U.Va. whips Johns Hopkins 19-8 in NCAA lacrosse
Saturday:Virginia vs. Cornell
Where:Foxborough, Mass.
By Jeff White
Published: May 18, 2009

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Two games into the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament, the University of Virginia has outscored its opponents 37-14.

U.Va. opened with an 18-6 rout of Villanova. The Wildcats were appearing in their first NCAA tourney, though, so that outcome didn't stun the lacrosse world.

What unfolded yesterday at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium was infinitely more shocking. Before a crowd of 12,142, top-seeded U.Va. embarrassed No. 8 seed Johns Hopkins 19-8 to advance to the NCAA's final four for the second consecutive year.

"This is the time of year that people remember in this sport," Cavaliers coach Dom Starsia said, and no one who witnessed his team's dominance yesterday is likely to soon forget it.

The opponent was mighty Hopkins, after all. The Blue Jays have won nine NCAA titles and were playing in the quarterfinals for the 19th consecutive season. Before yesterday, they'd never lost an NCAA tourney game by more than eight goals.

"I don't have a speech prepared for this," Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala said at his postgame news conference.

"They deserve to go on, and we deserve to go home."

Only the most optimistic Virginia fan would have predicted a win of this magnitude. In the teams' regular-season meeting, March 21 in Baltimore, U.Va. lost a substantial lead before rallying to win 16-15.

The Blue Jays (10-5) scored first yesterday, but the Cavaliers soon took control. U.Va. led 6-1 by the end of the first quarter and 12-4 at halftime. It was 16-5 after three quarters.

"That was something," Starsia said of his team's performance.

Virginia (15-2) will face another familiar foe, No. 5 seed Cornell (12-3), in an NCAA semifinal Saturday at Foxborough, Mass. The Wahoos rallied to beat the Big Red 14-10 on March 8 at Klockner Stadium.

Shamel Bratton scored three goals for U.Va. in that regular-season win over Cornell. The sophomore midfielder had a career-high five yesterday, and his equally mesmerizing twin, Rhamel, added two. For most of the second half, in fact, the Brattons had more goals than the Blue Jays.

"I wish they would have just stayed home," Pietramala said.

He knows the brothers well. When the twins were high school sensations on Long Island, N.Y., Pietramala tried to lure them to Hopkins.

"They are phenomenal athletes," he said. "But they're more than just athletes. They're quality lacrosse players. Too often a guy that's a great athlete gets tagged that and not a great lacrosse player. These kids are talented lacrosse players, and they play the game hard. They play it clean. They create space, and they command a lot of attention."

The Cavaliers have other weapons, and opponents who focus too hard on the Brattons do so at their peril. Senior attackman Garrett Billings (four goals, three assists) and freshman attackman Steele Stanwick (two goals, career-best five assists) led Virginia with seven points apiece. Senior attackman Danny Glading contributed two goals and an assist, and sophomore Adam Ghitelman sparkled in the cage, making 14 saves.

"We've probably played our best lacrosse these past two weeks," Starsia said, "and we've picked a good time to do it, if we can keep it going."








Virginia Romps Past Johns Hopkins 19-8
Courtesy: VirginiaSports.com

ANNAPOLIS, MD—Shamel Bratton scored a career-high five goals to lead a potent Virginia Cavalier squad to a 19-8 win over Johns Hopkins in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championship before a crowd of 12,142 fans at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium this afternoon.

Virginia improves to 15-2 this season and fifth in a row over Johns Hopkins. The Cavaliers face Cornell, a 6-4 winner over Princeton yesterday, in one national semifinal next Saturday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. This is their second consecutive appearance in the national semifinals and fourth in the last five seasons.

The win is the 300th of Virginia head coach Dom Starsia's career as he became only the third coach in Division I history to win 300 games. He is tied with former UMass coach Dick Garber for third all-time.


The loss is the biggest for the Blue Jays in NCAA Championship play, who saw their season end with a 10-5 record.

Senior Garrett Billings, who scored four goals in a 1-goal win over the Blue Jays earlier this season, scored four times and had three assists, while freshman Steele Stanwick scored two goals and assisted on five more. In two playoff games Stanwick has tallied 12 points (5g, 7a).

Adam Ghitelman was outstanding between the pipes with 14 saves in 53 minutes of action to highlight a dominating performance by the Cavalier defense.

Brian Christopher scored on the game’s first shot with just over a minute gone to give the Blue Jays a quick 1-0 lead. The Blue Jays controlled most of the action for the next four minutes but Ghitelman recorded saves on four of their next five shots to prevent Johns Hopkins from extending its lead.

Rhamel Bratton drew the Cavaliers even at one with a low bounce shot that deflected off the foot of Blue Jay goalie Mike Gvozden.

Following a Blue Jay turnover, Danny Glading scored his first goal of the afternoon 31 seconds later to give the Cavaliers a 2-1 advantage.

The Cavalier onslaught continued as an ability to win faceoffs—Chad Gaudet won three of the next four—and force turnovers enabled the Cavaliers to take control midway through the first quarter. Rhamel Bratton scored his second of the quarter at the 5:50 mark with a very difficult no-angle shot from the left side and Shamel Bratton followed 32 seconds later with his first marker of the game.

Stanwick assisted on two Billings goals over a 28-second span as the Virginia lead ballooned to 6-1 with fewer than three minutes remaining in the quarter. During the 6-goal run Virginia scored on six of 10 shots, while the defense forced three Blue Jay turnovers and did not allow a shot.

As in the first period, the Blue Jays scored first early in the second quarter as Michael Kimmel rifled a shot past Ghitelman from 10 yards out. Billings extended UVa’s lead to 7-2 20 seconds later by cutting to the crease and taking a feed from Glading to easily beat Gvozden for his third goal of the afternoon.

Christopher scored his second goal of the half at the 12:30 mark, but similar to the first quarter the Cavaliers ripped off the next five goals to build a 12-3 lead 45 seconds before halftime. Shamel Bratton scored twice during the run, while Stanwick, Glading and John Haldy all found the back of the net. In the first half Virginia scored on 12 of 26 shots.

Johns Hopkins capitalized on a Virginia turnover in the final 30 seconds and used Kyle Wharton’s goal five seconds before halftime as UVa took a 12-4 lead into the locker room at the break.

Virginia wasted little time pushing its lead to double digits as Shamel Bratton, Billings and Gavin Gill scored on consecutive shots in the opening two-and-a-half minutes of the second half as the lead grew to 15-4.

The next 10 minutes passed with no scoring until Shamel Bratton scored his fifth of the game with 2:17 remaining in the quarter. Blue Jay midfielder Mark Bryan closed the third quarter scoring with his only goal of the game with just over a minute to play.

Gill and Stanwick scored the first two goals of the fourth quarter as Virginia built an 18-5 lead with six minutes to play. The Blue Jays outscored Virginia 3-1 in the final two minutes to close the scoring.

“We certainly never expected the game to quite play out like that,” said Virginia head coach Dom Starsia after the game. “I thought they carried the play in the early going. We were very relentless in our approach. We talked before the game about winning the ground ball battle decisively, we thought that was going to be a key element and I thought we really never gave that away today.

“We’ve had very good focus in practice the last couple weeks. You can never know how that is going to manifest itself, but today it did. It was a little bit unexpected against a team like the Jays. I am really proud of my team. We’ve been through a lot this year and this is just another part of this adventure, so hopefully we can keep it going.”

Johns Hopkins 1-3-1-3—8 record: 10-5
Virginia 6-6-4-3—19 record: 15-2
Att— 12,142 (Third-largest quarterfinal crowd in NCAA history)


Scoring (G-A)— JH: Michael Kimmel 2-2, Brian Christopher 2-0, Mark Bryan 1-0, Matt Dolente 1-0, Josh Peck 1-0, Kyle Wharton 1-0, Matt Drenan 0-1, Tom Palasek 0-1, Austin Walker 0-1. UVa: Shamel Bratton 5-0, Garrett Billings 4-3, Steele Stanwick 2-5, Danny Glading 2-1, Rhamel Bratton 2-0, Gavin Gill 2-0, Colin Briggs 1-0, John Haldy 1-0, Brian Carroll 0-1, Chad Gaudet 0-1.

Goalie Summary— JH: Mike Gvozden 57:45 mins., 14 saves, 18 goals allowed; Steven Burke 2:15, 0 svs., 1 GA. UVa: Adam Ghitelman 53:10 mins., 14 saves, 5 goals allowed; Mark Wade 6:50, 0 svs., 3 GA.

Shots: JH —33, UVa —47
Ground Balls: JH —33, UVa —27
Clearing: JH —16x25, UVa —21x27
Faceoffs: JH —17, UVa —13
Penalties: JH —3-2:00, UVa —none
EMO: JH —0x0, UVa —1x3







Hopkins hammered by Virginia in NCAA quarterfinals
Top-seeded Cavs hand Jays worst playoff defeat in school history
By Mike Preston | Baltimore Sun reporter
3:55 PM EDT, May 17, 2009

ANNAPOLIS - The unofficial beginning of the surrender started with about seven minutes left in the game. That's when Virginia coach Dom Starsia began pulling his starting goalie and defenseman.

The rest was just a formality.

Johns Hopkins' often inconsistent attempt to run through the NCAA Division I lacrosse tournament ended with an embarrassing 19-8 quarterfinal loss to top-seeded Virginia Sunday afternoon at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium.

The eighth-seeded Blue Jays (10-5) trailed 12-4 at the half, and once the Cavaliers scored the first three goals of the third quarter in the opening four minutes of the quarter, the game had blowout written all over it.

The 11-goal loss was the worst playoff defeat in school history. The only time the Blue Jays ever allowed more goals in a postseason game came in 1992 when Hopkins lost to Syracuse, 21-16, in a NCAA tournament semifinal game.

"Virginia played a hell of a game," Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala said. "I think that the bottom line is that we got what we deserved. When you look at the last three or four weeks, we were skating by. Our offense was carrying us a little bit. We weren't doing a great job defensively. They were mistakes we were battling with all year."

Shamel Bratton scored a career-high five goals and Garrett Billings added four more and three assists for Virginia (15-2), which advanced to semifinals for the seventh time since 1999. Steele Stanwick (Loyola) added two goals and had five assists. Danny Glading and Rhamel Bratton scored two goals apiece for the Cavaliers, who will face Cornell (12-3) Saturday.

Brian Christopher and Michael Kimmel scored two goals each for eighth seed Johns Hopkins (10-5), which won the national championship in 2007 and was runner-up last season.









UVa romps, rolls into Final 4
By Gary Lambrecht Daily Progress correspondent
Published: May 18, 2009

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — When Virginia and Johns Hopkins met two months ago in a regular-season clash in Baltimore, the Cavaliers blew an early, six-goal lead before rallying late to beat the Blue Jays by one. In yesterday’s NCAA tournament quarterfinals at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, Virginia cut the suspense and simply blew Hopkins away.
The Cavaliers, looking extremely worthy as the tournament’s No. 1 seed, jumped the eighth-seeded Blue Jays early, then overwhelmed Hopkins en route to a 19-8 knockout before a crowd of 12,142.
The victory catapulted Virginia (15-2) into its 11th tournament semifinal round under veteran coach Dom Starsia, who celebrated his 300th career victory.
Virginia, in search of its fourth NCAA title under Starsia and first since 2006, will face fifth-seeded Cornell (12-3) on Saturday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.
Two months after slipping past the Blue Jays,
16-15, at Homewood Field, the Cavaliers were way too much for Hopkins (10-5) to handle.
Hopkins suffered its most lopsided postseason loss in school history, while the Blue Jays allowed the second-most goals in their playoff history, which includes 38 straight Division I tournament appearances and 19 consecutive trips to the quarterfinals.
The stars were everywhere for Virginia, which has amassed 37 goals in the first two playoff rounds while surrendering only 14.
Sophomore Shamel Bratton scored a career-high five goals. Senior attackman Garrett Billings collected four goals and three assists. Freshman attackman Steele Stanwick finished with career-highs in assists (five) and points (seven).
And the Cavaliers, who led by 13 in the second half, shot a blistering 40 percent, while holding the Blue Jays to a season-low eight goals. Virginia feasted on 24 Hopkins turnovers and nine failed clears by the Blue Jays. Hopkins attackmen Chris Boland and Kyle Wharton, who entered the contest with a combined 90 points, produced one goal. Boland was shut out. Virginia sophomore goalie Adam Ghitelman finished with 14 saves.
“I have seen a much sharper focus over the last couple weeks, especially from our older guys. We’ve asked more in practice than I normally would this time of year, but I think we needed that because we didn’t finish the season on a high note,” said Starsia, alluding to a pair of late-season losses to Duke.
“So far in these first two games [including an 18-6 rout of Villanova in the first round], we’ve come out with a little sense of purpose and it’s played out for us.”
Hopkins has gotten by for much of the year with an offense that had averaged 11.5 goals to take pressure off of a shaky defense.
On Sunday, the Cavaliers used their athleticism, pinpoint passing and precise shooting to exploit the Blue Jays inside, whether in transition or from a settled attack.
The competition was over early. After the Blue Jays took a 1-0 lead on a 12-yard shot by midfielder Brian Christopher (two goals), Virginia went to work.
Over an 11-minute span in the first quarter, the Cavaliers shook Hopkins with a 6-0 run. Midfielder Rhamel Bratton beat Hopkins goalie Michael Gvozden twice from the left wing to make it 3-1 with 5:50 left in the first quarter.
Then, after Shamel Bratton blew an 18-yarder by Gvozden, Stanwick pounced on a failed clear and fed Billings for a point-blank score. Billings then took a pass from Stanwick and finished with a behind-the-back shot in close to make it 6-1 with 2:57 left.
The teams traded goals briefly in the second quarter, before Virginia blew the game open with a five-goal run to make it 12-3 late in the quarter. By halftime, Billings and Shamel Bratton had hat tricks.
Bratton scored two more in the first 13 minutes of the second half, as Virginia used a 4-0, third-quarter run to put Hopkins in a 16-4 hole with 2:17 left. The Cavaliers led by as much as 18-5 with 6:03 left. By that time, Starsia had pulled many starters.
“We played like a team that hadn’t been here before, and [Virginia] played like a team that had been here before,” Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala said. “We got out-coached. We got out-played. We got out-hustled. We got beaten in every phase of the game.”







Cavs to face Tigers
By Jay Jenkins
Published: May 18, 2009

Sweeping Virginia Tech would not have been enough to deliver a Coastal Division title to Virginia’s baseball team.
The Cavaliers needed help.
Boston College and Duke were willing to help obviously, as both upended North Carolina and Georgia Tech (twice), respectively.
Virginia, however, stumbled in Blacksburg with in-state rival Virginia Tech.
Ultimately after dropping the first two games in the series, the Cavaliers were saddled with the sixth seed in the ACC tournament. Virginia finished two games behind division winner North Carolina and resided behind a host of teams that were wedged in the middle (Clemson Georgia Tech and Miami) of both in what was one of the closest seeding battles in recent years.
“That shows you the depth of the ACC and the small margin for error in winning and losing in this league,” Virginia coach Brian O’Connor said. “I know that our players see the challenge ahead of us in the ACC tournament, but I know that they are hungry and they know that they still have not played their best baseball this season.”
After considering options to maximize attendance at its marquee contests — the 8 p.m. game daily — the ACC office announced the pairings for the 13-game event that will be played at the Durham (N.C.) Bulls Athletic Park. The tourney uses a pool-play format that guarantees each program that qualified at least three games.
The 10th-ranked Cavaliers (39-12-1, 16-11-1 ACC) will play their three games against North Carolina, Clemson and Duke, but they will have to wait — and wait — for their opener.
After six teams play Wednesday and the two opening games are held Thursday, Virginia will open the event with an 8 p.m. contest against third-seeded Clemson (39-17, 19-11).
Oddly enough, UVa and Clemson did not play during the regular season.
“I am one of the few
players that has even played against them, but it has been a long time,” Virginia shortstop Tyler Cannon said referring to the last meeting in 2007. “We don’t know much about them yet, but hopefully we can come out and take it to Clemson and get some momentum for the tournament.”
Virginia will certainly need that boost Friday night at 8 p.m. — the Cavaliers face UNC in what should be considered a home game for the Tar Heels. North Carolina won a pair of one-run games and won the series 2-1 in Chapel Hill, N.C.
“North Carolina has one of the best programs in the country evidenced by the numerous trips to Omaha,” O’Connor said. “We will need to play good baseball and pitch effectively against a veteran team of the caliber of UNC.”
UVa will close out pool play Saturday night against seventh-seeded Duke at 8 p.m., marking the third straight night game for the Cavaliers.
The Cavaliers used a late rally in the second game of the series against Duke and won the finale to win the three-game set earlier this month.
Playing all three games under the lights in the same expected time slot, something that could be altered by weather delays, could be a bonus.
In fact, Virginia went 15-4 in night games this season.








Virginia falls to USC in NCAA quarterfinals
By Richard Croome Daily Progress correspondent
Published: May 18, 2009

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The pain of the only loss in a season coming at the NCAA tennis tournament for the second consecutive season was evident by how much Virginia coach Brian Boland kept referring to it after almost every question.
The No. 1-seed Cavaliers (32-1) were upset, 4-0, by eighth-seeded Southern California (22-5) in the quarterfinals on Sunday, in a match that started at noon on Saturday, but had to be finished the following morning because of a six-hour rainstorm.
“I guess it hasn’t sunk in yet ... we were well prepared, well conditioned and we left it on the court but it’s really, really disappointing,” Boland said. “We’ve been back here now our sixth straight year and it never gets easier.”
It marked the second straight season the Cavaliers came in as the No. 1 seed and were knocked out before reaching the final. Georgia, which went on to win the title in 2008, ousted then-undefeated Virginia,
4-3.
“They both hurt. It’s really, really disappointing we are sitting here again in a similar situation, but that’s sports,” Boland said. “If you’re not willing to have the potential and disappointments, you can’t keep coming back here through this pain.”
Boland believed the pressure of only losing in the tournament last season and coming into this weekend of being undefeated had nothing to do with the loss.
Virginia is 56-0 going into the NCAA tournament over the past two seasons and 7-2 in the tournament.
“No, not at all, I don’t think it [being undefeated] adds any pressure unless you allow it to. [We are] never going to go out and try to lose a match [to take that pressure away],” Boland said. “Other teams have suggested to me it would be a good idea particularly when we play them.
“I think we put ourselves in the best possible position two years in a row to win the championship being the one seed, being undefeated and we are going to try and do it again next year,” Boland said. “And, sooner or later we’ll get it done.”
The Cavaliers had to sit on a 1-0 deficit for nearly 20 hours after Saturday’s rain delay. Boland believed, if anything, that could have helped his team because the Trojans could not take that momentum into the singles matches.
It didn’t appear to affect USC and neither did the lower temperatures, which stayed in the high 60s throughout the match, as the Trojans got off to fast starts in most of the matches, especially at No. 1 and No. 5.
“No matter what I kept thinking, I’m sleeping better than Brian [Boland],” Southern Cal coach Peter Smith said about the delay. “I felt like we stole a point yesterday, but they stole the point from us two years ago, so it was payback.”
The Trojans’ Robert Farah, ranked No. 8, broke 14th-ranked Dominic Inglot to go up 3-2 and then again to win the first set. He then made the second set look even easier, closing it out at love for a 6-3, 6-1 victory and a 2-0 Trojan lead.
“We’re out there playing at 9:00,
7 a.m. Pacific time, and you just have to roll with it,” Smith said. “You got 1-0, and you really want someone to step up and make it 2-0. Robert did that and everyone sees the score, it’s a train and it’s going down the track, and the faster it goes the harder it is to stop and it just got going.”
It was much longer and Steve Johnson, a finalist in the Pac-10 singles tournament, put away Sanam Singh,
6-3, 6-4, at No. 2.
Johnson’s point to get to match point showed how well the Trojans were on top of their game.
He hit a stretch backhand volley on the run for a winner to make it 40-love. Smith said he was so impressed with the shot he had to walk out and give his player a fist pump.
“They deserved to win today. They were the better team on the court,” Boland said. “That being said, we fought hard, but there were some things we needed to do better to find four points against USC today and yesterday, since it was a two-day match, which is one thing new to us.”
Houston Barrick, at No. 4, was one of the Cavaliers that got off to a good start, winning 6-4 in the opener. Senior Abdullah Magdas battled back in the second to win 6-2 and then got up two breaks at 5-1.
Barrick broke back, held serve and saved to match points before Magdas hit a forehand winner to put the Trojans in the semifinals against Texas, which beat defending champion Georgia.
“He’s going to manage somehow to win points and that’s what happened,” Magdas said of the trouble he had closing the deal. “He put pressure on me and played the right shots.”
When the match ended, Lee Singer was leading at No. 6, 7-6, 5-2.
Drew Courtney was down a set and in the tiebreaker of the second set, while Michael Shabaz was behind 3-1 after splitting sets.
“The last half hour of that match I still had a lot of hope. Houston is one of those guys that until the last ball is hit, it’s never over,” Boland said. “Michael was hanging in there and I feel the same way about Drew Courtney, and Lee Singer was up.
“I never thought the match was over until Magnus finished the final point, especially when playing Houston Barrick, who’s as tough as they come.”
Aces
The last time a No. 1 seed was knocked out by a team ranked as low as No. 8 was when Southern Cal at No. 11 beat No. 1 Georgia in 2002 for the title. That match was also at Texas A&M. ... Virginia had only loss the doubles point twice before falling to Southern Cal. The Cavaliers came back to beat UCLA and Duke, 4-3.








Grafton grad Poutier readjusting to pitching for U.Va. after injury
By Norm Wood | 247-4642
May 17, 2009

After retiring the final Duke batter in the eighth inning last Sunday at Davenport Field, Virginia's Robert Poutier exited the game after his shortest outing of the season.

In 2005, when he was a Freshman All-American as a starter, a one-inning outing would've equaled bad news. Now, as a key member of U.Va.'s bullpen, an effective, pain-free single inning means a job well done for the Grafton High graduate. In essence, the Duke game wasn't unlike many of his appearances this season, but it was a further demonstration of just how much his role has changed at U.Va. (39-12-1, 16-11-1 Atlantic Coast Conference).

His setup work against Duke would've made even Red Sox reliever Hideki Okajima envious: no hits, no walks and three outs in just eight pitches ... and not a single negative thought about his back — an issue that would've plagued him in the not-so distant past.

In 2006, a back injury caused him to redshirt his second season at U.Va. after just four starts. Though doctors had trouble pinpointing the origin of the injury, it lingered through the '07 and into the '08 season.

Rotating his body and raising his arms above his head during his delivery set his back on fire. After he jumped on board with a full regimen of stretching, abdomen, lumbar and stabilization exercises, the excruciating days are gone for the most part.

"There are still days when I'll wake up and I'm a little sore or a little stiff, and I'll move around and loosen up or it'll go away," said Poutier, who is 3-0 with a 2.23 earned-run average, 43 strikeouts and 13 walks in 32 1/3 innings. "As far as the chronic back pain is concerned, that's all over and done with. I don't feel that anymore."

Despite his two rocky seasons, Poutier never considered hanging up the spikes. After going 5-1 with a 0.73 ERA as a freshman, and falling to 1-0 with a 6.55 ERA as a sophomore before redshirting, Poutier had to get used to life coming out of the bullpen.

He's primarily a middle reliever and setup man now as a senior. He has started in just eight of his last 26 appearances since '07, but his presence on the Cavaliers' roster is invaluable. There's a reason he's a two-year captain for a team that's ranked No. 10 in the nation, according to Baseball America.

"In my 16 years of coaching, he has as much — if not more — character than any kid I've ever coached," U.Va. coach Brian O'Connor said. "I didn't know it before he got here, but as soon as he got here, I knew it. He just gets it. … He puts team ahead of everything all the time."

O'Connor trusts Poutier's opinion so much that he consults with Poutier on how to handle pitchers who endure rough patches. Catcher Will Campbell, a senior walk-on, has known Poutier since their playing days together at Grafton, where Poutier earned Daily Press All-Stars Player of the Year and Region I Pitcher of the Year honors in '04. In Campbell's opinion, if any of U.Va.'s 22 freshmen and sophomores take anything from Poutier's approach, it should be his consistency.

"Everybody knew his back was frustrating for him, but he never showed signs of being mad at the world because of his injury," Campbell said. "He stayed so consistent in everything he did. Every year I've been here, he's been one of the leaders on the team. We kind of joke on him now because he's a fifth-year and he's one of the older guys on the team, so we call him 'Papa Poot' or something like that."

Proof that Poutier, who is taking graduate-level courses in education at U.Va., had made it back to as close to 100 percent as he could possibly get came in last year's ACC tournament. Around 12:30 a.m. in a game that started May 24, he pitched a scoreless eighth inning in U.Va.'s 7-4 loss to Wake Forest. He came about 15 hours later and pitched another scoreless inning in the Cavaliers' 8-4 loss to Miami. He pitched both days without any pain.

"If I have a bad outing now, some of my friends or my family will ask, 'How's your back feeling?'" said Poutier, who throws two-seam and four-seam fastballs, change-ups, curveballs and sliders. "Even if I have a bad outing, now I can say it wasn't because of the injury. There's no excuses if I go out there and don't perform to my capabilities."

While Poutier realizes he may never reach the peaks he had in his freshman season, which included starting the ACC tournament championship game, he's content with where he is. His fastball tops out between 89-91 miles per hour, right where it was before his back injury. Though he likely has just an outside shot at getting drafted by a Major League Baseball team, he's not the type to look back and "what if" his choices.

"Overall, even with the downs, the ups are far better and I wouldn't trade anything in the world for my five years here," Poutier said. "Coming back to U.Va. for my fifth year is probably the best decision I've ever made."






Virginia Wins Team Title And Three Races At South/Central Regionals
Courtesy: VirginiaSports.com

Team captains Amanda Chase, Lauren Hutchins and Augusta Stratos with the South Region championship trophy

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – Led by victories in the Varsity Eight, Second Varsity Eight and Novice Eight, the 11th-ranked Virginia rowing team won the overall South/Central Regional Championship and the South Region Championship Sunday at Melton Lake.

Virginia has now won the South Region six times in the last seven years (2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009) and the South/Central team championship five times in the last six seasons (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009).

UVa finished with 387 points to take the overall team title, followed by Central Regional Champion Michigan with 348 points. Rounding out the top five was Ohio State (328), Wisconsin (321) and Michigan State (320).

“I’m just very proud of our entire team,” Virginia head coach Kevin Sauer said. “And I’m proud of how they performed today across the board.”

The Varsity Eight of coxswain Sidney Thorsten, Jennifer Cromwell, Helen Tompkins, Desiree Burns, Amanda Chase, Lauren Hutchins, Augusta Stratos, Nora Phillips and Victoria Burke wrapped up a 3-0 weekend with a two-second victory in the grand final. The Cavaliers’ winning time of 6:03.2 bested second-place Michigan’s of 6:05.8.

Michigan’s Varsity Eight entered the South/Central Regional Championships ranked No. 6 by the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association (CRCA), while third-place finisher Michigan State was ranked No. 3.

The Second Varsity Eight (coxswain Cristine Candland, Lauren Shook, Claudia Blandford, Marie Long, Cara Linnenkohl, Martha Kuzzy, Bridget Fowler, Christine Roper and Susie Chalker) was victorious in its grand final. The crew edged Michigan State by four tenths of a second (6:13.00 to 6:13.4).

UVa’s Varsity Four, meanwhile, finished in second place in its grand final with a time of 6:59.30. Ohio State finished in first place (6:58.00).

“It’s been a challenging year across the board, but it’s important to see how hard our athletes have continued to fight,” associate head coach Steve Pritzker said. “It’s great to see their results show the amount of work they’ve put in.”

The First Novice Eight had a thrilling finish in its grand final, rallying to defeat Wisconsin by three one-hundredths of a second. The Cavaliers’ winning time was 6:27.60, compared to Wisconsin’s time of 6:27.63.

Virginia’s Second Novice Eight, meanwhile, finished second in the petite final with a time of 6:35.7. Clemson won that race with a time of 6:33.9.

Teams earning a berth to the 2009 NCAA Rowing Championships, May 29-31 in Cherry Hill, N.J., will be announced on Tuesday, May 19 at 5 p.m.