U.Va. star aces last year
David Teel
May 28, 2008

May has been quite the month for Somdev Devvarman. He earned a sociology degree at the University of Virginia, led the Cavaliers' tennis team to the NCAA semifinals and won a second consecutive national singles championship.

The diploma will make a fine wall hanging or cocktail coaster, and the back-to-back titles elevate him to a class that darn few share. But neither rates as Devvarman's most impressive moment this spring.

That came last month when U.Va. named him the school's 2007-08 male athlete of the year.

Yes, the recognition seems to pale next to Devvarman's others. But work with me here.

First, consider that Virginia's coaches voted on the award weeks before Devvarman began defense of his 2007 national championship. His story was that compelling, win or lose.

Now think about the candidates for the honor. Chris Long was a unanimous first-team All-American and the No. 2 pick of the NFL draft; Sean Singletary graduated as the Cavaliers' fifth-leading career basketball scorer; Ben Rubeor is among five finalists for national lacrosse player of the year and is an Academic All-American.

We're talking icons here, especially with Long and Singletary. Ambassadors for the university who distinguished themselves on and off the field of competition.

Devvarman, a native of India, stands equally tall. His 6-3, 6-2 dusting of unseeded Tennessee freshman J.P. Smith on Monday completed a stunning season and career.

"I can't imagine any program having someone represent it better than Somdev Devvarman represented the University of Virginia," Cavaliers coach Brian Boland told reporters after the championship match in Tulsa, Okla. "His legacy will be with us forever."

An exchange between player and coach during the postmatch news conference was telling.

"I have to give credit to all the people behind the scenes that work with me all the time," Devvarman said. "My coaches, my strength coaches, my parents, my professors and my best friends who always support me. …

"Without that kind of support, I don't think this kind of thing is possible. I would really like to thank them and tell them I'm really grateful for what they've given me the last four years."

Please, suspend your cynicism for a moment, because from all accounts Devvarman's sentiments are genuine.

"Just listening to him these last 30 seconds I think sums it up about as well as it can," Boland said. "He's a special guy. He has incredible perspective and is mature beyond his years. The way he approaches his life and his tennis on a day-to-day basis is one thing that makes him so great."

Devvarman's place among NCAA tennis elites is undeniable. He is the third Division I singles champion to repeat since the tournament adopted a 64-player bracket in 1977, and his 44-1 record this season — Devvarman closed with a 36-match winning streak — is the best college tennis has witnessed since UCLA's Jimmy Connors went undefeated in 1971.

Wait, there's more.

Devvarman, who lost in the NCAA final as a sophomore, is the first to play in three consecutive title matches since Northwestern's Marty Riessen in 1962-64. Tennis mavens will recall that Riessen reached No. 11 in ATP Tour singles and was a Grand Slam doubles champ, winning nine such titles with the likes of Arthur Ashe, Tom Okker, Margaret Court and Wendy Turnbull.

Finally, ponder some of Devvarman's victims.

In last year's NCAA singles final, he won a third-set tiebreaker against Georgia's John Isner. The 6-foot-9 Isner turned pro and last summer advanced to the final of the Legg Mason Classic in Washington, where he lost to Andy Roddick.

Devvarman's only defeat this season came back in October to Georgia's Travis Helgeson. Devvarman avenged the loss with a three-set victory in the NCAA team semifinals, but the Bulldogs defeated the previously unbeaten Cavaliers 4-3.

"The loss in the team tournament was so hard to take," Devvarman said. "But (winning the singles) was the best way to try to cheer everyone up a little bit."

Devvarman, a 5-11 baseliner with a sneaky quick serve — he had 18 aces in a semifinal against Stanford freshman Alex Clayton — is also set to turn pro, with Charlottesville as his base.

"He has a certain calmness to him and a level of consistency that allows him to continue to move forward each match and play at a high level," Boland said. "Nobody prepares better than Somdev. ... Having seen for four years how he handles himself and goes about his game, I know he will have a very successful career as a pro."


 

U.VA. NOTES
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 12:06 AM

Tennis
Virginia tennis star Somdev Devvarman, who won his second consecutive NCAA singles title Monday night, went 44-1 this season. He's believed to be the first NCAA singles champion to finish with one or fewer losses since UCLA's Jimmy Connors, who was unbeaten in 1971.

"To end my career like this is very special," Devvarman told reporters in Tulsa. "I wasn't just playing for myself. I was playing for Virginia for the last time."

Devvarman won his final 36 matches.

"I can't imagine any program having someone represent it better than Somdev Devvarman represented the University of Virginia," coach Brian Boland said. "He is a better person than a tennis player, and that is saying a lot, because he is an incredible player. The guy loves this school."

Football
Football coach Al Groh said last week that he expects quarterback Jameel Sewell and cornerback Chris Cook to rejoin the program in 2009. Whether wideout Chris Dalton and linebacker Darnell Carter will be back is unclear.

"I think they're probably less definitive at this time than Jameel and Chris," Groh said.

In January, U.Va. suspended Sewell, Cook, Dalton and Carter for academic reasons.

As for cornerback Mike Brown, who faces several criminal charges and hasn't been participating in team activities, Groh said: "First of all, we want to make sure we have all the facts, based on letting the full legal process run out. That will help define what is true and what is fantasy. We want to make decisions based on truth and not on fantasy."

U.Va. continues to add football recruits at a furious clip. With the recent commitments of Brent Urban, Perry Jones and Lavonte Battle, Virginia's recruiting class for 2009 has 10 members, including eight from this state.
Urban, a 6-7, 265-pound defensive end from Mississauga, Ontario, chose U.Va. over Louisville, Maryland, Connecticut and Akron. Virginia's 2008 recruiting class includes another Canadian: offensive lineman Austin Pasztor.

Jones is a 5-9, 175-pound junior at Chesapeake's Oscar Smith High, where he played linebacker and fullback last season. U.Va. recruited Jones as a safety, and he has modeled his game after that of the Colts' vertically challenged Bob Sanders, who stars at that position.

"When I get on the field, height doesn't come to mind," said Jones, the Southeastern District's defensive player of the year last season.

Jones, a longtime U.Va. fan, also had scholarship offers from Boston College and Navy.

Battle, a 5-10, 195-pound junior from Phoebus High in Hampton, committed yesterday. Like Jones, he plays linebacker in high school but is expected to move to safety at Virginia. Battle has run the 100-meter dash in 10.76 seconds this spring.

Lacrosse
The U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association has announced its All-America teams for Division I. From U.Va., sophomore defenseman Ken Clausen was named to the first team, junior attackman Danny Glading and senior attackman Ben Rubeor made the second team, and sophomore midfielder Brian Carroll was third team.

Three Cavaliers received honorable mention: junior attackman Garrett Billings, senior midfielder Peter Lamade and junior long-stick midfielder Mike Timms.

Of the two Collegiate School graduates on the men's lacrosse team, goalie Bud Petit had the higher profile late in the season. But Mike Thompson played regularly, and he's expected to the Cavaliers' top short-stick defensive midfielder as a junior in 2009.
"He's in a great shape and can run all day," U.Va. coach Dom Starsia said. "I think clearly he steps into a leading role for this team, and we're very comfortable with that role."

Petit, who competed as a graduate student, started the final eight games this season. U.Va. lost in double overtime in Saturday's NCAA semifinal to eventual champion Syracuse.

"Frankly, a month ago, I wasn't sure we had the goods to be here," Starsia said after the game, "and Bud was one of the guys who helped us get here." - Jeff White

 

Breaking through
The Virginia golf team is one of just three ACC teams to reach the NCAA championships and the only unranked team in the field.
Doug Doughty

On the day after his Virginia men's golf team had completed its improbable quest for an NCAA championship berth, coach Bowen Sargent found himself checking into a Roanoke hotel room at 4:30 a.m.

"By 7 o'clock, we were on the course," said Sargent, who had stopped in Roanoke to catch the final round of the Scott Robertson Memorial junior tournament. "I can't imagine anybody has worked any harder than we have."

Sargent said he has heard from virtually every ACC coach following the Cavaliers' showing last week at the East Regional, where they were seeded 22nd in a 27-team field.

Virginia was in 16th place with one round remaining in a 54-hole event, but the Cavaliers made up a nine-shot deficit to finish 10th, claiming the final berth for the championships starting Tuesday in West Lafayette, Ind.

Only three ACC teams made the field -- Wake Forest, Clemson and Virginia, which finished ninth out of 11 teams at the ACC Tournament in April.

Failing to make an NCAA championship field of 30 were conference champion Florida State and two other ACC teams that were ranked among the top 20 in Golfweek's most recent Division I rankings, No. 9 Georgia Tech and Duke.

Sargent doesn't think any of his fellow coaches begrudges the Cavaliers their day in the sun.

"A lot of them have seen the struggles that I have gone through from recruiting," he said. "They know I've worked extremely hard and haven't always won the battles, given history and kids wanting to go to schools that are historically good."

Virginia received a regional bid in 2005, the year that Sargent was named coach after the start of classes. That was with a team that he inherited from Mike Moraghan, who had enjoyed intermittent success but was relieved of his duties with little apparent plan for succession.

Sargent's first team finished fifth in the ACC championships, but the Cavaliers subsequently have taken 10th, ninth and ninth in 11-team fields.

"There's 10 teams in the conference that, in the right week, could be playing in nationals," Sargent said. "I was really surprised that there were only three [ACC] teams, to be honest with you. That shows you the depth in college golf and how thick the margin is."

Swiss-bred sophomore Steven Rojas led a Cavalier delegation in the East Regional that included freshman Will Collins, sophomore Kyle Stough, senior Greg Carlin and junior Conrad Von Borsig.

Since then, the Cavaliers actually have gotten younger, with a second freshman, Amory Davis, winning a two-round qualifier that enabled him to take Von Borsig's spot in the regionals.

Rojas, who technically could be reclassified as a redshirt freshman if he wanted to appeal, was the low man for the Cavaliers at the regional with a 4-under-par total of 209, good for 17th. Rojas has the lowest stroke average on the team, 72.78, followed by Collins at 73.04.

Sargent describes Collins, from Salisbury, N.C., as "a diamond in the rough," despite Collins' ranking last year as the No. 1 junior in North Carolina.

"We recruited him fairly early and hard and got him to commit before some other schools took note of him," Sargent said. "We were very fortunate to land him. Just after he signed with us, he went on to win a couple of state titles. I know there are some teams who probably wished they had worked him a little harder and a little earlier."

Sargent learned about Rojas from another Swiss golfer whom he had recruited earlier as an assistant at Tennessee. Born in Sydney, Australia, he has done a tour with the Swiss Army and would be 26 if he received a fifth season of eligibility and chose to stay around.

Not counting Rojas, Virginia has three freshmen in its top seven. The only senior on the roster is Carlin, who was recruited by Moraghan but never played for him.

"I guess I was kind of worried for a while there when I had just gotten to school and we didn't have a coach," Carlin said, "but I knew a couple of guys on the team. I came here more for the school than anything."

It was close to 7 p.m. Saturday when the Cavaliers knew they would be going to regionals, but it was 9:30 p.m. before they boarded the team bus for the return trip to Charlottesville, where Carlin was graduating the next day.

"It was an eight-hour drive and we didn't get back to Charlottesville till 6:30 in the morning," he said. "I was kind of in a daze all day. It was a special day in my life but it was pretty anticlimactic after everything that had happened Saturday."

The Cavaliers did not play well in the fall and got off to a slow start in the spring. For Carlin, the turning point was an early March trip to Tallahassee, Fla., where the Cavaliers finished third in the Seminole Invitational, beating North Carolina and four Southeastern Conference teams.

The next week, Virginia went to Puerto Rico and won by 17 strokes against a weaker field in the Palmas Del Mar Intercollegiate, but the Cavaliers wouldn't be in the NCAA tournament if they hadn't won their own Cavalier Classic one week after the ACC championship.

"We were a pretty young team and it was a while before we got it together," Carlin said. "No one really noticed us until the end of the year."

It is Carlin's contention that the Cavaliers are the lowest-ranked team in the NCAA field but that's not entirely true. According to an NCAA news release, Virginia is the only unranked team in the field.

"I'm really excited and driven to have a good performance," Carlin said, "but I don't think there's a lot of pressure on us. If we were to finish last, that's what we're supposed to do. All we can do is impress people."

They already have.

Virginia dials up NCAA berth
By Jay Jenkins
Published: May 28, 2008

Bowen Sargent will tell you quickly that the greatest invention of late was the iPhone.

Thanks to the handheld gadget, the Virginia men’s golf coach was able to monitor history being made May 17.

Periodic checks of the live scoring during the final round of the NCAA east regional in Chattanooga, Tenn., told Sargent that his team was making a dramatic charge for an unexpected berth in the NCAA championships.

Sargent can thank rookie golfer Kyle Stough for loaning the phone and creating massive butterflies for the coach during the back nine.

“He gave me his phone, so I was updated instantaneously,” the coach chuckled. “They update the scores there after every hole, so I was pretty much on top of the event as it was unfolding.

“The way it kind of unfolded, it came down to our team and N.C. State. It was evident that one of the two of us were going to make it and it basically came down to who was going to play the last four holes the best.”

Virginia accomplished that and will reap the reward today — the Cavaliers open play as one of 30 teams at the championships, which are being held at Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex in West Lafayette, Ind. The Cavaliers enter as the event’s 30th seed.

UVa opened the final round of the regional in 16th place, six spots away from earning an automatic bid.

“That was my biggest concern. It wasn’t so much that we were nine strokes back, but we had six teams in front of us and six pretty good teams,” Sargent said. “It is not like you are talking about some average teams there. It was amazing and every time the guys needed to step up, they executed.

“It was amazing really. It was so fun to watch.”

It was not a one-sided resurgence. Freshman Will Collins fired a team-best 67 and sophomores Stough and Steven Rojas finished at 69, two strokes under par. Senior Greg Carlin completed the balanced foursome with a 71.

“That was the incredible part,” the coach said. “Golf is such a fickled game anyway and it is hard enough to get one person to play well, and to get five people to play well on the same, especially given that situation, it was just truly amazing.”

Sargent knows the impact that qualifying and being able to compete over the next three days will have on his youthful squad.

“These guys are young and they are going to get a good taste, a lot of experience of what it is like to go through a good regional and actually accomplish your goals by advancing,” he said. “It is pretty rare for a team as young as this team is to achieve that.”

The Cavaliers will also give the school a timely boost in the Sports Academy Directors’ Cup. As of May 1, Virginia stood in 26th place overall, a figure did not include several outstanding performances in spring sports.

“Someone told me that,” Sargent said. “[Media Relations Director Jim Daves] told me that was going to be a nice gain in the cup standings.

“That is nice; we always like to do our part for the University of Virginia.”

The championship meet has a local flavor that extends outside of Virginia’s players. Will Strickler, a Woodberry Forest graduate and Charlottesville resident, is competing for Florida, and Monticello High product Dustin Groves helped Wake Forest earn the third seed with a fourth-place finish individually at the NCAA Central Regional.


 

Phoebus' Battle picks Virginia
By Melinda Waldrop | Daily Press
2:37 PM EDT, May 27, 2008
 

When it came down to it, the factors were overwhelmingly in Virginia's favor.

Phoebus linebacker LoVanté Battle, a rising senior, is the 10th commitment in U.Va.'s 2009 recruiting class. He said the Cavaliers had everything he was looking for.

"The first reason was, it was my childhood favorite school, and they had my major," Battle said. "And then it's a good football team, and plus it was close to home."

That major is a bit unorthodox. Battle plans to study architectural design, a subject he's taken classes in at Phoebus.

"I like drawing and designing houses and stuff, buildings," Battle said.

A starter at inside linbacker as a junior after helping lead Phoebus to the Group AAA Division 5 state title as a sophomore, Battle is being looked at as a safety by the Cavaliers.

"I don't care, as long as I play," Battle said.

Battle said he spoke to his recruiter, first-year Virginia defensive coordinator Bob Pruett, and head coach Al Groh on Tuesday. He said he attended last season's Virginia-Virginia Tech game but hasn't yet made an official visit to Charlottesville.

"He knows the campus because he went with (Phoebus quarterback) Tajh (Boyd) when he went up there and he knows the coaches," Phantoms coach Bill Dee said. "That was one of the schools he liked right away. I always felt he was leaning that way the whole time. It's a real good fit."

Battle is Phoebus' third Division I commitment for 2009, joining Boyd and Dominik Davenport, both bound for West Virginia. At 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds, he runs a 10.76 100-meter dash for the Phantoms' track team - the fastest time in both the Peninsula and Bay Rivers districts this season.

"I think once LoVanté has the opportunity to focus just on football and gaining weight, his best football will be ahead of him," Dee said. "He's a heck of a player now. He has a lot of speed and makes a lot of tackles. ... I always thought he was one of the most underrated football players in the Eastern Region."
 

Phantoms' Battle leaning toward U.Va.
RECRUITING - Jason Jordan and Norm Wood | Inside Recruiting
May 25, 2008
 

As Virginia continues to rack up football commitments from across the Commonwealth, there's good reason to believe one of the next Cavalier commitments could come from right in our own backyard.

Lovante Battle, a 5-foot-11, 190-pound rising senior inside linebacker at Phoebus High, has received a scholarship offer from U.Va. Surprised? Haven't heard much about Battle yet, you say? Don't worry…you probably will very soon. He's the fastest returning player in the Peninsula District.

"He's fast, plus he'll hit you," said Phoebus coach Bill Dee, who believes Battle projects best as a strong safety or outside linebacker at the college level. "I think once he stops running track — you know, he does the indoor and the outdoor seasons — he could gain about 15 pounds without any problem."

Track has helped build Battle's reputation in a big way. He came into this weekend's Eastern Region outdoor track and field meet with the fastest 100-meter dash time — 10.76 seconds — in either the Peninsula District or Bay Rivers District this season.

"With that kind of speed, when people see his tape, they love it," Dee said.

In addition to U.Va., Battle has offers from Norfolk State, Kent State and Akron. Phoebus always seems to get a lot of love from those MAC schools. Dee said Battle is leaning toward U.Va., which already has nine commitments for its 2009 recruiting class.

It's great to see Battle get an offer from U.Va. He seems to be going about things the right way. Not only is he a valuable player, he's a top-notch student as well. He carries a 3.4 grade- point average, Dee said.

The first offer a recruit gets from a Bowl Championship Series conference school always tends to draw attention from other BCS schools, thus inevitably bumping the recruit up a notch or two on several recruiting boards. Dee said schools like Syracuse and Boston College have also inquired about Battle.

 

Cavaliers win the Battle for Phoebus defender
By Jerry Ratcliffe
Published: May 28, 2008

Virginia’s recruiting struggles in the football talent-rich 757 area code have been well-documented in recent years, but perhaps the trend is changing.

At least that is what observers would tend to believe if the past couple of days are any indication.

When LoVante’ Battle, a speedy defensive star from Phoebus High School, announced his verbal commitment to Virginia on Tuesday, it marked the second player from the state’s Tidewater region to pledge allegiance to the Cavaliers in a two-day span. Oscar Smith linebacker/safety Perry Jones committed to UVa on Memorial Day.

“LoVante’ was the best kept secret in the state,” Phoebus coach Bill Dee told The Daily Progress on Tuesday. “He’s a heck of an athlete. He’s one of the fastest kids I’ve ever coached and he’s an intelligent player. Virginia is getting a heck of a player.””

Of equal importance, the Cavaliers are getting a 757 player. At the end of last December’s Gator Bowl, there were only six players on Virginia’s roster that hailed from the Tidewater hotbed: two from Chesapeake; two from Virginia Beach; one from Hampton; and one from Newport News.

Battle, a 5-foot-11, 195-pound linebacker/safety, said that Jones’ commitment to the Cavaliers the day before inspired him to follow suit.

“I didn’t want [Jones] to be the lone ‘757’ player on the early commitment list,” Battle said in a telephone interview en route to his cousin’s graduation ceremony in Georgia. “”We are from the same neighborhood and we are two good teams that play each other every year. [Virginia] will probably have me at safety as well [where Jones is projected to play], so hopefully, we’ll have a good experience together in the secondary at Virginia.”

Battle, who is one of the state’s top sprinters, has been timed at 10.79 seconds in the 100 and 21.9 in the 200. His official 40-yard dash time is listed at 4.45.

But there’s more to this prospect than speed alone. He packs a punch, too.

“He flies around and plays reckless football, like a heat seeking missile,” Dee said. “He’s physical enough to play the isolations, but fast enough to play the perimeter and get to the drops.

“With his speed, LoVante’ could play corner, but he wants to hit people, so I’d say he’s probably a strong safety,” said Dee, who has turned out numerous Division I-A prospects during his reign as coach of the Phantoms. “He’s intelligent, too. We run a lot of coverages here and he is great at adjusting to them.”

While Virginia’s academics standards have cost the program some prospects over the years, those requirements worked in the Cavaliers’ favor in the battle for Battle, whom Dee said carries a 3.4 GPA.

“LoVante’ has always been concerned about his academics, and had a lot of high interest from a lot of different schools,” the coach said. “When we sat down and talked, I asked him that if offered, where would he most like to go and he said it would be Virginia.”

The Cavaliers offered Battle last Friday and he committed Tuesday.

Duke, Syracuse, East Carolina, Marshall, N.C. State, William & Mary and Norfolk State had shown strong interest in the speedster, while Stanford and Illinois had started to jump on the Battle bandwagon.

“Virginia got ahead of everybody and offered him and it just so happened that Virginia was his school,” Dee said. “He was off the radar a little because of some of the other prospects on our team. In my opinion, he’s very underrated. You look at his tape and you can match it up against anybody.”

Dee noted that most of the recruiters didn’t realize that Battle was also a track star, so when they discovered that fact — plus looked at his tapes and saw his grades — interest in the player skyrocketed.

“A lot of people really loved him on film,” Dee said.

Battle, who said Virginia was the first program he fell in love with, said he was intrigued by the school’s architectural design program, in which he intends to major.

“I took art all my life and my grandma used to take me to buildings and new houses, real big houses, and I just liked the design of them and how a house was built,” Battle said. “I did some research on that and found out that Virginia really has a nice program.”

Battle said he became concerned last season, when he was a second-team All-Peninsula District selection, that his teammates were receiving recruiting letters and he wasn’t. When the Cavaliers entered his picture, he became ecstatic.

“It’s my favorite school and close to home, and has my major of choice,” he said.

Football is a big part of it, too, though.

While Dee played Battle at tight end and flex tight end to help stretch opposing defenses, he also used him on end-around plays (five rushes, three touchdowns). But his game is defense.

“He’s definitely a threat on offense, but he’s so important to our defense,” the Phoebus coach said. “He was our leading tackler at inside linebacker where he had over 140 tackles as a junior last season.”

Battle said he learned all he needed to about the basics of football from his aunt when he was just a little kid.

“My strength is speed, technique and hitting,” he said. “My aunt always told me to either bring the pain or get the pain. I don’t want the pain.”

Battle is UVa’s 10th overall commitment and the eighth from the commonwealth of Virginia.

 

Cavs, Bruins share up-and-down year
By Jay Jenkins
Published: May 28, 2008

Playing a complete game seemed impossible for most of the season.

When the offense clicked, primetime pitching performances were unobtainable. Tossing gems on the mound turned into heartbreaking losses as poor offensive execution and defensive woes proved costly.

And just when it looked as though the baseball program was securely on the postseason bubble, the players appeared to jell.

Answering which team the summary fits with in the Fullerton Regional is a two-part answer.

It certainly applies to Virginia, which went 5-7 in the ACC in April, a staggering number when mid-week contests against sub-par opponents were never a given.

The Cavaliers (38-21) have company.

“It is the same thing with us,” said UCLA shortstop Brandon Crawford. “We have been hot and cold with our pitching, hot and cold with offense and I think lately we have finally been getting both of them working.”

Something must give Friday in the opening game of the Fullerton regional, a four-team, double-elimination tournament. UVa and UCLA meet at 7 p.m. (ESPNU).

The reasons for the woes baffled the coaches from both programs, and drew extra attention given the recent success of the two programs, but matter little with the NCAA tournament approaching.

“We didn’t play very well early, and then we kind of re-grouped and rebounded and played pretty well in the Pac-10 and finished pretty strong with a couple of series with Washington State and Cal,” said UCLA coach John Savage. “We feel good about our team right now and feel like we are playing pretty good.

“I know the expectations at Virginia are high, as they are at UCLA. The bottom line is that we are in the field and one of the 64 teams in the country that are still playing and have an opportunity to win a national championship. We are really excited to have the opportunity to play Virginia.”

The Bruins (31-25, 13-11 Pac-10) finished the regular season with a league-worst batting average (.275) and slugging percentage (.415), but ranked third in earned run average (4.43) and turned a league-best 61 double plays.

“We take pride on pitching and defense,” Savage said. “My background is on the pitching side of it … and we know that pitching and defense is how you get to Omaha.

“We do take great pride in it and we do have some good defenders and at this time of the year it is a play here or a pitch there and all the details really matter.”

While on the surface it would appear that Savage and Virginia coach Brian O’Connor were playing an early-week cat-and-mouse game with their delayed announcement of a starting pitcher for the opener, the two are friends and had reasons to ponder the decision.

Virginia ace Pat McAnaney struggled in a short outing against Miami in the ACC tournament’s title game as fellow left-hander Matt Packer turned in three solid performances out of the bullpen. Jacob Thompson and Andrew Carraway also remain options and started the Cavaliers’ two wins last week over Florida State and North Carolina.

UCLA ace Tim Murphy, a southpaw, ranked fifth in the Pac-10 in ERA and tied for the league-best strikeout total (107), but got little offensive support and stands just 5-6 overall. The Bruins other weekend starters have a far better winning percentage, but Gavin Brooks (6-2, 4.91 ERA) and Charles Brewer (8-4, 5.09) have combined for just 126 strikeouts and issued 79 walks.

“Usually we would come out and say it right away, but we have had some uncertainty in our rotation,” Savage said. “We have gone Murphy on Friday and Brewer on Saturday and Brooks on Sunday, but we are going to look at that and decide.

“More than likely it will be Murphy or Brewer.”

Having played in the balanced Pac-10, Savage said he did not have a preference of facing a right-handed pitcher or a left-handed pitcher in the opener.

“The numbers are the numbers. Just like Virginia, we play in a tough conference and we played a very tough non-conference schedule,” he added. “We see all kinds of good arms, both left and right. I think that it is all a matter of what goes on that day, which guy is really on and what type of lineup you have.

“We know they are going to be good and they have solid pitching and we know Brian will have his team prepared.”