Cavaliers hang on to advance
Virginia holds off UMBC comeback bid in tight victory
Monday, May 12, 2008 - 12:07 AM
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- On the sideline last night, University of Virginia men's lacrosse coach Dom Starsia couldn't help stealing looks at the clock and wondering why it was moving so slowly.

On the field, U.Va. defenseman Ken Clausen was doing the same thing.

"The time was taking forever to tick off the clock," Clausen said. "I didn't take a sigh of relief till the clock was at zero."

When that moment finally arrived at Klockner Stadium, the scoreboard showed the home team ahead 10-9. And that means the second-seeded Cavaliers will play at least once more in this NCAA tournament.

A first-round game that started 38 minutes late because of bad weather ended with Maryland-Baltimore County furiously trying to pull even. The Retrievers (12-4) failed to do so -- in part because U.Va. goalie Bud Petit stopped a shot with his face mask with 38 seconds left -- and so saw their 11-game winning streak end. UMBC took three shots in the final 47 seconds but connected on none of them.

"I knew our team would keep fighting," said Petit, a Collegiate School graduate. "That's why we have another game [to play]."

Virginia (13-3) moves on to face No. 7 seed Maryland (10-5) in a quarterfinal Saturday at Annapolis, Md., in what will be ACC rivals' third meeting of the season. The Terps whipped the Cavaliers 13-7 in the regular season. U.Va. avenged that loss with an 11-8 win over Maryland in the ACC tournament semifinals at Klockner.

U.Va. defensemen Clausen, Matt Kelly and Ryan Nizolek and long-stick midfielder Mike Timms helped harass UMBC into 22 turnovers, and Petit made eight saves. The story at the other end was the play of Virginia's highly regarded attack.

Injuries have hampered senior Ben Rubeor (knee) and juniors Garrett Billings (back) and Danny Glading (hamstring) most of this season, but U.Va.'s two-week break for final exams aided them immensely.

Against UMBC, they combined for nine goals and four assists. Glading led the Wahoos with four goals, the most he's had since Feb. 23. With 6:50 left, Billings scored the game-winner, taking a pass from Rubeor in a extra-man situation and breaking a 9-9 tie.

"Our big boys made some plays," Starsia said. "People ask why Danny, Garrett and Ben seemed to step up, well, that's who they are and that's what we expect of them: to step up. I think it's going to be hard to hold them down for 60 minutes."

Close games are nothing new for this U.Va. team. During the regular season, Virginia won three one-goal games -- all in overtime -- and twice by two goals.

 

Cavs shake off rust, advance
By Whitey Reid
Published: May 12, 2008

For the better part of three quarters, the University of Virginia men’s lacrosse team didn’t look like the No. 2 team in the country.
Heck, UVa didn’t resemble a Top-20 team.
There were careless turnovers. There was shoddy defense. Then there were the outside shots that came closer to hitting birds than going in the net.
But on a cold and damp Sunday evening at Klockner Stadium, the Wahoos
managed to find their ‘A’ game when they absolutely had to have it.
In the process, they avoided getting bounced from the first round of the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season.
Virginia, behind four goals from Danny Glading and three goals from Garrett Billings, overcame a
two-goal second-half deficit to beat UMBC, 10-9, in front of a crowd of 937.
“I told the kids that I thought the effort was always there and if the game hadn’t turned out like it did, I still would have been pleased with the effort overall,” said Virginia coach Dom Starsia, whose team hadn’t played in two weeks. “We just weren’t real sharp early in the game. I don’t want to make excuses, but it may have been that we’ve had the week off.
“It’s been a very different kind of week for us in trying to get through our exams this past week. We hardly ever had a day where we had everybody at practice. We practiced at all hours and took different days off and things. It just seemed like we were a little out of sync.”
No matter now.
With the victory, UVa (13-3) advanced to the quarterfinals. The Cavs will play Maryland in a game that takes place at Navy on Saturday.
UMBC (12-4) was led by Matt Latham’s three goals. The Retrievers, who saw their 11-game winning streak snapped, had several chances to tie the game in the final minute.
One shot, by senior captain Terry Kimener, hit Virginia goalie Bud Petit in the face. Another, by sophomore Kyle Wimer, was blocked out front.
“I actually don’t remember any of my saves,” said Petit, who finished with eight. “I remember the one that hit me right in the face. I didn’t see it. Thank God it hit my face.
“It seemed like we had it won three or four times, but then UMBC came back fighting and getting more chances…but I knew our team would keep fighting.”
UMBC coach Don Zimmerman said his team wasn’t about to hang its head.
“We lost to a talented and well-coached team,” Zimmerman said. “We’re disappointed we lost, but I think what you saw today is the heart and determination that we’ve shown all year.”
“We played all day with the No. 2 team in the country,” added UMBC senior co-captain Taylor Marino, “but they came out on top.”
For the better part of three quarters, UMBC was the superior team. Early in the second quarter, the Retrievers took a 3-2 lead when Maxx Davis left Virginia midfielder Will Barrow in his tracks with a pretty spin move and rifled a shot past Petit.
Just over three minutes later, Latham took a pass from Chris Jones and beat Petit for a 4-2 lead.
The Retrievers went up
5-2 on a wicked outside shot by Davis over Petit’s right shoulder, but Virginia
answered with two straight goals to make it a 5-4 game at the half.
After the intermission, UMBC took a 7-5 lead on goals by Wimer and Matt Latham before UVa roared back with four goals within the last 3 minutes and 41 seconds of the third quarter to go up 9-7, the final tally coming when Glading raced around the back of the cage and beat goalie Jeremy Blevins with a low laser.
UMBC tied the game on a goal by Latham early in the fourth before Billings scored what proved to be the game-winner with just under 7 minutes to play.
“Our big boys made some plays,” said Starsia, referring to Billings, Glading and Ben Rubeor. “I think it’s hard for teams to hold them down for 60 minutes.”
Starsia was particularly pleased with his team’s defensive effort late in the game.
“It was a good win for us,” he said.

 

UVa’s win well worth the wait
By Jerry Ratcliffe
Published: May 12, 2008

For 12 long months, Virginia’s men’s lacrosse team waited for Sunday afternoon to roll around. For the past year, the Cavaliers have been chewing on a first-round upset loss to Delaware in the NCAA tournament and it had eaten away at their collective souls ever since.
Last May, they entered this event ranked third in the country, coming off a national championship the year before. They were playing at home where they were nearly unsinkable and hosting a 15th-ranked team that nearly didn’t make postseason. Clearly they were emotionally destroyed by an unexpected 14-8 defeat, a setback that ended their dreams of a possible repeat.
Getting the job done
When sixth-ranked UMBC, billed as the hottest lacrosse team in the nation with 11 straight wins, came to rain-soaked Klockner Stadium on Sunday, needless to say Virginia was ready. Perhaps it wasn’t so evident in the early going when the Cavs appeared a little rusty after coming off a two-week break between games and exams.
But they did what they had to do, erased 5-2 and
7-5 deficits to pull out a
10-9 victory that advanced the Cavs to this weekend’s NCAA’s final eight (against Maryland) in Annapolis. In the process, Virginia buried some old bones left around from last year’s debacle.
Atonement for Cavs
The day Virginia reported back to practice from the recent exam break, a week ago Sunday, coach Dom Starsia intentionally brought that particular skeleton out of the closet as a source of motivation.
“I told them that we are a different team, a completely different group, and that it’s a different situation, a different year,” Starsia said.
He also reminded them of all the really good things this team had accomplished during the season, beating Syracuse at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium, beating Princeton on the road, breaking home attendance records in a win over Johns Hopkins and a loss to No. 1 Duke.
Then there was gaining revenge against Maryland in the ACC semis here, before another loss to Duke in the conference tournament championship.
“But in lacrosse,” Starsia reminded the youngsters, “people remember what you do in May. And for the last 12 months we’ve had to explain that Delaware game.”
The coach understood how that upset happened and made peace with it, but it wasn’t that easy for the players.
“I used Ben (Rubeor, the senior attackman and team captain) as an example,” Starsia said. “I said I’ve listened to Ben have to tell people, ‘yeah, we lost to Delaware,’ all year long. Sunday, I told the team we’ve been waiting 12 months to be right here, the week before the first round of the playoffs. This is the one we’ve been waiting for.”
Starsia is known as a fiery guy who knows how to get his team’s attention. Certainly his message did just that even though he admittedly never felt comfortable during this close call over UMBC. A superstitious man to some degree, Starsia has a rule that he never peeks at the scoreboard clock late in games, a habit dating back to early in his career.
Usually his team is up and trying to safely run out the clock, however, with the last goal of the game coming with 6:50 remaining (an extra man goal by junior attackman Garrett Billings), there were plenty of anxious moments down the home stretch. So many in fact, that Starsia had to break his own rule and constantly check the clock to make sure his defense was organized against a solid UMBC offense.
This Virginia team is accustomed to close games, having won three in overtime (Syracuse, Hopkins, North Carolina) and several others at the wire. Having been pushed in the postseason opener may have been a good thing in Starsia’s eyes.
He said two weeks ago, after a late rally fell short against Duke (11-9) in the ACC title match, that his team’s best lacrosse was in its future. Offensively, his three attackmen (Billings, Rubeor and Dan Glading) were the healthiest they have been since early season.
If the defense continues to come together, the coach believes his team might get that third shot at Duke in the national championship game in Foxboro, Mass., in two weekends.
“We had been rotating four defensemen but when Tim Shaw underwent hernia surgery two weeks ago, Ryan Nizolek went into the starting lineup and I think that helped settle us down,” Starsia said.
While Virginia, now 12-3, bolted to a 9-1 start behind freshman goalie Adam Ghitelman, the team has responded to veteran Bud Petit in goal since the loss at Maryland in late March.
“Bud’s got a certain urgency about him that only a kid in his fifth year can have,” Starsia explained. “He’s one of our emotional guys and he’s helped bring us together on that end of the field.”
Now, the only thing that stands in Virginia’s way of a return to a Foxboro Final Four (say that fast 10 times) is age-old nemesis Maryland.
It’s no secret that the Terps attempt to physically intimidate the Cavs, something that worked at College Park when they manhandled the Wahoos. But UVa caught on and answered the bell in beating Maryland in the ACC semis.
Time for the rubber match and greater things.
“As they say, familiarity breeds contempt,” Starsia said with a smile. “We know the Terps well enough to be contemptuous.”

 

Man-up goal lifts Cavs over UMBC
UVa goalie Bud Petit withstands a flurry of last-minute shots and the Cavaliers advance.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Second-seeded Virginia had another Delaware on its hands Sunday in the opening round of the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament.

This time, the Cavaliers lived to tell the story.

Virginia, also a second seed when it lost to Delaware in 2007, trailed by three goals in the first half and two goals in the second half before rallying for a 10-9 victory over Maryland-Baltimore County.

In a game that was held up 38 minutes by mid-afternoon storms, UVa (13-3) broke a 9-9 tie on an extra-man goal by junior Garrett Billings with 6:50 remaining.

It was the first loss for sixth-seeded UMBC since March 4. The Retrievers (12-4) entered the game on an 11-game winning streak.

"I never felt comfortable," said UVa coach Dom Starsia, whose Cavaliers face seventh-seeded Maryland (10-5) in the quarterfinals Saturday in Annapolis, Md. "As far as I'm concerned, there's always too much time left on the clock."

UMBC got off four shots in the final 2:30, including three in the final 47 seconds.

"Actually, I don't remember any of my saves," said UVa goalie Bud Petit, a fifth-year senior. "I know the last one hit me in the face. I didn't see it. Thank God it hit my face.

"It seemed like we had it won three or four times down there, making a save or picking up a ground ball and then having UMBC coming back fighting and getting another chance. They had two or three chances when maybe they should have only had one."

Virginia jumped to a quick 2-1 lead, then saw UMBC score four unanswered goals in taking a 5-2 lead with 3:27 remaining in the half. At that point, it was reminiscent of a 14-8 Virginia loss to Delaware at Klockner Stadium, especially in the way UMBC was beginning to control the faceoffs.

The Cavaliers were able to close the deficit to 5-4 when junior Danny Glading scored on a man-up opportunity with 20.3 seconds in the half; then, Glading was to add three more goals in the third quarter, two during a four-goal UVa flurry over the final 3:41 of the period.

That put Virginia ahead 9-7, but UVa couldn't put away the Retrievers, who seemed to have some momentum after making it 9-9 with 11:55 left. The stalemate was broken shortly after UMBC defenseman Bobby Atwell was called for a one-minute roughness penalty with 7:39 left.

UMBC coach Don Zimmerman, who won three national championships at Johns Hopkins in the 1980s, protested the calls, but the officials ruled that Atwell was a little overzealous when he whacked UVa's Brian Carroll after he had fallen to the ground.

"I think it's [lacrosse] a rough game," Zimmerman said. "I was a little surprised by it."

The game originally was scheduled for 5 p.m., but a thunderstorm hit the Charlottesville area at approximately 3:30 p.m., and a baseball game at adjoining Davenport Field ultimately was halted by wet grounds.

Starsia admitted that it crossed his mind that the lacrosse game might not start until 7 or 8 p.m.

"The way things were going, it would have been good news if you had told me we would be starting by 8 p.m.," he said.

There were puddles in front of both goal mouths at the game's start, but the rain stopped and the field drained well.

The conditions didn't slow down UVa's starting attack of Glading, Billings and Ben Rubeor, who combined for nine of UVa's 10 goals. Glading had been nursing a hamstring problem for the second half of the season.

"By far, it was the best I've felt." Glading said.

It was the fourth one-goal victory of the season for the Cavaliers, who also have won two games by two goals.

"In all the games we won by a goal or two, we've always played smart at the end." Glading said. "We've just got to clean up some of the early sloppiness."

 

Tar Heels spoil Cavs’ NCAA hopes
By Bart Isle
Published: May 12, 2008

Virginia coach Julie Myers was worried about one of North Carolina’s attackers catching fire against her Cavaliers. It looks like she had good reason.
Freshman Corey Donohoe did just that Sunday afternoon while pouring in five goals and, in the process, brought No. 4 Virginia’s season to a screeching halt with an 11-7 upset in the NCAA tournament’s first round.
“We just happened to not play that well today,” Myers said. “We knew Carolina was going to be really good and they shot incredibly well today.”
The loss ended a number of Cavalier seniors’ successful careers earlier than they anticipated. Senior goalie Kendall McBrearty, who was the ACC Tournament MVP the last two seasons, wrapped up her career with a five-save effort. According to Myers, many of the Tar Heels’ goals came in traffic, making the shots particularly tough on McBrearty.
“It’s definitely shocking,” said Virginia’s Blair Weymouth. “The only positive thing I can say is that I have another year and it sucks to sit here and look at Kendall and know that she doesn’t have another year. That’s the heartbreaking part for me.”
Donohoe and Megan Bosica spearheaded a Tar Heel offense that recovered from an early 3-0 deficit. Boscia had two goals and three assists, with both goals coming after the break as North Carolina traded goals with Virginia in the late stages of the contest to hold on for the win.
Senior Meg Freshwater’s fastbreak tally, which was just her fourth of the year, got North Carolina’s offense started with just over 23 minutes to play in the first half. The goal led to a 6-0 run by the Tar Heels and a 6-3 lead at halftime.
“That’s how I get my goals from the defensive end, usually a great save or a great defensive turnover,” Freshwater said. “I was really glad that it generated a spark, but I know if I didn’t do it someone else would’ve stepped up. We just needed to loosen up, we were a little tight at the beginning.”
The St. Anne’s-Belfield product, who serves largely as a defensive midfielder for the Tar Heels, also had a pair of ground balls in the win that redeemed UNC’s last meeting with Virginia. The Tar Heels’ 16-5 loss back in March seemed to be a day where nothing went right for North Carolina. Sunday, little went right for the Cavaliers.
“We definitely weren’t having our best day today,” McBrearty said. “We weren’t tight, just nothing was going our way.”
Virginia did open the
second half with two goals that pulled the Cavaliers within one score at 6-5. But, UNC extended the lead back to two with an unassisted goal by Kristen Taylor, and then things got quiet. There was no scoring for more than 14 minutes from there.
Virginia couldn’t gain control of the ball throughout that stretch as North Carolina kept melting critical chunks of time off the clock. Whenever the Cavaliers did manage to take possession, a dropped ball or an errant pass would put the ball back in North Carolina’s hands. With under 10 minutes to play, Boscia broke through and put UNC up 8-5.
Virginia’s last gasp came when a final flurry closed out the scoring. In a window of 24 seconds, the teams traded goals. A Blair Weymouth score off a Brittany Kalkstein assist pulled Virginia within 9-7. But less than a minute later, UNC regained control when two straight Donohoe goals off of Boscia assists closed out the Cavaliers.
“What [Donohoe] really killed us on today was the ground balls,” Myers said. “Her second opportunities with those ground balls were critical. Carolina did a great job of answering back when they really needed to dig in.”
The Tar Heels were able to melt the clock from there as Virginia again struggled to gain possession from North Carolina’s delay game.

Title chase comes to sudden stop
U.Va. can't build on momentum of 3-0 lead in loss to Heels
Monday, May 12, 2008 - 12:07 AM
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Virginia crushed North Carolina by 11 goals in women's lacrosse when they met at Klockner Stadium in March. So when the No. 4 seed Cavaliers bolted to a 3-0 lead in their NCAA tournament first-round game with UNC yesterday, another blowout seemed possible.

Sure enough, the game was one-sided, but the Tar Heels were the ones celebrating when it was over. The final at Klockner Stadium was 11-7, Carolina, an unexpected ending for ACC champion Virginia.

"It was a great year that came to a screeching halt," U.Va. coach Julie Myers said.

Virginia finished 14-4 after losing in the NCAA tourney's first round for the second time in three seasons. The Cavaliers advanced to the NCAA championship game last season.

"It's definitely shocking to put in the effort that we did leading up to this game and then feeling as though you're completely prepared, and then nothing really was happening," U.Va. junior Blair Weymouth said.

In NCAA women's lacrosse, halves last 30 minutes. Carolina (14-6) held Virginia scoreless for the final 24:54 of the opening half and led 6-3 at the break. But the Cavaliers didn't panic. In the ACC championship game, after all, they'd trailed Maryland 8-3 in the second half and rallied to win 10-9 in overtime.

"I don't think it was an issue," Myers said of her team's halftime deficit yesterday. "Obviously, we've been in that spot before"

UNC, whose coach, Jenny Levy, was an All-American at U.Va., will meet No. 5 seed Syracuse in the second round Saturday. The Heels had dropped three straight to Virginia before yesterday, losing in the ACC tournament and the NCAA tourney last year and then in the regular season this year.

"I think after last time we were real excited to come back and prove that we are a strong team," said UNC senior midfielder Meg Freshwater, a graduate of St. Anne's-Belfield School in Charlottesville.

 

Virginia slips past North Carolina
By Jay Jenkins
Published: May 12, 2008

It did not have the flair of point guard Sean Singletary’s buzzer-beating floater against Duke a year ago, but it brought an identical late-game result.
Virginia first baseman Jeremy Farrell’s two-run bloop single that splashed into the soggy grass between the foul line and an incoming right fielder came just minutes before a weather-related stoppage at Davenport Field.
With both teams aware that a delay for lightning was a matter of minutes away, Farrell lifted the Cavaliers to a 5-4 victory in the sixth — and final — inning over second-ranked North Carolina.
The win, however, was not official until Tony Maners, the chief of the three-man umpiring crew, ruled that the field would be unplayable at
4:25 p.m. Virginia’s coaches and support staff raced to get the tarp on the field and the two teams tried to wait out the storm to no avail.
Regardless of how the win was obtained, Virginia coach Brian O’Connor was aware of its importance — the Cavaliers lacked a win over a ranked opponent prior to the contest.
“Whether we played that game as a six-inning game or a nine-inning game is not important. What happened in those six innings is what’s important,” O’Connor said. “We fought back twice and we got some big hits and we didn’t cave in when things didn’t go our way.
“That’s what we need to continue to do, because that is what it is going to take from this point out.”
Assured of just seven games, three of which will be in the ACC Tournament, Virginia helped its standing in the eyes’ of the NCAA selection committee and improved to 34-17 overall, 14-13 in the ACC and secured a top-six seed at the league tourney.
The win did not come without drama that included one disgruntled skipper, one ejected North Carolina pitcher and a spirited race to put the tarp on the field from every member of Virginia’s athletic department in attendance.
It was widely known inside the
stadium that North Carolina coach Mike Fox questioned the decision not to play a doubleheader on Saturday or to start Sunday’s earlier than originally scheduled.
“I believe you have to make the decisions that are the best with the information, and if I would have known at 3:25 [p.m.] that it was going to rain, I would have decided [Saturday] to move the game up,” O’Connor said. “But that’s not the information that we had. I know there was a percentage chance that it could come in during the day, but we haven’t had a game rained out all year.
“We play this weather game here all the time.”
O’Connor pointed back to a contest with Wake Forest, a contest that appeared headed for a rainout prior to its completion in extra innings.
“It’s frustrating,” O’Connor said. “It is one of the toughest things that we have to deal with, making these decisions.”
As in the Wake Forest game, Virginia finished victorious with late heroics.
After stranding 18 runners on base in the first two games of the series, both of which were losses, the Cavaliers finally found enough timely hitting. That, of course, included Farrell’s hit in the pivotal sixth inning off North Carolina’s left-handed reliever Brian Moran just moments after it appeared that he would strike out on a borderline pitch.
“I just wanted to put a good swing on the ball,” Farrell said. “He made a couple of good pitches, two balls inside, and I worked it to a 3-2 count, blooped one to right and luckily it fell.”
Farrell, a junior, claimed that the impending weather was not in his mind, but the stadium’s public address announcer had warned fans of the oncoming lightning.
Frustrated with the umpire’s ruling on the borderline pitches that kept Farrell’s at-bat alive, Moran could be seen mouthing at home plate umpire Frank Sylvester after Tyler Cannon and Greg Miclat crossed the plate and he was promptly ejected from the game.
Virginia would not have needed the late heroics if North Carolina had not rallied for a pair of runs in the top of the sixth off Virginia reliever Neal Davis.
The Cavaliers appeared to have taken command of the game in the fourth inning after scoring three runs, two of which came on a throwing error by North Carolina second baseman Kyle Seager towards his shortstop on a potential inning-ending double play.
Virginia added the final run in the frame on a squeeze bunt from Patrick Wingfield that turned into an infield hit after he beat the ball to first.
Winning in an emotionally-thrilling fashion did not solve all of Virginia’s woes. The team still left 10 runners on base, had an errant throw to the plate to allow an earned run and committed an error.
“Although we won the ballgame, we are not doing the things that are going to win at championship time,” O’Connor said. “We showed flashes of it today with a few clutch hits, but not enough of them. Not the hits that North Carolina is getting to put themselves in that position.
“Hopefully, as we move over the next week or two, we get those.”
Davis earned the win on the mound for Virginia, improving to 4-0. Moran (0-1) took the loss for UNC after retiring just two batters.
Virginia will host VMI on Tuesday at 6 p.m. before closing out the regular season with a three-game series against Georgia Tech on Thursday.
The winner of the league series will enter the ACC Tournament as the fifth seed.



 

Cavs crush Lions
Shutout gives top-ranked, unbeaten U.Va. berth in round of 16 in Oklahoma
Monday, May 12, 2008 - 12:07 AM
By JOHN PACKETT
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Now comes the difficult part for the University of Virginia's tennis team.

The top-ranked Cavaliers (30-0) completed the first phase of the NCAA Men's Division I Championships yesterday with a 4-0 rout of Penn State in the second round of the Charlottesville Regional.

The match started at the Snyder Tennis Center but finished on the indoor courts at the Boar's Head Sports Club because of rain. It didn't matter where the matches were played. U.Va., with probably the most talented and experienced lineup in coach Brian Boland's seven-year tenure, easily advanced to the round of 16, which starts Friday in Tulsa, Okla.

From now on, however, it won't be a cakewalk for the Cavaliers, who will take on Michigan next. Other potential matchups in later rounds could be No. 4 Mississippi, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 UCLA or No. 5 Georgia, which ousted U.Va. in the semifinals a year ago.

"I feel like we have the team to do it this year," said Treat Huey, who supplied one of the singles points at No. 2 with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Adam Slagter.

"We have so much depth this year. We brought in two freshmen [Sanam Singh and Michael Shabaz] this year that are unbelieveable players."

In tying the school record for wins, the Cavaliers already have beaten nine of the other 15 seeds in the tournament.

"We have three veteran leaders on our team . . . and I think we have some of the best doubles teams in the country," said senior Somdev Devvarman, who won the NCAA singles title last season.

"Overall, we're a lot more solid team. We're a lot more mature."

Although Devvarman was on the verge of clinching the match at No. 1 singles, that honor went to another senior, Ted Angelinos, who defeated Guillaume St-Maurice 6-3, 6-3 at No. 6.

"This obviously feels a lot more special than the other ones, because we know every match we play from now on, it's win or go home," said Angelinos, whose parents are here from Athens, Greece, to watch him.

The other singles point was produced by Shabaz, who finished his 6-2, 6-1 romp over Eddie Bourchier at No. 5 before the rain came. Huey needed only a few minutes after the matches were moved indoors to wrap up his victory and Angelinos soon followed suit.

"We came in with a lot of energy," Boland said. "We played as good in doubles as we've played all year long, and I really felt that carried us throughout the day. The doubles was extremely impressive."

The Cavaliers will need to claim more doubles points and produce solid play in singles to win four matches and capture the NCAA tournament.

"I couldn't feel better about our team as we move into the final 16," Boland said.

 

For UVa, 30 is something
By Whitey Reid
Published: May 12, 2008

Indoors. Outdoors. The planet Neptune.
It doesn’t seem to matter where the University of Virginia men’s tennis team has to play its matches this season — the undefeated Wahoos have gotten it done everywhere.
Now they’re hoping they can get it done four more times in the Panhandle State.
That’s where they’re headed after another strong performance in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday.
No. 1-seeded Virginia wasn’t about to let a rain delay — one that forced play indoors — get in its way. The Cavaliers, behind some brilliant doubles play and an impressive outing by freshman Michael Shabaz in singles, easily disposed of Penn State to move into the Round of 16 against Michigan on Friday in Tulsa, Okla.
“I’m really pleased with our performance,” said Virginia coach Brian Boland, whose team is four wins away from the program’s first-ever NCAA championship. “I thought we came in and were ready to play. The energy was there.
“I thought we played very well, particularly after playing outdoors and then indoors, and continuing the momentum that we had.”
Virginia (30-0), which had already defeated Penn State back in February en route to its indoor championship, needed less than 45 minutes to win the doubles point from the Nittany Lions.
“We played as good of doubles as we have all year long and I really thought that carried us throughout the day…it was extremely impressive,” Boland said. “It feels really good to play at the level I know we’re capable of.”
Devvarman and Treat Huey posted an 8-2 win over Michael James and Brendan Lynch.
“I think it was the best doubles match we played all season,” Devvarman said. “We were really fired up and focused coming in.”
Midway through the set, Devvarman and Huey seemed to deflate their opponents after winning a point they had no business winning. Devvarman made an unbelievable get and Huey put away a volley.
“What he did on that point was just so unbelievable,” said Huey, referring to Devvarman. “He’s just so athletic and so fast. He just looked like Superman.”
Virginia won at No. 2 doubles with just as much ease. Houston Barrick and Sanam Singh disposed of Adam Slagter and Guillaume St. Maurice, 8-2, while Shabaz and Dom Inglot were leading 7-3 over Eddie Bourchier and James Dwyer when play was halted.
Penn State coach Todd Doebler thought his team played to the best of its potential in the doubles. They were simply up against too much talent, he said.
“We were absolutely
given a clinic,” said Doebler, smiling. “I think we should probably owe some money to coach Boland and coach [Tony] Bresky.”
In singles, it was the freshman Shabaz who came out like a man possessed. Before fans could settle in their seats, the Fairfax native had smoked Bourchier, 6-2, 6-1.
Shabaz’ focus was the difference. Earlier in the year, his mind tended to wander during matches, Boland said.
“I served well and moved pretty well and just kept fighting,” Shabaz said. “I think the ball just bounced my way today.”
Shabaz was the only Virginia singles player to complete his match outside. Shortly after his victory, it started pouring and play was moved indoors to the Boar’s Head Sports Club.
Boland couldn’t say enough about Shabaz.
“We always knew if we could get Michael Shabaz playing at this level, we would be really good,” Boland said. “Things are clicking on all cylinders for us now.
“I couldn’t feel better about our team as we move into the Round of 16. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — this is the best I’ve ever felt as a coach advancing to the Sweet 16. I feel really good about this team.”
Huey followed Shabaz’ win with a hard-fought 6-4, 6-4 triumph over Slagter before Ted Angelinos closed Penn State out with a 6-3,
6-3 victory over St. Maurice.
Devvarman was leading 7-6, 4-2 when play was halted, while Inglot and freshman Sanam Singh were in the third sets of their matches.
Now it’s off to Tulsa.
“We’re really fired up and ready to go,” Devvarman said. “I think we’re going to play some good tennis out there.”
They have everywhere else.