but he’s developed and come along much faster than we expected.”

Ranked No. 30 nationally as a singles player, Devvarman has been unbelievable.

“No question Somdev is as good as any freshman in the country, if not the best freshman in the country,” Boland said. “He’s becoming a more complete player every day.”

The second-ranked freshman in the nation, Devvarman has already beaten the highest ranked freshman in the country, Texas A&M’s Jerry Makowski.

But the mild-mannered, yet confident rookie is taking it all in stride.

“Everyone wants to come in and dominate college tennis,” Devvarman said. “I didn’t have that in mind when I came. I just wanted to play and things started going well for me from the start.”

Sharpening his game

It would have been easy to have shunned college offers and to have proceeded straight to professional tennis out of school back in India. Devvarman knew he had game, but he also knew he could develop a lot more.

He was looking for a great atmosphere and a better life. When Boland convinced him that UVa would be good for his tennis and good for his life, Devvarman’s interest was peaked. When he flew to Charlottesville for a look see, he was sold.

“About a year and a half ago, I won this big tournament [in India], and I beat guys who were ranked in the 200s in the world, but I had no idea what I was doing,” Devvarman said. “I was just playing tennis. I didn’t even know their ranking until I saw in the newspaper the next day and they were like No. 250.

“I thought to myself, ‘Hey, I just beat these guys without too much trouble ... maybe if I try hard enough, then someday I might get up there.’ I knew after beating those guys I was confident I could do some damage in college if I worked hard.”

Working hard is one of Devvarman’s traits and has helped him raise his play at least two levels by his own estimation. When he came to UVa, he was a solid player but didn’t have an extremely strong serve (a must in men’s tennis) and his forehand was good.

Now, his serve has improved as has his forehand. He makes a better transition to the net, can finish points rather than waiting on the opponent to make a mistake. He takes charge and is more aggressive.

Yet, it doesn’t shout at you.

“When you first watch him, he doesn’t strike you as someone being unbelievable,” said Boland. “He kind of grows on you as a strong competitor. He’s a workhorse on the court. You can see it in practice every day.”

Back in January at the Palm Springs National Collegiate, Devvarman made a believer of his coaches. He and freshman teammate Treat (pronounced TRETT) Huey teamed in doubles and won the tournament. He also performed well in singles and opened Boland’s eyes about the possibilities.

That also solved UVa’s issue of putting together a third doubles team, while allowing the Cavs to keep two former teams of upper classmen together.

None of the success has gone to the youngster’s head. He says he knows he is improving but doesn’t believe he has a complete game yet.

“When I came to Virginia I really couldn’t volley. Now, I know how to spell it,” Devvarman joked.

Indian humor.

“I started looking at the game differently from a mental aspect [one of his chief strengths as Boland is quick to point out], and I started having more fun,” Devvarman said. “I am excited because the future looks like fun. I’m loving the game so much more every day.”

If that’s not intimidating, just wait. He’s got three more years left, if he chooses, to keep getting better.

Doolittle delivers for Cavs
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
May 22, 2005

On a day designed to honor the seven-member senior class, it was a freshman that decided to steal the show.

Sean Doolittle hit a grand slam, drove in a career-high five runs and pitched four shutout innings in relief, guiding Virginia to a 10-4 come-from-behind win and a series sweep over Duke at Davenport Field.

With the victory, Virginia finishes the regular season 38-17 overall and 14-14 in the ACC. UVa will be the No. 7 seed in the ACC Baseball Tournament and will face Clemson on Wednesday at 1 p.m. in Jacksonville, Fla.

The series sweep over the Blue Devils also gave Virginia its sixth win in seven days.

“I talked to our team before this series and told them to take one game at a time,” Virginia coach Brian O’Connor said. “We just had to win Thursday, Friday and then Saturday and hopefully at the end of the week we would look at a three-game sweep and it worked out that way.”

Duke (14-38, 5-25) did not go down without a fight.

The Blue Devils pushed three runs across in the third inning as UVa starter Mike Ballard gave up two hits and a walk. Ballard worked out of the jam by getting the final two batters in the frame - Brett Bartles and John Berger - to strike out swinging.

O’Connor said Ballard did not have his “best stuff,” but placed a lot of importance on the junior’s ability to work out of the third, which proved to be his final inning of work.

“He got a big strikeout to end that inning ... and he will be back next week and ready to pitch a good ballgame,” O’Connor said.

And then Doolittle worked his magic.

The freshman drove in a run in the third with an RBI single to knock in Tim Henry, making it 3-1.

Doolittle then took the ball for O’Connor and worked a quick, three-up, three-down fourth.

The momentum continued to shift toward the home dugout in the fourth as one of the seven seniors - Scott Headd - blasted his third homer of the season.

Trailing by a run, Virginia delivered its biggest blow in the fifth.

The Cavaliers opened the inning with three straight successful bunts to load the bases. Tim Henry started it by reaching on an errant throw, Matt Street pushed a bunt past the pitcher and Zimmerman laid down a bunt to third with a 3-1 count.

“You do whatever you have to do to get the win,” O’Connor said of the bunts. “The second baseman was playing a little deep [on Henry and Street], so you look for the push bunt for our guys. When you do that, it puts pressure on the other team.”

That brought the man of the hour - Doolitle - to the plate.

The rookie said with the bases loaded as a hitter, “you have a lot of confidence in that situation.”

“A fly ball to the outfield does the job with a sac fly and even if you hit a hard groundball and they roll two [for a double play], you still get a run,” Doolitte said. “In that situation, I was just looking for a pitch that I could get the barrel on and luckily I was able to get it up in the air.”

Way up in the air for that matter.

Doolittle blasted the 0-1 pitch from Duke starter Ryan Sember over the right field wall, giving UVa a 6-3 lead.

It was his 11th homer of the season, the most on the team, and the third round-tripper for Doolittle at home.

“After being down 3-0, we knew that a three-spot wasn’t going to be enough to keep us down especially on senior day,” Doolittle said. “We were really going to do everything that we could to get these seniors a win in their last game here.

“I was able to push us ahead [with the homer] and after doing that I felt like I was going to be able to keep us there on the mound.”

Doolittle did just that, tossing two more shutout innings on the mound, which pushed his current scoreless streak to 24 innings. Doolittle has not allowed a run since April 1.

Virginia added two insurance runs in the seventh and a single run in the eighth and the team’s closer, Casey Lambert, finished the game with two solid innings of relief work.

For O’Connor, the win gives the second-year coach back-to-back seasons with 38 or more wins, something that had not ever happened for the program.

“It was an emotional day,” O’Connor said. “We scuffled through the first few innings and then we started playing some very, very good baseball especially offensively.”

O’Connor will quickly shift his thoughts to the ACC Tournament, an event UVa was eliminated from last year after losing its first two games.

“The ACC Tournament is a very challenging tournament and we will play probably the hottest team in the league in Clemson,” O’Connor said. “They just swept Miami and they swept the weekend before that at Wake Forest. Win or lose that ballgame and you will have a challenging game the next day.

“Our kids will look forward to it and we need to go down there and play good baseball. We want to win and if we play well it really helps our chances of making the NCAA Tournament.”

News & Notes. O’Connor said after the game that Jeff Kamrath would start the tournament opener on Wednesday on the mound. … UVa finishes the regular season with a 2.74 earned run average and opposing batters are hitting just .229 against the pitching staff. … Clemson took two of three from the Cavaliers during the regular season in a series played at Clemson.

UVa sinks Navy to reach the Final Four
By Jeff White / Media General News Service
May 22, 2005

BALTIMORE - Twenty-four months after winning its third NCAA title - a stretch that seemed to last an eternity for Dom Starsia and his players - the University of Virginia men’s lacrosse team is headed back to the final four.

In an NCAA tournament quarterfinal Saturday, fourth-seeded UVa battled to a 10-8 victory over fifth-seeded Navy before 6,504 at Johns Hopkins’ Homewood Field. The Cavaliers (11-3) never trailed but couldn’t relax until the final seconds against the Midshipmen (12-4), last year’s NCAA runners-up.

“I felt like they were never going to go away,” Starsia said.

Junior midfielder Matt Poskay matched his career high with four goals, and freshman attackman Ben Rubeor added three. Rubeor secured his hat trick with 1:40 left, scoring into an empty net off a pass from senior attackman John Christmas, who’d eluded two defenders, one of them Navy goalie Matt Russell.

That made it 10-8. Senior Jack deVilliers, dominated on faceoffs most of the afternoon by Navy’s Chris Pieczonka, controlled the ensuing draw, and the Cavaliers were headed to the NCAA semifinals for the eighth time in Starsia’s 13 seasons as their coach.

“We thought about (replacing deVilliers on that faceoff),” Starsia said, “but you go to your senior one more time, and he won a big one right at the end.”

Midfielders Drew Thompson and Kyle Dixon teamed on what proved to be the game-winning goal. Dixon, a sophomore, took a deft pass from Dixon, a junior who had one goal and three assists, and fired a 10-yard missile past Russell’s left shoulder with 5:21 left.

UVa will face top-seeded Johns Hopkins (14-0) next Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, at a time to be determined. When they met March 26, the Blue Jays beat visiting Virginia 9-7. Hopkins embarrassed Massachusetts 19-9 in Saturday’s first game at Homewood.

Win or lose next weekend, this is one trip to the final four Virginia is sure to savor. A season ago, the Cavaliers finished 5-8 and failed to advance to the NCAAs for the first time under Starsia.

“In the middle of 2004, you’re absolutely terrified,” he recalled Saturday. “You don’t know if you’re ever going to win a game. You don’t know who you are. You don’t know if you can coach anymore, all those things.

“But having gone through it, it gave us the luxury of enjoying this a little bit more, I think. Usually at Virginia, even to get to the final four is not special enough for folks ... For our kids, especially, it’s quite a statement, I think, after what we went through last year.”

In a game in which its leading scorer, junior attackman Matt Ward, was held without a point for the first time this season, Virginia went into halftime ahead 5-4. The Cavs opened a 7-4 lead on Poskay’s third goal, with 11:23 left in the third period, only to see the Midshipmen rally. A goal with 3 seconds left in the third pulled Navy to 8-7, and midfielder Billy Looney made it 8-8 with 11:02 remaining.

“When the game was tied in the fourth quarter, if we had gotten the lead, I felt like we were going to win the game,” Midshipmen coach Richie Meade said. “I just felt that the momentum would have shifted so much at that point ... To their credit, it didn’t happen.”

Virginia ships out Mids, 10-8, on late goals
By Jamison Hensley
Sun Staff
Originally published May 22, 2005
 

Homewood Field remained a scene of heartache for the Navy lacrosse team.

Despite dictating the tempo and imposing their game plan yesterday, the Midshipmen still bowed late to Virginia, 10-8, before 6,504 in an NCAA quarterfinal game.

Drew Thompson broke an 8-8 tie by scoring his only goal with 5:21 left in the game and Ben Rubeor added an insurance goal nearly four minutes later as Virginia was able to finally put away a pesky Navy team.

The fourth-seeded Cavaliers (11-3) advance to Saturday's final four against Johns Hopkins, while No. 5 Navy (12-4) must deal with another emotional defeat on the Johns Hopkins campus, where it has not won since 1969.

"When I envisioned the way the game was going to go, it went pretty much the way we hoped," Navy coach Richie Meade said. "We did everything we wanted to do. And they were just good enough to beat us."

The Midshipmen trailed by as many as three goals in the second half (7-4) before going on their best run of the game.

Billy Looney's extra-man goal forced the second tie at 8 nearly four minutes into the fourth quarter and put Navy on the verge of taking its first lead of the game.

"If we would have gotten the lead, I felt like we were going to win the game," Meade said. "The momentum would have shifted at that point."

Navy's best chance came when midfielder Tommy Wallin rolled in from the left side and had a point-blank shot on goal. But the officials called Wallin for stepping on the crease, which became the costliest of the Midshipmen's countless turnovers.

On Virginia's next possession, Kyle Dixon threaded a pass to the back side of the defense, where a wide-open Thompson put his 11th goal of the season over goalie Matt Russell's left shoulder.

"We practiced all week that this kid [Russell] was real good low," Thompson said. "On the last goal, I got a great feed and I knew I just had to put it high."

Before that score, Navy had shut out the nation's fourth-best offense for 16 minutes, limiting the Cavaliers to six shots in that drought.

"The [game-winning] goal was more of a great play on their part than a poor play on our part," Meade said. "It was a tough pass to throw through and he got it through there."

With Virginia ahead 9-8, Jack deVilliers (St. Paul's) won the Cavaliers' only faceoff in the fourth quarter and allowed them to essentially run out the remaining five minutes of the game. When Navy double-teamed to try to strip away the ball, Rubeor (a freshman from Loyola) iced Virginia's sixth straight victory over the Midshipmen with 1:40 left.

The Cavaliers were paced by Rubeor (three goals, two assists), Matt Poskay (four goals) and Dixon (one goal, three assists).

The loss for the Midshipmen wasted outstanding efforts by Russell (12 saves) and faceoff specialist Chris Pieczonka (16-for-22). It also magnified Navy's poor shooting close to the goal, which its coach bemoaned.

"If we had scored some of the balls we got inside, we would have been up around 10 or 11 goals and that might have been enough for us to win," Meade said.

What stalled Navy the most was a career-worst day for attackman Jon Birsner, who is considered the quarterback of the offense with 31 assists this season. But Birsner was shut out by the strong and athletic play of defenseman Steve Holmes.

"Jon Birsner is one of the best attackmen in the country and felt like the offense spun through him," Virginia coach Dom Starsia said. "Steven's job was to take him out of the game."

A stunned Navy team walked off the field silently, contemplating a fourth quarter that seemed to be in its control. The Midshipmen had relentlessly pressured Virginia's defense by pushing the ball in transition and had clamped down defensively.

But unlike last season, Navy failed to put together a magical run to the NCAA championship game, falling short in their bid for a return trip.

"You know how good it feels to go to play in the championship game, so yeah it is more disappointing," Russell said. "You tasted it and now we're not going back there."