UVa not satisfied with Final 4 appearance
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
May 28, 2005

When you have appeared in 17 national semifinals, the idea of just happy to be there hardly applies.

While its obvious goal would be to win today’s contest against top-seeded Johns Hopkins and then win Monday’s final against either Duke or Maryland, there is an unquestioned feeling through its coaches and players that the Virginia men’s lacrosse team is indeed enjoying being back in this position.

Last season is the reason.

In 2004, the Cavaliers were the defending national champions but struggled to a 5-8 finish and missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1992.

“I think it’s definitely something you have to look at. Maybe you come off a year like we had in 2003 when you win the championship and you are a bit overconfident going into the next season. Perhaps that’s what happened last year. It’s just really nice to be back,” said junior attackman Matt Ward, who leads the Cavaliers with 34 goals and 11 assists. “You think of the Patriots a little. They won that first Super Bowl and then missed the playoffs the next season and then have gone back to win it again and again. There is no doubt last season was a springboard to this season.”

There are a lot of things the Cavaliers chose to forget about last season and the last

12 months. Aside from the discontent about the on-field production, Virginia and its coach, Dom Starsia, dealt with several personal tragedies and setbacks. Starsia alone had three close friends, including a former teammate at Brown and his father-in-law pass away while the whole program was stung by the passing of longtime Virginia sports information director Doyle Smith last June.

Starsia often says this season was a rebirth for everyone in the program. Starsia claims there was a rejuvenated feeling that met the players in the beginning of practices last fall.

Collectively, the Cavaliers have gained a certain appreciation for things they perhaps took for granted.

“I think having gone through that, however, made us enjoy this more,” Starsia said after last Saturday’s 10-8 quarterfinal win over Navy. “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 and going back to the Final Four.”

Starsia clearly enjoys coaching this team. Not one to compare one group to another but Starsia’s affection for these particular players is readily apparent.

“This is a group that has been fun to be around. The whole trip has been enjoyable. … They are a hard-working and very business-like group,” Starsia said. “I don’t think any of our teams have ever gotten the credit they deserve for their work. It’s indicative of people’s assessment of UVa. They think we don’t work hard enough and that’s a mistake in perception. This team quite obviously had more question marks early on. This group understood early that they had to come to work every day in order to make this happen and along the way it was never easy.”

Added attackman John Christmas: “In 2003, we sort of cruised into the title game. We were a very confident group. This year has almost been more enjoyable because we’ve had to work for each and every thing. There’s a feeling that we’ve earned everything.”

When the Cavaliers gathered for practice Monday morning, the preparation for and focus on Johns Hopkins began immediately but there were also moments of reflection.

“I opened my comments Monday by saying ‘congratulations fellas.’ I think we are allowed to enjoy that. I think we are allowed to feel that we’ve accomplished something and I don’t think that distracts us at all from what the mission is,” Starsia said. “I hate the we-have-nothing-to-lose perspective of things. Why would anyone think that Hopkins has more invested in this than we do? I told them that people might say they we’ll be better next year but no one has promised us anything. I think the thing that matters to us now is making the most of this opportunity.”

The opportunity is a challenging one.

Johns Hopkins is 14-0 and defeated Virginia 9-7 in regular season contest on March 26 in Baltimore. The Blue Jays have been impressive in their first two NCAA contests, dispatching Marist and UMass by a combined 41-15.

“They are the most complete and experienced team in the field. There is no question about that. They’ve found a formula for success throughout the regular season,” Starsia said.

The Blue Jays, winners of seven NCAA titles, are on a quest to capture the tradition rich program’s first championship since 1987. There is always a cauldron of pressure around the Hopkins’ program and an undefeated mark, the top seed in the NCAAs and the fact it to fell to Syracuse in last season’s semifinals likely only adds to that. The current Johns Hopkins senior class is 53-6 in their careers but that title has still managed to elude them.

Starsia relates because for a time the same pressures chased him and his program until capturing the NCAA title in 1999.

“I respect [Johns Hopkins coach] Dave Pietramala tremendously. He’s a great guy and he works his tail off. There is a burden there for those guys that wear on your soul. We’ve been there. People need to understand how difficult it is to win at the very, very top at the end of the season,” Starsia said. “There is only team that is winning this season but there are a lot of teams that want to win.”

Since 1996, Virginia has three times contributed to Hopkins’ NCAA sufferings. In 1996 and 1999, the Cavaliers eliminated the Blue Jays in the national semifinals. In 2003, Virginia defeated Johns Hopkins 9-7 in the national title game.

“Virginia was the team that took the national championship from us during my sophomore year and I know they have beaten us in a couple of other NCAAs recently. Our record is really good against every other team until you come to Virginia. We are

2-3 against them during my career,” said Johns Hopkins senior midfielder Kyle Harrison. “They are the one team that has consistently beaten us the last few years so it would be nice to beat Virginia but anyone we play, we would be just as focused.”

Everyone - on both sides - knows about their respective good and bad recent history but neither has grasped to make any extra fodder in anticipation for today’s contest.

“You definitely look at something like that. We beat them in the championship two years ago. They probably want a little revenge for that but they’re not going to come out overconfident. They know we are going to come out there and give them a good game,” Ward said. “Their motivation to beat us will have to motivate us to raise it to another level to match their intensity.”

Harrison does it all for Hopkins
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
May 27, 2005

It’s a term used by several lacrosse coaches, while St. Anne’s-Belfield coach and athletic director Doug Tarring may deserve some of the credit for the exact coinage.

FOGO. Face off, get off.

It’s a somewhat endearing and somewhat chiding term to describe a faceoff specialist, a player in lacrosse whose role it is to take the faceoff and if he wins it, get off the field to be replaced by a more skilled offensive player.

Johns Hopkins senior midfielder Kyle Harrison earns many honors and descriptions but FOGO is not one of them. Harrison, sharing Hopkins’ faceoff duties with Greg Peyser, has won 34 of 55 faceoffs this season (61.8 percent) while also accumulating 20 goals, 21 assists and

57 groundballs to make him a finalist for the prestigious Tewaarton Award.

A throwback player then? That’s a moniker Harrison will accept.

“I’ll definitely take being called a throwback player. I take a lot of pride in doing a lot of different things on the field whether that’s taking faceoffs, playing offense, playing defense or playing the wing on the faceoffs,” Harrison said. “I want to do whatever my team needs me to do. That’s how it was back in the day and that’s what I feel that it needs to return to.”

If Harrison has a certain reverence for the game’s past, it’s hardly a surprise.

His father, Dr. Miles Harrison, helped start the lacrosse program as a player at Morgan State in 1970. Dr. Harrison recently co-authored a book, “Ten Bears”, about the trials and tribulations of that all-black lacrosse team in, what was then, nearly an all-white sport.

Now, 35 years later, race still seems to be an issue in lacrosse or at least some opt to make it one. Harrison and Virginia attackman John Christmas, who is African-American, spent nearly an hour on the phone with a New York Times writer this week in advance of Saturday’s game. The attention is perhaps understandable but Christmas prefers to be viewed simply as a lacrosse player and Harrison shares the same notion.

“I feel the exact same way. Maybe in our freshmen seasons I can understand why it was such a big deal because two black freshmen really had not come in and made a lot of noise in the college lacrosse game but we’re both seniors now and it’s been going on for three years now,” Harrison said. “I think we have established ourselves as lacrosse players and I know both of us would prefer to be looked at just as players and not so much from a race aspect.”

In agreement, to focus on race or any other issues may unfairly diminish Harrison’s on-field talents. Those alone could have any writer talking for an hour. Harrison won the McLaughlin Award last season as the nation’s top midfielder. In his junior season, Harrison compiled 26 goals, seven assists, won 60 of 109 faceoffs (55 percent) and led the team in groundballs with 69.

The obvious respect Harrison gets is that an opponent’s top defender almost always marks him. It will be no different this Saturday as Virginia’s Steve Holmes likely will draw the assignment of trying to slow down Harrison. Holmes has had success in doing so as Harrison has notched just two goals and an assist in two meetings against the Cavaliers.

“He’s clearly their leader. Kyle is a guy you are going to turn to. His body language on the field is indicative of a player who is willing to assume that role on the field and off the field also,” Virginia coach Dom Starsia said. “You can tell that his teammates respect him and he’s stepped up in key situations and made the plays. When we talk about facing Johns Hopkins, he’s the one you have to figure out to defend late in the game if that’s what it comes down to. … I don’t know him well but he’s a nice kid and a wonderful representative of Johns Hopkins. He’s one of those real marquee lacrosse players that comes around once in a while.”

As for the Virginia defense, Harrison is deferential and respectful when discussing that unit.

“They are one of the best defenses we face. They are all very athletic and fast. They can run with people. You cannot just beat them by running by them,” Harrison said. “They are aggressive and it seems like they go after every ball.”

In addition to his on-field talents, Harrison, a three-sport standout at the Friends School, has developed into something of an icon in his native Baltimore. After games, young Hopkins’ fans line up outside of the locker room at Homewood Field to garner Harrison’s autographs. He often obliges by signing each and every one. Harrison seems to be one of the rare athletes that earn positives comments from anyone who spends moments around him.

“He brings a different kind of athlete to the game, but I now think of him as an ambassador for the game,” Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala recently told the (Baltimore) Sun. “If there’s a poster boy for the sport right now, it’s that kid. He’s everything a star should be.”

There is probably one thing left that would cement Baltimore’s endearment of Harrison: bring Johns Hopkins its first NCAA title since 1987. At a school and in a city where lacrosse is so revered and so followed, there has been a certain pressure for 18 seasons to accomplish that goal.

“I think the media makes a big deal of it. I’m not sure how much we feel that pressure every day. The alumni really give us positive messages. They say it will happen. They tell us how proud they are of us as players and how we handle and conduct ourselves but they really don’t put pressure on us,” Harrison said. “I’m sure everyone on the team feels a little personal pressure, as every athlete does, but we don’t feel that or hear that from the outside as often as one might think.”

Virginia faces Clemson for second time in tourney
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
May 28, 2005

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - There are a number of ways to make bubbles disappear.
The method of choice for the Virginia baseball team appears to be simple - win games.
Entering the ACC Tournament with their NCAA Tournament aspirations firmly on the bubble, the Cavaliers erased those doubts on Wednesday and Thursday by winning back-to-back games over Clemson and North Carolina State.
Those wins also gave Virginia (40-17) a day off from action on Friday as the two teams the Cavaliers beat in Jacksonville, Fla. - Clemson and N.C. State - played in an elimination game.
Clemson (39-20) held on to beat N.C. State, 5-4, and advanced to face Virginia today at 10 a.m. Should Clemson win the opener, the two teams will meet again at 4 p.m.
As long as UVa avoids going 0-2 today, it will move on to Sunday’s championship game against the winner of Bracket 2 (Georgia Tech, Florida State or Wake Forest).
Given the double elimination format of bracket play in the ACC Tournament, the Cavaliers could easily be considered the favorite to advance past today’s games.
Virginia third baseman Ryan Zimmerman said he and his teammates would still look at the game as though they were the underdog since they are the seventh seed in the event.
“We have been the underdog all year,” Zimmerman said. “It is a lot easier to play that way. You really have nothing to lose. We are kind of the favorite in the bracket now but in the overall scheme of things, I think people will look at Clemson as the favorite. We just have to come out and play.”
Zimmerman, who is batting .389 (7 for 18) against Clemson this season, said he expects the Tigers to come out looking for revenge.
“We’ve already beat them once, so they’re going to come back, ready to get back at us,” Zimmerman said. “We’ve got to be ready to play when we come [today] because that other team’s going to be ready to get back at us.”
Both teams are among two of the hottest teams in college baseball.
Virginia has won eight straight games, the longest active streak among teams eligible for the NCAA Tournament. Clemson has won 11 of its last 12 games, with the only loss - an 8-1 setback to Virginia - coming on Wednesday.

Feeling fresh. Virginia’s pitching staff enters today’s game in what coach Brian O’Connor called “a perfect situation.”
Through the first two games, O’Connor has used only four pitchers - two starters and two relievers.
With the exception of those two starters - Matt Avery and Jeff Kamrath – every available pitcher on the 25-man roster is well rested.
“Pitching depth is critical in this tournament,” O’Connor said. “We got a complete game out of Matt Avery on Thursday against North Carolina State, a great outing by Jeff Kamrath against Clemson and we really only had to use one of our top relievers, Sean Doolittle, out of our bullpen and that was three days ago.”
Doolittle threw two scoreless innings against Clemson on Wednesday, throwing 33 pitches.

Getting the nod. Virginia junior Mike Ballard is expected to start this morning against Clemson.
Ballard pitched seven innings in a regular season start against the Tigers and he allowed just three hits and one earned run. He did not factor into the decision in the game played on April 16. Since that start, Ballard has thrown 20 innings and allowed six earned runs.
Ballard, considered a ground ball pitcher by his coaches, forced seven ground balls in his first start against the Tigers.
“Clemson has a bunch of guys that like to pull the ball,” said Zimmerman, a second-team All-ACC pick at third base. “Defense has been our strong suit all year. We have not disappointed in this tournament and hopefully we will be able to come back out and do what we have been doing all year.”
Clemson coach Jack Leggett said after his win on Friday over N.C. State that he would start Kris Harvey (5-3, 5.13 ERA) in the first game, and should they win that game, he would start freshman David Kopp (4-3, 4.75 ERA).
Harvey recorded a win against Virginia on the mound earlier this season when he went six innings. In that start, Harvey allowed four runs and 10 base runners (seven hits and three walks), but the Tigers scored 13 runs.
Things have not gone as well for Harvey since that outing. He went 3.2 innings and gave up five earned runs against N.C. State on April 22. That was followed by a 2.1 inning performance, in which he allowed four hits, four walks and four runs in a loss to Georgia Tech. In his most recent start, he left a start against Wake Forest on May 14 (2.0 IP, 3 ER) after he was hit by a pitch while batting.

Looking ahead. The NCAA selection committee will announce the 16 regional sites that will be used in next weekend’s NCAA Tournament on Sunday at 3:15 p.m. (ESPN).
With Sunday’s ACC Championship Game starting at 1 p.m., the end result of the contest will not impact the committee’s decision.
O’Connor said if he is coaching on Sunday that the regional sites would be the furthest thing from his mind.
“It is not that big of a thing,” O’Connor said. “You would like to host but if we are playing at 1 p.m. on Sunday we are playing to win an ACC Baseball Championship, believe me.”
Virginia did submit a proposed budget to host a Regional and a Super-Regional, should the Cavaliers advance that far in the tournament.
Of the published bids thus far among ACC schools, Clemson’s ranks the highest at $114,000. Florida State bid $97,500 and N.C. State bid $55,000, a figure that is believed to be close to that of the one Virginia submitted.
The complete tournament field will be announced on Monday at 11:30 a.m. on ESPN2.

Quick hits. Virginia has 40 hits and 23 runs in its four games against Clemson this year. … Harvey, who will be pitching for Clemson today, is batting .400 (12 for 30) when he is on the mound. He has also hit six of his league-high 21 homers during games that he pitched in. … Virginia practiced Friday morning at the Florida Community College in Jacksonville, where backup catcher Matt Bernstine attended school for two years before transferring. … Zimmerman has now hit safely for Virginia in 48 of their 57 games this season. ... Kamrath moved up in the all-time record books in two significant categories on Wednesday. By earning the win on the mound, he now ranks tied with former pitcher Brandon Creswell for fourth all-time with 20 career wins. The Houston native also ranks eighth in school history with 199 career strikeouts.

Holmes hungry to win NCAA
The UVa lacrosse standout and football walk-on missed out on the Cavs' 2003 title.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129
The Roanoke Times

CHARLOTTESVILLE - In Dom Starsia's ongoing sermon on the importance of seizing the moment, Steve Holmes is Exhibit A.

Virginia has won a men's lacrosse championship since Holmes' arrival in 2001, but Holmes wasn't a part of it. After starting as a freshman on the UVa team that lost in the Division I semifinals in 2002, Holmes was out of school when the Cavaliers beat Johns Hopkins for the championship in 2003.

"As much as I was happy for those guys, watching them in the year I took off, there's a different aspect to being on the field," said Holmes, a defenseman from Fort Washington, Pa. "I want to be on the field when we get that ring, and that's definitely been a motivation for me."

For now, fourth-seeded Virginia (9-3) only has eyes for unbeaten and top-seeded Johns Hopkins, its opponent in the semifinals today at approximately 2 p.m. at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

It will be the first time that three teams from one conference have played in the men's lacrosse final four, with the first game matching Virginia's ACC rivals, second-seeded Duke (14-2) and third-seeded Maryland (9-5) at 11:30 a.m.

Both semifinals will be televised on ESPN2, with the final scheduled for noon Monday on ESPN.

Virginia has lost one game apiece to the other three teams in the final four - a far cry from last year, when the Cavaliers finished 5-8 after being picked No.1 in the preseason.

"There was kind of a different feel to the team last year," said Holmes, who played in all 13 games, starting the last 12. "This year, there's much more of a flow, a lot more camaraderie. It's not something you can really explain. Of course, winning helps."

Holmes is typical of a number of Starsia recruits in that he was an outstanding athlete in high school, but not necessarily a celebrated lacrosse recruit.

As a senior at Germantown Academy, Holmes started at quarterback for the football team, and he has been on and off the UVa football roster as a walk-on wide receiver.

"I think he thought he was going to be playing at Lincoln Field on Sunday afternoons in the fall," said Starsia, who has the Cavaliers in the Division I semifinals for the seventh time in his 13 seasons as UVa coach. "Football was his first love. I get some of those guys and I always let them give it a try."

In almost every case, their football experience has been short-lived. The exception was Patrick Kerney, recruited as a lacrosse defenseman out of the Taft School in Watertown, Conn. Before he became a first-round NFL Draft pick and an All-Pro defensive lineman for the Atlanta Falcons, Kerney played for the 1996 UVa team that reached the men's lacrosse final.

"I couldn't get our football guys to sniff at Kerney," Starsia said. "I don't care what they say. When I got back from vacation that year, I expected to see Kerney in my office, whimpering and saying, 'I've had enough.' Instead, George [Welsh] came in the office and said, 'He might be the best freshman in the [football] class."

The time that Holmes spent on football did not serve him well, either from a lacrosse or an academic standpoint. On top of that, doctors had him on Ritalin after he was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder.

"Here's a kid, nobody knew him, and he was throwing up every day in practice," Starsia said. "So, it was like, 'What the hay!' I didn't even know him that well. It was a little bit of a strange situation."

The football dream has died hard for Holmes, who hasn't completely ruled out the possibility that he will try football again next year as a fifth-year senior. If so, he'll be prepared.

"It was a lot to handle, trying to play two sports in college," Holmes said. "I think everyone's different and, for me, it might have been too much."

Holmes got by on talent when he started in the 2002 semifinals, where Syracuse beat the Cavaliers 12-11 in two overtimes, but now he has the smarts for the position.

"He must look back at the year he took off from school and say, 'Ooh, bad timing,'" Starsia said, "but, I would tell you that the year off from school helped him grow up a little bit and he's come back as a more focussed student and athlete."

Starsia thinks the Cavaliers could be better next year, but he doesn't want Virginia to pass up the opportunity in front of it today.

"Who would believe that Hopkins hasn't won the championship in 18 years?" Starsia said. "And, if Hopkins were to win, that would make it 30 years since Maryland won its last championship.

"At Virginia, in all my years here, very rarely do we satisfy people by getting to the semifinals. This is one of those years. Last season gives us that luxury, but it hasn't been hard to convince the guys, 'We've got a shot right now.'"

2nd Va. Tech gridder charged
In the region
The Roanoke Times

A second Virginia Tech football player has been charged with a firearms offense for allegedly pointing a pellet gun at another student.

Virginia Tech police arrested redshirt freshman defensive back Theodore Lorenzo Miller, 20, from Washington, D.C., on Friday afternoon and charged him with brandishing a firearm, Lt. Wendell Flinchum said. The charges stem from an argument in a campus parking lot Thursday, which a student says ended when a passenger in a blue GMC Envoy with Florida license plates pointed a gun at him.

Police say the pellet gun resembled the Glock 9mm handguns normally carried by officers.

Tech freshman defensive back Brandon Flowers, who police say owns the Envoy, was arrested Thursday and charged with carrying a concealed weapon after police found the pellet gun in the vehicle, Flinchum said.

Both charges are class 1 misdemeanors that carry a maximum penalty of 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Greenberg makes calculated move
Rice assistant on UVa's radar?
By Doug Doughty
THE ROANOKE TIMES

To read the latest edition of the Prep Stars Recruiter’s Handbook, it’s hard to find a men’s basketball program involved with as many uncommitted juniors as Virginia Tech.

Now, all Tech has to do is find some scholarships for them.

With the recent addition of A.D. Vassallo after he was released from the letter-of-intent he had signed with Richmond, Tech had reached the NCAA scholarship limit of 13 for the upcoming, 2004-2005 season.

By year, Tech’s scholarship players will be seniors Allen Calloway and Shawn Harris; juniors Coleman Collins, Fabian Dowdell, Jamon Gordon and Markus Sailes; sophomores Robert Krabbendam, Deron Washington and Wynton Witherspoon; and freshmen Cheick Diakite, Hyman Taylor, Terrence Vinson and Vassallo.

If no underclassmen leave the program before the end of their eligibility, Tech will have two scholarships available for 2006-2007 — those belonging to Calloway and Harris. However, Tech already has taken a pair of oral commitments from juniors Nigel Munson and Lewis Witcher.

Munson, a 6-foot point guard from DeMatha in Hyattsville, Md., and Witcher, a 6-8 post player from Franklin County, have been listed among the nation’s top 200 players by the ACC Sports Journal. Presumably, that puts them in the No. 151-200 range because the magazine lists other players as Top 150 prospects.

When asked about the sudden absence of scholarships, Tech coach Seth Greenberg said this week that he has turned his attention to the entering class of 2007-2008 but admitted that he will keep an eye on players for 2006-2007 in the event that a scholarship becomes available.

Given the makeup of his current roster, Greenberg says that the Hokies would be most interested in a prospect similar to combination guards Dowdell and Gordon, who have been almost interchangeable for the past two seasons. Munson looks to be more of a pure point guard at this stage.

The Recruiter’s Handbook lists Tech with Munson, Witcher and 18 uncommitted juniors, which reflects the legwork Greenberg and his staff had done to this point. Highest-rated of the players said to be considering Tech was 72nd-rated Shamari Spears, a 6-5 power forward from Blairstown (N.J.) Academy, the same school that produced Luol Deng.

TECH AND VIRGINIA are both being mentioned with Vernon Macklin, a 6-10 Tidewater big man who will spend the 2005-2006 season as an underclassman on the postgraduate team at Hargrave Military Academy. However, there has been much discussion about the possibility that Macklin — nicknamed “the Big Ticket” — will go directly to the NBA.

The only other Top 100 player with whom Virginia is listed is No. 45 Brian Carlwell, a 6-9 post player from Proviso East High School in Maywood, Ill., but UVa is listed behind Illinois, Michigan State, Arizona and Florida State. Undoubtedly, new Virginia coach Dave Leitao would have known about Carlwell from when Leitao was the head coach at DePaul for three seasons.

Thanks to reader John Farrell for pointing out that the new director of basketball operations at Virginia, Drew Diener, is the brother of Drake Diener, who played at DePaul, and not Travis Diener, who played at Marquette and is Drew and Drake’s cousin. Drew played at St. Louis.

(I’m still not sure I’ve got that right.)

The only name I’ve heard in connection with Leitao’s last remaining vacancy is Todd Smith, a 1989 Valparaiso graduate who has spent 16 years on the staff at Rice — the last 12 under head coach Willis Wilson. Smith’s only discernible UVa connection would be through new Cavaliers’ assistant Rob Lanier, with whom he might have crossed recruiting paths while Lanier was on the staff at Texas.

For those to whom racial diversity is an issue, Leitao, Lanier and Gene Cross are African-American, while Smith, like Diener, is white.

THE ACC SPORTS JOURNAL obviously was not impressed by the men’s basketball classes at Virginia and Virginia Tech, which it ranks 11th and 12th out of 12 ACC teams. Of the 14 players at the bottom of a ranking of the ACC’s top 44 signees, seven are from UVa or Tech, with four of the last eight from Tech.

TO THOSE UVa and Tech football fans who wonder about an absence of oral commitments, Cavaliers’ coach Al Groh might have provided some insight during a recent speaking engagement in Roanoke.

UVa’s only published commitment has been from George Johnson Jr., a defensive end out of New Jersey, but Groh indicated that Virginia has received similar pledges from other players who have not yet gone public, either by their choice or the school’s.

A Virginia recruiting target who meets that description is Nekos Brown, a 6-3, 235-pound linebacker from Thomas Stone High School in Waldorf, Md., who has made no secret of his interest in the Cavaliers, who may want to see how he finishes the current semester academically.

Ward Is Unlikely Spark of Cavs' Winning Way
By Christian Swezey
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, May 27, 2005; Page D02

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Matt Ward's teammates on the Virginia lacrosse team call him "Piggy" or "oinker" because he does not have much of an athletic build. Never mind that he has led the team in scoring each of the past two years, that he is an excellent golfer, that he was nationally ranked as a tennis player at age 12, that he played linebacker in football and point guard in basketball at Landon.

"I've never heard of guys who play linebacker and point guard," Landon football and lacrosse coach Rob Bordley said. "He wasn't a gifted basketball player, but he had great vision. And he would dive for anything."

He also made a habit of winning. The Cavaliers are 6-0 in the NCAA tournament with Ward, a junior attackman, in the starting lineup. That record will be tested when No. 4 seed Virginia (11-3) plays No. 1 Johns Hopkins (14-0) in an NCAA semifinal at 2 p.m. tomorrow at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

Ward has a team-high 34 goals this year, including four in a 9-7 loss to Johns Hopkins on March 26. The Blue Jays have used senior Chris Watson and junior Matt Pinto to defend Ward in his career.

"He's a good all-around player," Watson said. "He has a knack for finding the gray area in a defense to get a shot off."

Ward's success in college follows a career at Landon in which his lacrosse teams lost three games in four years. That might explain why Virginia's 5-8 record last year was so hard for him. He scored 33 of the team's 119 goals (28 percent) and also had a team-high 13 assists.

When the postseason rolled around and Virginia wasn't in it, neither was Ward. He went to the Preakness and visited friends in Florida instead.

"He did everything he could not to watch those games," said his mother, Eileen.

Said junior Kyle Dixon, a starting midfielder: "Everyone else had a very bad year, but he did okay. He did all he could to get the team back on track."

There are eight former Landon players in the final four this year -- among them are Johns Hopkins starting attackman Jake Byrne, Duke starting defender David Evans and midfielder Peter Lamade and Maryland starting midfielder Brendan Healy.

Ward has a special place among them. He was the All-Met Player of the Year in 2001 and 2002. He scored the winning goal in overtime against Georgetown Prep as a senior on a severely sprained ankle (he showed up to the game on crutches).

He also somehow escaped the golf and tennis coaches, both of whom tried to get him on their rosters.

Ward did well enough academically to be admitted to Virginia's rigorous McIntyre School of Commerce; he and starting midfielder Matt Poskay are the two lacrosse players in that program this year.

About the only downside Ward had at Landon was his nickname. Bordley first called him "piggy" because of his physique. The nickname probably would have been forgotten until Bordley told the Syracuse school newspaper about it earlier this spring.

"I don't think he'll ever let me forget that," Ward said. "I went two years [in college] without it getting out. I don't know why he decided to drop that bomb. I think he enjoys it."

Bordley does talk a lot about Ward. They're not all bad stories. He told his current team about seeing Ward at a Virginia women's NCAA tournament game a couple weeks ago. Bordley's daughter is a freshman on the team.

Ward watched the game with his 5-year-old adopted sister from China, Gabrielle.

"Here's this big strong kid, and half the time he has this little girl sitting in his lap," Bordley said. "You can see the gentle side to him. It always intrigues me, when this linebacker turns around and plays with his little sister. I'm not sure many college kids could do that."

Lacrosse boom hits Georgia
East Coast-dominated sport making inroads with youth, preps
By JACK WILKINSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/28/05

PHILADELPHIA — The irony is as rich as the sport's lore itself. Lacrosse — the oldest game in the New World, the "little brother of war" Native Americans first played centuries ago in North America — is the boom sport of the early 21st century. Nowhere is that more evident than in the Southeast, particularly in Atlanta, where lacrosse is rapidly replacing the corn dog as heaven on a stick.

Or as Wytch Rigger, once a baseball devotee, told his father after reluctantly playing his first lacrosse game, "I'm not going back to baseball, Dad. This is way too much fun."

That was three years ago, when Wytch was 10 and playing in the Decatur Recreation Department youth lacrosse league. Now 13, Wytch and his father Don are in Philadelphia this weekend, along with hundreds of other Georgians, to attend the NCAA Men's Division I Final Four. More than 40,000 spectators are expected for Saturday's semifinals in Lincoln Financial Field, where the Falcons froze their feathers off last January and where the four best collegiate teams now face off:

Duke-Maryland at 11:30 a.m., then top-ranked and unbeaten Johns Hopkins vs. Virginia at 2 p.m. Both games will be televised by ESPN2. All eyes will be on Kyle Harrison, Hopkins' All-America senior midfielder who is the college game's most dynamic player and personifies the sport's soaring popularity and increasing diversity.

Whether or not Hopkins, the most storied program in lacrosse history, wins its first NCAA title since 1987, Harrison will surely win the Tewaaraton Trophy as the nation's top player. If so, he'll be the first African-American to take the Tewaaraton. That would please his father immensely.

"To be able to see my DNA take it to a level like that and be acknowledged for it, I can't tell you how much that would mean," said Dr. Miles Harrison, a renowned surgeon in Baltimore, once a high-scoring attackman and a founding father of the celebrated "Ten Bears" lacrosse program at Morgan State University in the early 1970s. "If there was ever a case of living vicariously through your kid, this is it."

'Like a wildfire'

This is also a weekend-long celebration of lacrosse. The men's Final Four is always held on Memorial Day weekend, climaxing with the Division I final Monday at noon. Rarely has the sport had more reason to rejoice.

Northwestern's women's national champs became the first Division I NCAA lacrosse titleists outside the Eastern time zone. The number of telecasts of professional (indoor and outdoor) and college games is way up this year; the ratings, too. Yet it's also the dramatic increase in the number of high schools now fielding boys and girls teams, and the enormous increase in the number of youth lacrosse players (15-and-under); and the game's migration outside the traditional Eastern pockets of Baltimore, Long Island and upstate New York that fairly astound.

"It's taken off at such a rapid pace," said Jay Watts, the coach of Westminster's powerful girls varsity and the GHSA coordinator for boys and girls lacrosse in the state of Georgia. "It's kind of like a wildfire. Once it fires up in one part of town, all the other schools want to catch it, too."

When Watts' first Westminster team debuted seven years ago, six Georgia high schools fielded girls teams, and eight had boys teams. This season, 32 high schools in the state played varsity boys lacrosse, 31 the girls' game. Decatur High played junior varsity boys and girls games. Outside the Atlanta area, Darlington fields boys and girls teams, while down in Columbus, the girls play varsity lacrosse at Columbus High.

Next year, Watts said, Gainesville High will play boys and girls varsity lacrosse; Lakeside-Evans in Augusta will field a boys team. There are currently youth and school club teams in Savannah, indicative of the sport's explosive growth in the Southeast: According to US Lacrosse, youth participation (among US Lacrosse members 15-and-under) increased 337 percent from 2001-04.

Many are like Megan McCloy, who was a fine tennis player when she came home from school one day as a freshman at Milton High in Alpharetta and told her parents, "They have a new sport at school. I'm going to do this."

"What's that?" asked her mother, Janis.

"Lacrosse," Megan said.

"We were so excited," said Janis, who had played high school lacrosse in Downington, Pa., just outside Philadelphia. Janis got involved, becoming a community coach at Milton. This season, as a senior playing attack for Mom, Megan (who'll play on the women's club team at Georgia next year) helped Milton go 15-0 and topple Westminster 12-6 to become the first public school to win the girls state title.

Plenty of scoring

This was also the first year the GHSA recognized lacrosse as a championship sport. In 2004, in a fit of lacrosse lunacy, the GHSA ruled that state finals could end in ties, producing co-champions. Hence, Lovett and Lassiter (one of several suburban areas with enormously popular youth leagues) were boys co-champs in '04; Westminster and Lovett shared the girls crown. Lovett beat Lassiter 15-8 this time behind the goaltending of senior Alex Heaton (a signee with Washington & Lee). In another sign that lacrosse is making inroads in Georgia, the GHSA — finally realizing that lacrosse overtime games, unlike soccer, aren't exercises in scoring futility — OK'd OT in the state final.

That most American of sporting appetites — scoring — is just another reason more and more kids are getting on the stick. "Lacrosse is so fast and it requires a lot of skill," said Janis McCloy. "A lot of kids, when they're watching our games, they can't believe how the girls can catch and throw. And it's high-scoring. We're up against soccer and baseball [in the spring], and I think that's why lacrosse is so popular."

"There's a lot of action, and kids like action," said Don Rigger, a Washington & Lee defenseman in the early '80s who works for the Environmental Protection Agency in Atlanta when he isn't coaching lacrosse or officiating games in the Decatur Rec League. "But I think part of the appeal is their parents don't know anything about the sport. They don't get that micromanaging from their parents like in other sports."

Westward expansion

When Jennifer Small, who grew up in Massapequa, N.Y., and played at Hofstra University, moved south in 2002, she found a job teaching second grade in Acworth and started the girls lacrosse program at Harrison High. "At first, the girls had never even seen a game until the first game they played in," Small said. "When we scored our first goal, they asked me if it was worth two points or one."

Now Dixied chicks dig their sticks, too. Small has eight graduating seniors (including Kristin Marchese, an All-American on attack) who'll play club lacrosse at six different colleges next year. Small will again coach Team Georgia this summer and take that all-star assemblage to the All-Star Express, an annual high school tournament in Annapolis, Md. Other Atlanta-area teams will travel to Colorado next month for the celebrated Vail Shootout.

Lacrosse is booming in Colorado and elsewhere out west. Tony Seaman, 62, who began his head coaching career in 1966 at Long Island's Lynbrook High School and has since taken three colleges (Penn, Johns Hopkins and Towson, right down the block in Baltimore from Hopkins) to the Final Four, appreciates the sport's westward expansion.

Two of his starters hail from Utah: defenseman Matt Mehrer, who played club lacrosse at Utah before walking on at Towson; and attackman Kyle Fiat, a one-time wide receiver at Utah State who had to give up football after being injured, came to Maryland and helped Towson earn an automatic NCAA bid this year. "It's amazing," Seaman said, "the number of Division I players — men and women — that are out there."

"You've got a lot of African-Americans playing now, Hispanics playing," Miles Harrison said. "Even Native Americans, who started the game, are coming back to it." Three African-American stars are playing today: Kyle Harrison, Virginia attackman John Christmas (who grew up in Ardmore, Pa., and graduated from Kobe Bryant's old high school, Lower Merion), and Henry Alford, the Maryland goalie.

Many still consider Jim Brown, arguably the greatest running back in NFL history, the greatest lacrosse player ever — even if he last played for Syracuse in 1957.

Size doesn't matter

Syracuse isn't here this weekend, the Orange having lost in the first round to UMass, ending a streak of 22 straight NCAA lacrosse semifinals. But John Danowski — who has won 202 games, most in his 20 years as Hofstra's head coach — is here to watch his son Matt, Duke's spectacular sophomore attackman, playing on the sport's grandest stage.

"The rest of the country is falling in love with what we fell in love with 30 years ago," said Danowski, a star attackman at Rutgers in the mid-'70s. "You play the sport for the game itself. But also the friendship, camaraderie, the fraternal bonds. I don't know if you get that in football, between the offensive guard and the quarterback. In lacrosse, it happens. The rest of the country's learning that. We've always know it."

Known this, too: "If you're a terrific individual [athlete], you can play well in this sport," Danowski said. "But you can also play a role and be an integral part of the team. If I'm a smaller kid, I can still have an impact on the game. You don't have to be six feet tall or score the goals to affect the outcome of the game."

"What do I like about lacrosse?" Wytch Rigger said. "It's fun. You don't stand around in the outfield. You get to hit people. It's unorthodox. And, it's cool."

Saving the best for last
Christmas and the Cavaliers stumbled in 2004, but now they're targeting another title
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
May 28, 2005
MEN'S LACROSSE
FINAL FOUR
TODAY:
Duke vs. Maryland, 11:30 a.m.; Virginia vs. Johns Hopkins, 2 p.m.; ESPN2 MONDAY:
Final, noon, ESPN

CHARLOTTESVILLE - He thought about giving up lacrosse, the sport at which he'd been a prodigy growing up outside Philadelphia. He considered dropping out of the University of Virginia. His body ached, and his critics had multiplied. A year after winning the NCAA title, his team had staggered to a 5-8 finish in 2004, and the pressure nearly toppled John Christmas.

"Everything was closing in on me," he re- called this week.

Christmas chose to persevere, and his decision has paid huge dividends for him and his team. Last weekend, Christmas became the first member of his family to graduate from college, walking the Lawn and receiving a bachelor's degree in sociology. This weekend the 5-9, 177-pound attackman will play in his third NCAA Final Four. Fourth-seeded U.Va. (11-3) meets top-seeded Johns Hopkins (14-0) in today's second semifinal.

Best of all for Christmas, perhaps, lacrosse's biggest stage is in Philadelphia this year, minutes away from his hometown of Ardmore, Pa.

"You couldn't make this up," he said.

Midway through his college career, no one would have expected Christmas to be seeking redemption heading into his senior year. Coming out of Lower Merion High, the suburban Philadelphia school that produced Kobe Bryant, Christmas was viewed as a phenom who could revolutionize lacrosse - in part because of his stick skills and speed, in part because of his race.

The son of immigrants from Trinidad, Christmas stood out in an overwhelmingly white sport, and he was the most heralded recruit in the history of U.Va. lacrosse.

"The whole combination was kind of unique," Christmas said.

He made the all-ACC team in 2002 and again in'03. As a freshman, he helped the Cavaliers reach the NCAA Final Four - they lost in double overtime to eventual champion Syracuse in the semifinals - and was named a third-team All-American. His sophomore season, U.Va. won the NCAA title, and Christmas rose to second-team All-American.

"You come in and do spectacular things, and you think, 'This is easy,'" Christmas recalled.

Harder times lay ahead. The 2004 season was a disaster for both Christmas and the Cavaliers. Slowed by a sports hernia, a groin injury that made it difficult for him to run or cut, Christmas managed only 11 goals - 25 fewer than he'd scored in 2003 - and 10 assists. Beset by injuries and adversity, U.Va. failed for the first time under coach Dom Starsia to make the NCAA tournament.

Christmas had begun his junior year on academic probation, but after forcing himself to spend each evening in the library, he earned a 3.2 grade-point average in the fall. That, he realizes, was no small feat. But his struggles on the lacrosse field overshadowed his academic accomplishments.

"I got to a point last year where my confidence was absolutely shot," Christmas said, "and I thought that maybe I wasn't a good player."

Starsia said: "I think he's always borne too much of the burden for what goes on around here. For him, it's the responsibility that comes with fame. John seemed to carry the brunt of the blame for our performance last year, which wasn't fair."

Christmas opted against surgery for his injury. After months of rehabilitation, he regained most of his speed and quickness, and he's become a more complete player. He's now as likely to set up a goal as to score one - Christmas, for the first time in his career, leads U.Va. in assists - and his relationships with teammates never have been better.

"John Christmas got knocked to the canvas," Starsia said, "but he got up, dusted himself off, and he's become a better person because of it."

In the NCAA tournament's first round, Christmas had three goals versus Albany. In last weekend's quarterfinals, he had one goal and two assists against Navy. Now comes a rematch with unbeaten Hopkins, the only team to have held Christmas without a point this season. He vows to be "a different player" than he was on that March day in Baltimore.

"People ask me what my legacy is going to be," Christmas said. "I think that's going to be determined by this weekend."

Hopkins, Maryland study in contrasts
Expectations for Blue Jays have been high from start; Terps were question mark
By Gary Lambrecht
Sun Staff
Originally published May 28, 2005
 

PHILADELPHIA -- The Johns Hopkins Blue Jays have planned to be here since the first practice of the preseason. Six weeks ago, the Maryland Terrapins were so young and inconsistent, they weren't sure if they were playoff material.

Today, in the NCAA Division I men's lacrosse tournament semifinals at Lincoln Financial Field, both teams are 60 victorious minutes away from playing on Memorial Day for the national championship.

Hopkins, the only unbeaten team left in Division I, will try to overcome the postseason demons that have hounded it since its last title year in 1987.

This is the fourth straight final four trip and the 11th overall for the Blue Jays since then, and Hopkins will have to beat fourth-seeded Virginia to get to its second final since 1989. Two years ago, the Cavaliers beat the Blue Jays for the title at M&T Bank Stadium.

Third-seeded Maryland, with lots of youth and hustle and heart -- and a hot goalie in sophomore Harry Alford -- was once a 5-5 team in search of a winning formula.

Six consecutive victories later, Maryland is the tournament's most intriguing survivor and will take aim at second-seeded Duke in today's all-ACC semifinal.

"I think for the senior class, we're really not taking anything for granted anymore. There's like a different aura in the air right now," said Hopkins senior midfielder Kyle Harrison, the leader of the Blue Jays and the favorite to be recognized as the game's premier player.

"Everybody is extremely focused, as loose as we are. Everybody knows exactly what we have to do and how hard we have to play to come out with a victory on Saturday."

Harrison heads a senior class that has produced a 53-6 record and a school-record 36-game winning streak at home.

Now the Blue Jays must get past a Virginia team that has had their number in recent years. Virginia, led by junior attackman Matt Ward and midfielders Kyle Dixon and Matt Poskay, has a 4-2 record against the Blue Jays under Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala.

For the Cavaliers, who dropped a 9-7 decision at Homewood Field on March 26, beating a deep Hopkins team on which freshmen Kevin Huntley (attack) and Paul Rabil (midfield) have emerged could come down to tempo and how well Virginia chooses its shots against a disciplined Hopkins defense.

The Blue Jays have held 10 opponents to three goals or fewer in the first half and have allowed an average of 6.7 goals. Virginia loves to run. Hopkins can do it, as well, although the Blue Jays typically have settled for a slower pace, often because their opponent prefers to hold the ball.

In the first meeting between the teams, Hopkins sophomore goalie Jesse Schwartzman had 20 saves. Virginia coach Dom Starsia pointed to the Hopkins defensive scheme, noting how the Blue Jays funnel shots to the outside and test an opponent's patience on offense.

"I don't think anyone has quite gotten to Schwartzman this year," Starsia said. "I think we can be more efficient on offense than we were the last time around. We may have made Jesse's life a little too easy that day."

Duke, back in the final four for the first time since 1997 and in the tournament after back-to-back misses, has made life tough on most opponents with the nation's top-rated offense, led by sophomore attackman Matt Danowski and freshman attackman Zack Greer.

But the Blue Devils hardly scare Maryland, which dropped a 10-8 decision in College Park in early March, but outplayed Duke thoroughly while winning the ACC tournament title game, 9-5, on May 1.

Everything has clicked lately for the Terps, especially their shooting. Maryland was having trouble, hitting 25 percent of its shots by midseason. In their past three games, the Terps are shooting 43.6 percent.

And it's not just All-America attackman Joe Walters. Freshman attackman Max Ritz has scored nine goals during the winning streak. Senior midfielder Andrew Schwartzman has nine goals and eight assists during the run. And a defense dominated by underclassmen such as sophomore defenseman Steve Whittenberg and Ray Megill has been steady.

"Before the beginning of the season, we kind of accepted us as being young kids being thrown to the lions. Now you see these guys kind of taking control of what's around them," said Alford, the Most Valuable Player of the ACC tournament.

Maryland coach Dave Cottle, who has watched the Terps find different ways to win throughout the streak, wondered what's in store today.

"It's the scary part of coaching these guys right now. You have no idea what you're getting," Cottle said. "It's a very loose group. I don't think they know any better."