UVa hopes win boosts sport
While the Duke scandal is still the biggest issue in lacrosse, the Cavs hope they provided positive news.
Doug Doughty

PHILADELPHIA -- With its performance in the Division I playoffs, Virginia did everything it could to shift lacrosse's focus away from the courtroom and back to the playing field.

A season that forever may be linked with a rape investigation and the cancellation of Duke's season came to a festive end Monday as Virginia defeated Massachusetts 15-7.

There was no mention of the name "Duke," but the Blue Devils rarely have been far from the sport's consciousness this spring.

"I feel this entire championship weekend has been a celebration of the sport of lacrosse," said Virginia senior Michael Culver, named Division I defenseman of the year earlier in the week.

A record crowd of 47,062 turned out for the championship game despite the absence of a participant from one of the sport's hubs. Attendance for the weekend, including Division II and III title games Sunday, also set a record of 144,688.

"I was on the edge of my seat for the Division III game, watching an old roommate of mine, Mike Abbott," said Culver, an insightful English major. "He was trying to get his second ring as well.

"The parking lots were full. Kids were running all around Philadelphia with lacrosse sticks. A lot of the publicity the sport has gotten this spring has been unfortunate. In the end, it's a terrific game. This is what lacrosse is all about."

The most competitive game of the weekend might have been the Division III final in which Cortland State ended Salisbury's 69-game winning streak, 13-12, in overtime. Salisbury had won three consecutive titles.

Much has been made of the two UVa graduates, Joe Yevoli and Nathan Kenney, who played for the Cavaliers' semifinal victim, Syracuse, but at one point Virginia also had Abbott, who became a first-team All-America attackman at the D-III level.

On top of that, valued defenseman Steve Holmes was declared academically ineligible for what would have been his fifth year. Another former Virginia player, Eric Pittard, became the second-leading scorer for Cornell (11-3) after transferring.

Talent has never been an issue for Virginia (17-0), which had a reputation for underachieving before the Cavaliers ended a 27-year drought by providing coach Dom Starsia with his first Division I title in 1999.

Virginia won another championship in 2003 and now has six men's lacrosse titles, including mythical crowns in 1952 and 1970, before there was a championship game.

There is enough talent to contend again next year, although the Cavaliers lose the Division I player of the year, Matt Ward, and two other first-team All-Americans, Culver and midfielder Kyle Dixon.

Also departing is midfielder Matt Poskay, who matched Ward with five goals in the title game. Poskay set a national high school record with 362 goals, but there were questions about the competition he had faced in Clark, N.J.

"I think I've still got that record," Poskay said. "But, it was never about how many goals I scored. If I hadn't scored any goals today and this had still happened, it wouldn't have mattered."

UVa led Division I in scoring but wasn't one-dimensional. Their defense has long been considered underrated and so is a faceoff unit that won 16 of 26 draws Monday.

"You don't go into the game thinking that you're going to dominate the faceoffs," said Starsia, no doubt aware that UMass' Jake Deane had used a long pole to win 63 percent of his faceoffs before Monday.

"That it played out to our advantage was a little bit of a surprise. The Deane piece of it was very important."

Virginia won the first seven faceoffs of the game and hardly gave up the ball in taking a 4-1 advantage. UMass cut the deficit to 5-4 at the half and pulled into a 5-5 tie early in the second half.

"We came in at the half and we were pissed," Culver said. "Sure, I was worried. I'm always worried. It's what I do. I'm a defenseman."

Culver does something else. He shuts down attackmen. His assignment Monday was first-team All-American Sean Morris, who had three goals in the Minutemen's 8-5 victory over second-ranked Maryland.

For the first time in 33 games over the past two seasons, Morris did not score.

"We weren't willing to compromise anything," Culver said. "A lot of us had a bitter taste in our mouth after our sophomore year [in 2004]. We were on the worst team in Virginia history -- or at least the worst in the modern era. That's pretty definitive."

So is 17-0.
 

ACC unveils kickoff times
Virginia and Virginia Tech each will play two Thursday ESPN football games with 7:30 p.m. start times.

The ACC announced starting times Tuesday for some of the Virginia Tech and Virginia football games this fall, and Thursday is a popular night.

The Hokies' two Thursday night ESPN telecasts -- at Boston College on Oct. 12 and Clemson at Lane Stadium on Oct. 26 -- will have 7:30 p.m. starts.

Virginia also has two Thursday night ESPN games. The Cavaliers visit Georgia Tech on Sept. 21 and play host to North Carolina on Oct. 19. Both games will start at 7:30.

Virginia Tech's first two ACC games -- at North Carolina on Sept. 9 and Duke at Lane Stadium on Sept. 16 -- will kick off at noon. The Tech-UNC game will televised by ESPN. The Duke game will be televised regionally by Raycom.

It was previously announced that Tech's four nonconference games, all of which will be played at Lane, will kick off at 1:30 p.m. That list includes the season opener against I-AA Northeastern (Sept. 2), Cincinnati (Sept. 23), Southern Miss (Oct. 21) and Kent State (Nov. 11).

Starting times for Tech's and Virginia's remaining games have yet to be announced.
 

U.VA. NOTES
Richmond Times-Dispatch May 31, 2006

BITTERSWEET: The decision to leave U.Va. for Notre Dame wasn't an easy one for him, says Gene Cross, who followed basketball coach Dave Leitao from Chicago to Charlottesville last spring. Cross, the new man on coach Mike Brey's staff at Notre Dame, also was an assistant under Leitao at DePaul for three seasons.

"Dave has been very, very influential in my life, and I owe him for getting to the point I am, and I model myself after him," Cross said.

Many of Cross' relatives live in the Midwest, including his mother and his son, and that played a large role in his decision.

"It's amazing when you get away," Cross said. "You start to see the support system you had."

Asked about Cross' departure, Leitao said they'd "built a relationship that had superseded the coaching aspect of it, and that's kind of what I'd had with all the people I worked for when I was an assistant. From that standpoint, I'm obviously sad to see him go. But what I told him was, when I go home every night, I have the ability to see my son, and he doesn't."

BIG MAN ON CAMPUS: Virginia's football program has picked up four commitments this month. The latest is from Brad Hallick, a 6-6, 280-pound offensive lineman from Pottsville, Pa.

Hallick, one of the finest students in the Class of 2007 at Pottsville High, chose U.Va. over Vanderbilt. He also had scholarship offers from Rutgers and Temple.

In all, the Cavaliers have 10 commitments for 2007, including six from players in this state.

ONE-SIDED: The first Commonwealth Challenge, the all-sports competition between ACC rivals Virginia and Virginia Tech, didn't offer much suspense. The Cavaliers clinched the Challenge on March 22 when they edged the Hokies 4-3 in men's tennis.

The final score for this academic year was U.Va. 14.5, Tech 7.5.

The trophy for the 2005-06 Commonwealth Challenge will be presented Nov. 25 at the football game between Tech and Virginia at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg.

REPEAT? In 2007, Virginia will attempt to become the first men's lacrosse team to win back-to-back NCAA titles since Princeton in the late '90s.

From a squad that finished 17-0 after beating Massachusetts for the NCAA championship Monday, U.Va. coach Dom Starsia will have to replace several standouts. They include three first-team All-Americans (attackman Matt Ward, midfielder Kyle Dixon and defenseman Michael Culver), a second-team All-American (midfielder Matt Poskay); and the nation's premier defensive midfielder (J.J. Morrissey).

Still, the Cavaliers will return enough talent to contend for another NCAA crown. Among those due back are two second-team All-Americans (attackman Ben Rubeor and midfielder Drew Thompson), two third-team All-Americans (goalie Kip Turner and defenseman Ricky Smith), the reigning ACC rookie of the year (attackman Danny Glading) and an attackman (Garrett Billings) who, despite not starting this season, scored 30 goals.

The leading candidate to replace Culver figures to be incoming recruit Ken Clausen. The 6-2, 195-pound Clausen originally signed with Duke, but after that school shut down its lacrosse program this season, he was released from his letter of intent and chose U.Va.

RAREFIED AIR: He compiled a 101-46 record in 10 seasons as lacrosse coach at Brown, but Starsia never won an NCAA title at his alma mater.

In 1994, his second season in Charlottesville, Starsia guided the Cavaliers to the NCAA final, only to see them fall in overtime to Princeton.

The same thing happened two years later, and "so you're thinking to yourself, 'We must be doing something right to get there, to get that close to it, to be a heartbeat away from winning those championships,'" Starsia recalled, "but you're feeling like, you know, 'Maybe I'm not going to win the big one here.'

"I don't know why that would be, exactly, but winning a championship, certainly in the public eye's and even in a coach's heart, kind of validates a little what you're doing."

The breakthrough finally came in 1999 when U.Va. won its first NCAA title in 27 years. Starsia added another NCAA championship in 2003 and won his third Monday in Philadelphia.

"The first one was such a relief to get," Starsia said. "'Twenty-seven years, Virginia lacrosse,' that's all we were hearing about, and we finally get one. The second one, you sort of feel like, 'OK, maybe I have some idea what we're doing here. I've done it twice now.'"

And the third?

"A little bit of the stress of this one was getting here and knowing we were so close and being so determined to finish this the right way for this group," Starsia said, "so people could appreciate how special these guys really are."

- Jeff White
 

Cavs reflect on memorable careers
Seniors look to future after 2nd NCAA title
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
May 31, 2006

About an hour after Virginia defeated Massachusetts in the NCAA championship game at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on Monday, UVa senior Matt Ward stood by his locker.

Ward, one of the few players still in the stadium, was dressed in a short-sleeved Virginia shirt and a pair of dress slacks.

The only thing standing between the senior co-captain and the real world was a pair of shoes. Ward, who was barefoot, didn’t seem in any rush to put them on.

To do so would officially signify the end of his college career. It would also mean saying goodbye to teammates who have become his dearest friends.

“It’s kind of sunk in,” said Ward, when asked about the finality of the season. “We had graduated already, but we were still a team, so we weren’t out in the real world yet.

“But these guys are my best friends, so I don’t think I’m going to lose touch with any of them. I’m sure that I’ll still see them more than my fair share. They’re a great group of guys who have done anything that you would ever ask of a friend.”

Ward, one of 11 seniors that Virginia will be losing, said the class had a fun ride.

The group started their careers on a high note, winning the national championship as freshmen in 2003. As sophomores they suffered through one of the worst seasons in school history when they finished 5-8. Last season, as juniors, they experienced a gut-wrenching overtime loss in the NCAA semifinals to Johns Hopkins.

This season they were the heart and soul of a team that will go down as one of the most successful in the history of the sport. At the very least, the 2006 squad has to be considered the most dominant in the history of the Virginia program. No other squad ever went undefeated.

The thing that made this year’s 17-0 team so special was its chemistry. Virginia players gave new meaning to the phrase “close-knit.”

“Throughout our four years we mixed up roommates a lot,” said senior Kyle Dixon. “I’m living with J.J. Morrissey, Chris Ourisman and Mike Culver now. I’ve lived with Matt Ward. We always hang out together and there were never any little groups or subcultures. I think that’s brought us together.”

Ward and Dixon are hoping they can continue as teammates just a little longer.

The duo is hoping to be drafted by the same team in today’s Major League Lacrosse draft.

Ward, who is from Oakton, said he also hopes to attend law school at the University of Baltimore.

“It’s close to enough to home and most of these guys are from that area,” Ward said, “so I think I’ll certainly be seeing them.”

Dixon, from Millersville, Md., wants to continue rooming with Morrissey.

“It’s kind of sad because the senior class is such good friends,” Dixon said. “We kind of figured that after senior year you have to break up and go your separate ways, but we’re going to be friends for life.”

Ward, who was named Most Outstanding Player at the Final Four, certainly went out with a bang. But really the same could be said for every senior who helped Virginia earn its fourth NCAA title.

“Yes, it’s sad to be moving away from Charlottesville,” Ward said, “but look at what we accomplished as a group. It’s something we’ll be able to cherish for the rest of our lives.”

With that, Ward went to find his shoes.

 

Cavs add lineman to 2007 recruting class
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
May 31, 2006

Virginia’s football program landed its 10th early commitment to the 2007 recruiting class when Brad Hallick, a 6-foot-6, 285-pound offensive lineman from Pottstown, Pa., announced he will play for the Cavaliers.

Hallick, a 4.0 GPA student, chose Virginia over Vanderbilt. He also had scholarship offers from Rutgers and Temple, while several other Big East schools had shown strong interest in the big lineman.

Considered one of the top linemen on UVa’s recruiting board, Hallick has size, quickness and good footwork. He has a 5.2 time in the 40-yard dash and bench presses 300 pounds.

He has played both guard and tackle for Pottstown, helping lead his school to a 13-2 record as a junior last season and a spot in the state title game. UVa assistant coach Bob Price was the lead recruiter.

 

UVa's small offensive strategy yielding big results
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
May 31, 2006

Kevin McMullan would not put up much of a fight if the words “small ball” and “Virginia baseball” were left out of the same sentence for all of time.

Virginia’s hitting coach and right-hand man to head coach Brian O’Connor looks at the Cavaliers’ approach at the plate in a different light.

McMullan prefers to use words like “aggressive,” “fundamentals” and “pressure” to describe how a program that has set a school record in hits marches into the four-team, double-elimination Charlottesville Regional this weekend.

“I don’t think it is small ball,” McMullan said. “To me, if I think of small ball, all guys do is bunt. I think we would like to call it ‘multiple-skill baseball.’

“Whatever is available, you try to take.”

And Virginia (46-13) has taken it to the tune of one of the nation’s best batting averages at .324. That number only increases in games at Virginia’s spacious Davenport Field, where the team hit .341 this season and went 31-3.

McMullan’s work with a balanced lineup does not go unnoticed in Virginia’s clubhouse.

“I think Coach McMullan is one of the greatest coaches in the country,” said O’Connor, whose team is preparing for Friday’s first-round game against Lehigh at 3 p.m. “Coach McMullen does such a great job of relating to our players and preparing them every day from an offensive standpoint.”

O’Connor never gets tired of pointing out that as many as six newcomers were a vital part of the team’s batting order throughout the season.

“We had such an influx of new players from last year and all of those players have really bought into what our offensive philosophy is,” O’Connor said. “Coach ‘Mac’ does such a great job of sticking to the plan each day of getting these guys prepared to win.

“The results have shown out on the field.”

For McMullan, like any great third base coach, the magic starts after runners get on base.

Six Cavaliers have stolen at least 11 bases and the team is approaching the school record for swipes in a season. UVa needs only 12 to tie the previous best mark of 125.

“You have a lot of guys in our lineup that cannot only swing the bat, but make things happen on the bases,” McMullan said. “It puts so much pressure on the other team. If you are not knocking the fences down with swinging the bat, that allows you to still get multiple opportunities to score runs because you can get guys into scoring position.

“Obviously the more guys you get in scoring position, the more runs you are going to score because of the more opportunities that you have.”

South Carolina, the No. 2 seed in the Charlottesville Regional, boasts two players - Justin Smoak (16 HRs) and Robbie Grinestaff (15) - that have combined for more homers than Virginia’s team total of 25.

Don’t complain to McMullan. He knows the dimensions at Davenport Field - 335 feet to left, 408 to center, 352 to right and 377 in the power alleys.

“Our pure power numbers with home runs aren’t there, but it is about scoring more runs,” McMullan said. “I would rather score more runs than our opponent, and if it is a home run, so be it, but you can still hit line drives and fill the gaps up and pressure people with execution and hit-and-runs, hitting behind runners and bunting for hits.”

The players aren’t barking about the scratch-and-claw style.

Freshman third baseman Jeremy Farrell, who is batting .342 in 79 home at-bats, said it is all about being able to celebrate a “team victory.”

“It is very fun when you are scoring runs and winning games and it works. There are no complaints from us,” Farrell said. “One through nine, all the guys can hit. Every night it has been a different story, a different guy stepping up and that is kind of the makeup of this ballclub.”

Virginia’s success started on the recruiting trail, an operation that McMullen also heads up.

“We like guys that can do multiple things,” McMullan said. “It adds challenges to the manager because you have to out those pieces in place, but I always say that it is better to have depth than not to have depth.”

Case in point is Patrick Wingfield, a seldom-used infielder who made the most of a mid-season injury to Farrell by hitting .333 in 75 at-bats.

“Pat doesn’t know if he is playing in his backyard or if he is playing in the College World Series, which is a wonderful attribute to have,” McMullan said. “He is a team guy. Whatever you ask him to do, he’ll do whatever he can. He won’t get too nervous about it. He will just go out and play like he is playing in his backyard.”

This season, that “backyard” has been a pretty special place.

TICKETS REMAIN ON SALE FOR REGIONAL: Virginia’s Dick Mathias, the school’s athletics ticket manager, said late Tuesday that about 800 general admission tickets remain available for this weekend’s Charlottesville Regional.

The tickets are being sold for $40 and guarantee entrance to all six scheduled games, and possibly a seventh on Monday.

Mathias said individual tickets would go on sale Friday if tickets remain, but only if supplies allow.

“It would be best to get them while you can,” said Mathias, whose office will be open today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Virginia opens play on Friday against Lehigh (3 p.m.). Evansville will then square off with South Carolina at 7 p.m.

 

UVa.'s 11 seniors leave on top, but '07 cupboard isn't bare
By Gary Lambrecht
Sun Reporter
Originally published May 31, 2006
PHILADELPHIA // College Lacrosse

Virginia senior defenseman Michael Culver had just concluded his last great day's work as a collegiate lacrosse player by doing the improbable in the NCAA championship game.

For the first time in 35 games, Massachusetts senior attackman Sean Morris came up empty as a goal scorer, largely because of the way Culver denied him the ball and shut down any chance for Morris to get into shooting position. One first-team All-American having his way with the other.

Culver said it was up to him and other seniors to lead the way, to finish off a perfect 17-0 season - the best in Division I history - and to deliver Virginia its third NCAA crown under 14th-year coach Dom Starsia, and the fourth in school history.

And after Virginia scored six unanswered second-half goals to blow open a tight game and finish a 15-7 rout at Lincoln Financial Field, Culver said he expected the younger players to continue the work he and the rest of this 11-man senior class had begun. Three years after being part of a championship as freshmen, Culver and the rest of the seniors had done it again.

"We knew UMass wasn't going to just hand us the trophy, just like we knew our best players had to play really well," said Culver, alluding to five-goal performances by senior attackman Matt Ward and senior midfielder Matt Poskay.

Ward matched his career high and earned the tournament Most Outstanding Player award. Poskay achieved a career high. Seniors scored 12 of Virginia's 15 goals.

"I talked to a lot of first-year guys [after the game] and told them this is the start of something," Culver said. "Let's leave a real legacy for Virginia lacrosse. Let's not have this be the end of something."

Don't count on that happening. After rolling to the 13th perfect finish in Division I history, the Cavaliers lose a lot, but return more than enough to suggest Virginia should be playing at M&T Bank Stadium in next year's final four.

Three of the team's top five scorers from the nation's highest-scoring team will return. Sophomore Ben Rubeor, and freshmen Danny Glading and Garrett Billings, who combined for 90 goals and 58 assists, could form the starting attack.

Junior Ricky Smith and freshmen Mike Timms and Matt Kelly return on defense, as does junior goalie Kip Turner. Junior Drew Thompson, equally valuable with the first midfield and facing off, will be back, as will sophomore defensive midfielder Will Barrow. Solid backups such as freshman midfielder Steve Giannone and freshman attackman Gavin Gill will move up in the rotation.

The Cavaliers might not be able to dominate all over the field quite the way they did throughout 2006, but that doesn't mean the program's third title since 2003 is not attainable. And who knows? Even in this age of increasing parity, maybe a senior class can top the outgoing group and bring home three trophies before they're done in Charlottesville.

Starsia was too busy basking in the present to dwell much on what might happen down the road. Besides contemplating how the Cavaliers earned a trophy without a blemish for the first time in their tournament history, Starsia also reveled in the way Virginia's ride and the surprising run by unseeded UMass put the lingering controversy about the Duke program on the back burner.

"It was such a different spring. You weren't just preoccupied with lacrosse," Starsia said. "I felt we kind of slipped under the radar screen. Nobody was talking about us in April. But we accomplished something quite memorable this spring and hopefully created the kind of impression in the spring of 2006 that we all walk away from this lacrosse season with."

Added Culver: "This entire weekend is a celebration of the sport of lacrosse. I remember watching the Cortland-Salisbury [Division III title] game, being on the edge of my seat the entire time. Watching all of the kids run around Philadelphia with their lacrosse sticks. There's been a lot of negative publicity, unfortunately. But in the end, it's a terrific game."