Cornell dispatches sluggish Cavs
The Big Red ends Virginia's run and next faces Syracuse in the men's lacrosse final.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Virginia got just what it wanted Sunday. The Cavaliers won't be playing nemesis Duke in the championship game of the Division I men's lacrosse tournament.

In fact, UVa won't be playing anybody.

After watching Syracuse dismiss the Blue Devils in Saturday's first semifinal at Gillette Stadium, top-seeded Virginia showed little life in a 15-6 loss to Cornell.

It was the first time somebody other than Duke had beaten the Cavaliers (15-3) this season.

"I'm at a little bit of a loss to explain what happened to us," UVa coach Dom Starsia said. "I apologized to the team on the field after the game for not doing a good enough job of preparing them."

Starsia described himself as somebody who envisions every possible scenario, "but this was not a picture that I was prepared to see," he said.

UVa had beaten fifth-seeded Cornell in Charlottesville in March, but the Big Red (13-3) raced to a an early 6-1 lead Saturday and went into halftime up 8-2.

"We seemed a little gassed early," Starsia observed. "A big rock started rolling down the hill and we couldn't get our arms back around it."

Cornell will bid for its first national championship since 1977 when it meets Syracuse on at 1 p.m. Monday. The Orangemen beat Duke 17-7.

Saturday's loss was the second in as many trips to Gillette Stadium for Virginia, a 12-11 overtime loser to Syracuse in the 2008 semifinals.

The Cavaliers came into Saturday's game with 13.41 goals per game, ranking them first among 57 Division I teams, but lacked the crisp ball movement that usually marks their play.

"In the first half, we threw so many soft balls on offense," Starsia said. "It was so difficult just exchanging the ball. We seemed almost incapable of making a pass offensively."

Goalie Adam Ghitelman didn't maintain his form from UVa's first two playoff games, when the Cavaliers romped past Villanova 18-6 and Johns Hopkins 19-8.

"I just don't think it was just Adam," Starsia said. "We looked, defensively, like we weren't capable of winning individual battles. [It was a case of] no one working together. I don't place the blame on anybody."

In UVa's first two playoff games, Ghitelman had registered 18 saves and allowed five goals. He had five saves Saturday.

Freshman attackman Rob Pannell had three goals and three assists for the Big Red, which also got three goals apiece from its other starting attackmen, junior Ryan Hurley and senior Chris Finn.

Time of possession was huge. Even when Cornell wasn't converting its scoring opportunities, the Big Red was taking its time. Frequently, when Virginia made a stop, the Cavaliers would storm down the field and take low-percentage shots.

"Your best defense is a good offense," Cornell midfielder Max Seibald said. "That was our game plan. We wanted to stay out of a run-and-gun game."

Starsia said: "One of the most difficult things in sports is to maintain your discipline on offense when you haven't seen the ball for a long time."

Virginia's afternoon was summed up early in the fourth quarter, when senior Danny Glading appeared to score a goal that would have made it 11-6. Instead, the goal was waved off after Glading was called for stepping in the crease. The ball went over to Cornell and the Big Red quickly scored at the other end to make it 12-5.

In a season that included four one-goal victories, Virginia's three losses were by a combined 25 goals, including two lopsided losses to Duke.

"At this point of the season, every game is going to be a challenge," said Glading, who had two goals and an assist in the final game of a distinguished career. "So, I don't think we were looking ahead at all. We were ready to play. We just didn't play."

Cornell 4 4 3 4 -- 15

Virginia 1 1 2 2 -- 6

CORNELL SCORING

Goals -- Pannell 3, Hurley 3, Finn 3, Romero 2, Seibald, Lau, Lang, Thomson. Assists -- Pannell 3, Boykin, Glynn, Hurley, Lau, Romero, Seibald.

VIRGINIA SCORING

Goals -- Stanwick 2, Glading 2, Billings, S. Bratton. Assists -- Billings, Glading, Stanwick. Shots -- 37-27, Cornell.

Ground balls -- 32-30, Cornell. Faceoffs -- 13-12, Virginia. Saves -- Cornell 8, Virginia 5. Turnovers -- Cornell 18, Virginia 20.

Clears -- Cornell 23 of 27, Virginia 11 of 15. Extra-man -- Cornell 2 of 4, UVa 0 of 1.
 

Big Red romps U.Va. lacrosse in semis
By Jeff White
Published: May 24, 2009

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The frighteningly profilic offense that wore University of Virginia colors in the first two rounds of the NCAA men's lacrosse tournament? That group never made it to Gillette Stadium.

U.Va.'s defense derailed on the way to New England, too.

The top-seeded Cavaliers were as awful yesterday against Cornell as they'd been brilliant vs. Villanova and Johns Hopkins.

U.Va., which averaged 18.5 goals in its first two NCAA tourney games, scored only six in the semifinals against the fifth-seeded Big Red. Cornell never trailed in a 15-6 shocker before 35,694 fans at the New England Patriots' stadium.

"I never had this vision in mind," Virginia coach Dom Starsia said. "Everything occurs to me, but every indication was that we were ready to play. This wasn't a picture that I was prepared to see. It's a hard way for the season to end."

In their regular-season meeting, U.Va. outscored Cornell by five goals in the second half and won 14-10 at Klockner Stadium. Virginia (15-3) never mounted a rally yesterday. Cornell led 8-2 at the break, and its confidence continued to grow in the second half.

"We never put two goals together," Starsia said. "We never put a run together, and I thought we were going to. But it just never happened, and Cornell had everything to do with that."

It wasn't a great day for ACC lacrosse. In yesterday's first semifinal, defending NCAA champion Syracuse dismantled Duke 17-7. The third-seeded Blue Devils finished 15-4.

The second-seeded Orange (15-2) will meet Cornell (13-3) for the NCAA title tomorrow at 1 p.m. The 'Cuse is trying to become the first team to win consecutive national championships since Princeton in 1996, '97 and '98. Cornell is seeking its first NCAA title since 1977 and fourth overall.

Syracuse whipped the Big Red 15-10 during the regular season and will be favored tomorrow. Then again, U.Va. was favored yesterday.

"We heard a lot from the media about how we weren't supposed to win this game," Cornell coach Jim Tambroni said, "and I think by starting strong early our players could believe themselves and play at such a high level."

Yesterday's game was only the second this season in which the Wahoos failed to score at least 10 goals. They attempted only one shot in the first eight minutes, by which time Cornell had seized control. The Big Red could afford to be patient on offense, waiting for defensive breakdowns.

"I hate to go into a game saying you'd like to score early, because if it doesn't happen, you don't want to kind of hex yourself a little," Starsia said. "But their ability to jump out to the lead early, I think, gave them the ability to stick to the tempo they wanted."

Defensive lapses cost the Cavaliers periodically during the regular season and in the ACC tourney, but they dazzled at that end against Villanova and Hopkins. Yesterday, though, the Big Red made U.Va. defenders and goalie Adam Ghitelman look inept for much of the day.

"We could stop the first play, and maybe even the second one, but they just had the patience to keep moving the ball around until our defense couldn't keep up, and we kind of broke down after they had those long possessions throughout the game," said senior Mike Timms, a long-stick midfielder from Virginia Beach.

Even routine plays proved difficult for U.Va. to execute yesterday. In the final minute, an uncontested pass from sophomore Rhamel Bratton got past junior Mike Thompson and rolled out of bounds. That, as much as anything else, summed up a dismal afternoon for Virginia.

"It wasn't really our day at either end," said Thompson, a Collegiate School graduate. "I don't think it has anything to do with our preparation or lack of effort. It's just sometimes how sports work out."
 

Big Red stuns Cavs
Fifth seed Cornell reaches its first title game since '88
By Edward Lee | edward.lee@baltsun.com
May 24, 2009

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — - If you learned that the NCAA tournament semifinal between top seed Virginia and No. 5 seed Cornell wasn't even close, you probably wouldn't be surprised.

The shocker is that it was the Big Red that enjoyed the result.

Cornell scored the game's first three goals and six of the first seven to stun the heavily favored Cavaliers, 15-6, before an announced 36,594 at Gillette Stadium on Saturday.

The Big Red (13-3) will meet No. 2 seed and reigning national champion Syracuse in the championship final at 1 p.m. Monday. The Orange (15-2) walloped No. 3 seed Duke (15-4), 17-7, earlier Saturday.

Cornell, which dropped a 15-10 decision to Syracuse on April 7, advanced to its first title game since 1988. The school won the national crown in 1971, 1976 and 1977.

Considered an afterthought among the other semifinalists, the Big Red demonstrated why it is a dangerous team to overlook.

"We came into this game expecting to win," said senior midfielder Max Seibald, who contributed a goal and an assist. "We were the only ones who believed we were going to win. Nobody outside of us thought that was possible, but we had confidence in our game."

The Cavaliers, who had blanketed Cornell in a 14-10 win March 8, had no answer for the Big Red's starting attack, which combined for nine goals and four assists.

Freshman attackman Rob Pannell led all scorers with six points on three goals and three assists. Junior attackman Ryan Hurley added three goals and one assist, and senior attackman Chris Finn had three goals.

Finn opened the scoring with 11:28 left in the first quarter. Just 110 seconds later, the Big Red had a 3-0 lead. Cornell led 6-1 with 4:58 left in the second period and took an 8-2 advantage into halftime.

"We looked like defensively we were capable of winning some of the individual battles, but nobody [was] working together," Virginia coach Dom Starsia said. "We could maybe get a slide, but we just couldn't get two. They just were very alert finding the open man."

The other part of the equation was Cornell's defense against a Cavaliers offense that had scored 37 goals in their first two tournament games against Johns Hopkins and Villanova. Virginia sophomore midfielder Shamel Bratton, who scored five goals in the quarterfinal victory over the Blue Jays, scored just once, and senior attackman Garrett Billings, who had four goals and three assists in the quarterfinal, was also limited to a single goal.

Attackmen Danny Glading and Steele Stanwick (Loyola) each had two goals and one assist for the Cavaliers (15-3), who have failed to reach the championship final five times in their past seven attempts.

Notes:
The announced attendance of 36,594 was the smallest since the NCAA moved the Final Four to professional venues after the 2002 season. … The Syracuse-Cornell title game is the first All-New York final since 1988, when the Orange defeated the Big Red, 13-8, at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. … An Atlantic Coast Conference team will not be in the title game for the first time since 2004, when Syracuse nipped Navy, 14-13.

 

Big Red, big rout
By Whitey Reid
Published: May 24, 2009

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Nobody could have predicted the dominance that Virginia displayed in its first two games of the NCAA tournament.

Conversely, nobody could have predicted what happened on Saturday afternoon at Gillette Stadium.

As in sync as the Cavaliers were in wins over Villanova and Johns Hopkins, they were as discombobulated against Cornell.

In the tournament semifinals, No. 1 seed Virginia was completely outplayed by the fifth-seeded Big Red. Cornell, behind great defense and a surprising flurry of offensive firepower, shocked UVa, 15-6, to advance to the championship game on Monday against Syracuse.

Cornell (12-3) will be making its first final appearance since 1988, when it also beat the Cavs along the way to the final. The Big Red’s 15 goals were the most that Virginia had allowed in an NCAA tournament game since 2001.

“I’m at a little bit of a loss to explain what happened to us today,” said Virginia coach Dom Starsia. “I thought we were well prepared coming into the game. We had a couple of good days of practice.

“We just seemed a little gassed early and Cornell was clearly carrying the play to us. The big rock started rolling down the hill and we couldn’t get our arms around it.”

Cornell had more goals in the first half (eight) than it had the entire game against Princeton (six) in last weekend’s quarterfinals.

The Big Red (13-3) received three goals apiece from Rob Pannell, Ryan Hurley and Chris Finn. Eight players scored.

Cornell outshot Virginia, 37-27, and won the ground ball battle, 32-20.

“We had been so sharp the last couple of weeks,” Starsia said. “It just seemed like we didn’t have any energy today…we just seemed almost incapable of making a pass offensively. There just wasn’t enough urgency.”

For the second straight season, Virginia’s NCAA title hopes ended in the semifinals at Gillette Stadium. After the game, in the locker room, many UVa players appeared to be weeping.

“This has been an epic year in our program,” Starsia said. “I thought the kids did a great all year. I apologized to the team on the field for not doing a good enough job of preparing them to play today.

“They’ve distinguished themselves in so many ways this year. It’s just a shame that this is how our season ended.”

Really, the game was like a Mike Tyson fight from the 1980s. Virginia, playing the role of Michael Spinks, was bombarded from the opening whistle.

Before the Cavaliers knew what hit them, Cornell had raced out to a 3-0 lead.

A Danny Glading goal trimmed the margin to 3-1, but Cornell answered with three consecutive goals to take a 6-1 lead.

After a Shamel Bratton goal made it 6-2, Cornell answered with two goals to lead 8-2 at halftime. For one 17-minute and 32-second stretch in the first half, UVa was scoreless.

“We missed some of the early chances that we had and Cornell did a really good job on groundballs and faceoffs,” said Glading, who, with teammate Steele Stanwick, paced Virginia with two goals, “so we didn’t see the ball very often on offense and when we did, we didn’t have the patience.”

Cornell goalie Jake Myers, a San Diego native who transferred from Syracuse, was steady. When the second half began, Myers calmly turned away a blistering shot from the wing by Bratton.

The save kept the Big Red’s momentum going. Finn and Hurley answered with goals.

Everyone in attendance kept expecting Virginia to make one of its patented runs, but it never came. In fact, UVa didn’t score consecutive goals all game.

“Every time we got a goal, they just answered right back,” Stanwick said. “They did a great job. They’re a great team. That’s what great teams do — they answer back.”

In the regular season, Virginia had defeated Cornell in Charlottesville, somewhat routinely, 14-10.

Many pundits already had UVa penciled into the finals against Syracuse, which had upset Duke in the first semifinal.

“I don’t think we were looking ahead,” Glading said. “We knew Cornell was a great team and had a great senior class.

“We were ready to play. We just didn’t play.”

Added fifth-year senior Mike Timms: “They did what we thought they would do. They just did it better than they had been doing it.”
 

NCAA men's lacrosse: Cornell upsets top-seeded Virginia
Big Red to play for NCAA championship on Monday
Brian Delaney
bdelaney@gannett.com

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The jam-packed lower bowl of cavernous Gillette Stadium spent an entire afternoon waiting for a patented Virginia run that never materialized.

Worried for 60 minutes that one goal would ignite a string of eight, not until he walked off the field did goalie Jake Myers pause to finally accept the magnitude of Cornell’s 15-6 NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Championship Tournament semifinal upset of the Cavaliers.

“It took until after the game to be like, ‘Wow, that was an upset,’” he said. “That was a big margin.”

On this day, Cornell shocked a tightly-knit lacrosse world that largely doubted the Big Red when the tournament pairings were announced May 3. But from start to finish Saturday, Cornell methodically dismantled the No. 1 overall seed and perennial NCAA tournament behemoth.

“Cornell was clearly carrying the play to us,” Virginia coach Dom Starsia said. “The big rock started rolling down the hill a little bit, and we just couldn’t get our arms back around it.”

Instead, they simply got rolled.

Senses alerted something amiss as early as the first six minutes of the game, after Cornell scored three goals in rapid succession. The Big Red held a 4-1 lead by quarter’s end against the same Virginia team that knocked Villanova, then Johns Hopkins, senseless in the first 15 minutes by a combined 15-0 margin.

“We heard a lot from the media about how we weren’t supposed to win this game, and I think by starting strong early our players could believe in themselves and play at such a high level,” Cornell coach Jeff Tambroni said. “We carried the momentum from the first stanza into the next 45 minutes.”

Saturday’s outcome sets up a Central New York lacrosse fan’s dream for the remainder of championship weekend – Cornell (13-3) will play second-seeded and defending national champion Syracuse (15-2) at 1 p.m. Monday for the title. If SUNY Cortland (Division III) and Le Moyne College (Division II) win championships today, it’ll guarantee Upstate a clean sweep.

Virginia scored 14 goals in a win over Cornell in March, but became the latest team victimized by a reformed and rejuvenated Big Red defense.

The Cavaliers were mystified the same way Princeton was in last weekend’s quarterfinal round – by an athletic, quick-sliding unit that collapsed on open spaces before their stable of thoroughbreds could react.

Myers (seven saves) took care of the perimeter shots, and even stole two seconds apart from inside 8 yards by Steele Stanwick and Shamel Bratton at the start of the third quarter.

“I think that was our only slip-up on defense, and I had their back there,” Myers said. “They had my back the whole game.”

Each time Virginia scored, Cornell had an answer. And each time that happened, Virginia’s swagger swooned.

Cornell’s attackmen carefully picked Virginia apart with patient, prolonged possessions, exploiting the attention paid to All-American midfielders Max Seibald and John Glynn. The foursome of Rob Pannell (three goals, three assists), Ryan Hurley (three goals), Chris Finn (three goals) and rarely used reserve David Lau (one goal) sparked Cornell’s highest offensive output in six games.

“It wasn’t our best day on our close defense,” Starsia said. “A lot of it emanates also from the fact that Glynn and Seibald can kind of soften you up up front.”

Throughout the second half, a run from the country’s top-ranked offense felt imminent. But it never came.

Garrett Billings scored 44 seconds into the fourth quarter to cut Virginia’s deficit to 11-5. The Cavs won the ensuing faceoff, but Steele Stanwick drilled the crossbar. Moments later, Ken Clausen stripped Romero of the ball, only to have Finn pressure the ball back to Cornell. That possession resulted Lau’s goal.

Less than a minute later, Danny Glading converted a failed Cornell clear into a goal. Cornell’s response was immediate.

Freshman Roy Lang possessed the draw and stormed the cage untouched for his eighth goal of the year. When Seibald fired a howlitzer past goalie Adam Ghitelman 55 seconds later for an eight-goal lead, fans headed for the exits – some still shaking their heads.

“Whenever they’d get some momentum, we’d make a check or we’d take the ball away or we’d make a big save, and we were able to stop that momentum from building,” Hurley said. “That to us, was essential, just to stop them from letting it build.”

In 1988, the last time Cornell played for a national championship, it did so by beating Virginia, 19-6, in the semifinals. In the championship two days later, it lost to – guess who? – Syracuse.

The Orange already own a 15-10 win over Cornell on April 7, they looked great in Saturday’s 17-7 semifinal rout of Duke, and they have the experience of last year’s national championship to guide them.

In short, they’re just were Cornell wants them.

Cavaliers Fall to Cornell 15-6 in National Semifinals
Courtesy: VirginiaSports.com
Release: 05/23/2009

FOXBOROUGH, MASS—Cornell used excellent shooting and tremendous defense to defeat Virginia 15-6 in the semifinals of the NCAA Championship this afternoon at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.

The top-seeded Cavaliers see their season end with a 15-3 record, while Cornell improves to 13-3. The Big Red meets Syracuse for the national championship Monday at 1 p.m. Syracuse defeated Duke in the other semifinal today 17-7 to advance to the title game for the 16th time.

The Big Red shot 40.5 percent (15-of-37) and forced Virginia to commit 18 turnovers, while never allowing the Cavaliers to string together back-to-back goals.


Cornell controlled play from almost the beginning and built a 3-0 lead after five and a half minutes of action. Chris Finn opened the scoring at the 11:28 mark by taking a pass from Ryan Hurley on the crease and beating Virginia goalie Adam Ghitelman. Fifty seconds later the Big Red capitalized when Jonathan Thomson pounced on the free ball in a mass of players in front of the Virginia goal and putting it in the back of the net. Following a UVa penalty Hurley’s extra-man goal extended the lead to 3-0.

Danny Glading scored Virginia’s only goal of the first quarter midway through the period on only the Cavaliers’ second shot of the game.

Freshman Rob Pannell, who finished with three goals and three assists, scored his first goal by splitting a Virginia double team to give the Big Red the 4-1 advantage with 4:17 remaining in the quarter.

Rocco Romero scored early in the second quarter as Cornell’s lead grew to 5-1. Nearly 10 minutes passed before Hurly pushed the lead to 6-1 by knocking home a pass from Romero.

Shamel Bratton tallied Virginia’s second goal with just under four minutes to play until halftime to end a scoring drought of more than 17 minutes. But Cornell answered with two goals in the next minute to take an 8-2 lead to the locker room at halftime.

The teams traded goals over the first 20 minutes of the second half, as Virginia was never able to score consecutive goals or get a run going.

Glading scored his second goal of the game with 9:53 remaining in the contest in what proved to be the last goal of his career and of the Cavaliers’ season to make the score 12-6, but Cornell scored the game’s final three.

Glading and freshman Steele Stanwick led the way for Virginia with two goals and one assist apiece.

The Cornell starting attack of Finn, Hurley and Pannell each scored three goals as the attack accounted for nine of the team’s 15 goals.

Cornell 4-4-3-4—15 record: 13-3
Virginia 1-1-2-2—6 record: 15-3
att—36,594

Scoring (G-A)— C: Rob Pannell 3-3, Ryan Hurley 3-1, Chris Finn 3-0, Rocco Romero 2-1, David Lau 1-1, Max Seibald 1-1, Roy Lang 1-0, Justin Thomson 1-0, Austin Boykin 0-1, John Glynn 0-1. V: Danny Glading 2-1, Steele Stanwick 2-1, Garrett Billings 1-1, Shamel Bratton 1-0.

Goalie Summary—C: Jake Myers 60 mins., 8 saves, 6 goals allowed. V: Adam Ghitelman 60 mins., 5 saves, 15 goals allowed.

Shots: C—37, V—27
Ground Balls: C—32, V—30
Clearing: C—23x27, V—11x15
Faceoffs: C—12, V—13
Penalties: C—1-0:30, V—6-5:00
EMO: C—2x4, V—0x1

Cornell offense surprises UVa
By Whitey Reid
Published: May 24, 2009

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Having seen Cornell during the regular season and watching the Big Red score just six goals in their quarterfinal win over Princeton last weekend, you couldn’t really blame Virginia players for thinking they would be facing a methodical squad.

But that wasn’t really the case on Saturday.

Cornell coach Jeff Tambroni said getting off to a quick start was a major key.

“We heard a lot from the media about how we weren’t supposed to win this game,” Tambroni said, “and I think by starting strong early, our players could believe in themselves and play at such a high level.”

Six minutes into the game, Cornell led 3-0. Just over 15 minutes in, the Big Red had a 6-1 advantage.

“After a few shots went in, I thought we settled in and I felt we had a positive look in our eyes,” Tambroni added.

Where’s the ‘D’?

Virginia goalie Adam Ghitelman didn’t have one of his better games, allowing 15 goals and finishing with five saves — but coach Dom Starsia wasn’t pointing any blame.

“I don’t think it was just Adam,” Starsia said. “It looked like defensively that we were incapable of winning some of the individual battles. Nobody was working together…they were just very alert and finding the open man.”

Tough to swallow

One of the Virginia players who seemed most upset afterward was junior Max Pomper. The junior was extremely close with the late Will Barrow, one of UVa’s captains last season, and desperately wanted to win an NCAA title in his friend’s honor.

“We had a great run,” said Pomper, holding back tears. “It’s a shame that it ended this early and ended in this fashion, but I’m proud of the way we fought all year and how, in dark times, we came together.”

Ground balls

Cornell and Syracuse last met in the NCAA title game in 1988. The Orange won, 13-8. … Cornell is the first Ivy League team to make the final since Princeton in 2001. … Virginia’s two first-half goals tied its lowest output of the season (Duke in the ACC tournament). … UVa’s six-goal halftime deficit was its largest of the season. … The attendance for Saturday’s games was 36,594, the seventh-highest total for a semifinal round.





 

No. 14 Baseball Reaches ACC Title Game With Win over Duke
Courtesy: VirginiaSports.com
Release: 05/24/2009

DURHAM, N.C. – Dan Grovatt (So., Tabernacle, N.J.) tied a career-high with four hits and was a key part in a seven-run seventh inning as the No. 14 Virginia baseball team downed Duke, 11-7, in the ACC Baseball Championship Saturday night at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, N.C.

With the win, the sixth-seeded Cavaliers clinched a berth in the championship game vs. No. 7 Florida State, the tournament’s top seed, at 1 p.m. Sunday. The game will air live on CSN Mid-Atlantic, SportSouth, FS Carolina and Sun Sports.

Virginia won Division B with a 3-0 record, including victories over No. 4 North Carolina, No. 13 Clemson and Duke. Duke finishes pool play with a 1-2 record. The Cavaliers will appear in the title game for the second straight year.

Grovatt went 4-for-5 with a solo home run, three doubles and three RBI. He tied career highs with his four hits and three doubles. Franco Valdes (Jr., Miami, Fla.) hit a key two-run double in the seventh and Keith Werman (Fr., Vienna, Va.) followed him in the inning with a two-run triple to break open the close game. Seven of the Cavaliers’ 11 hits went for extra bases.

Virginia reliever Tyler Wilson (So., Midlothian, Va.) pitched three innings of relief to earn the win and improve to 7-3 this season. Duke reliever Michael Ness (2-2) was the victim of a key seventh-inning error and was credited with the loss after giving up five unearned runs.

UVa starting pitcher Robert Morey (So., Virginia Beach, Va.) tossed five innings, giving up four runs (two earned), four hits and three walks while striking out seven. Duke starter Eric Pfisterer worked five innings, allowing two earned runs, four hits and three walks while striking out six to earn the win. He threw to one batter in the sixth inning, giving up Grovatt’s home run.

A day after scoring 10 runs in the third inning against North Carolina, UVa nearly topped it with a seven-run outburst in the seventh inning vs. Duke. The Cavaliers sent 11 batters to the plate and scored seven runs, with the entire rally starting with two out.

Trailing 4-2, Tyler Cannon (Jr., Pigeon Forge, Tenn.) and Phil Gosselin (So., West Chester, Pa.) each worked two-out walks to start the seventh-inning rally. Duke switched pitchers, going with Michael Ness, but Grovatt kept up his hot play with a double into the left-field corner to score Cannon. Ness then hit John Hicks (Fr., Sandy Hook, Va.) with a pitch to load the bases and hit Steven Proscia (Fr., Suffern, N.Y.) with the next pitch to force in Gosselin. Danny Hultzen (Fr., Bethesda, Md.) then hit a sharp grounder, which first baseman Nate Freiman booted for an error to allow Grovatt to score and push UVa ahead, 5-4.

Valdes then scorched a double into the left-field corner to score two more. Duke again went to the bullpen with Dennis O’Grady, but Werman ripped a triple to right-center to score Hultzen and Valdes and give UVa a 9-4 lead.

The day started with Morey escaping a bases-loaded, no-out situation in the first inning by striking out Jeremy Gould and inducing Jake Lemmerman to ground into a 4-6-3 double play.

Duke (35-24) scored three times in the third inning, but it was anything but a conventional inning. With two out and runners on first and third, Morey tossed a wild pitch while striking out Gould. Ryan McCurdy scored on the play and Gould reached first base. Lemmerman then grounded to Cannon at shortstop, who threw away the attempted forceout at second base, scoring Matt Williams. Gould moved to third on the play and stole home when Lemmerman broke for second and purposely was caught in a rundown.

The Cavaliers (42-12-1) picked up their first run in the fourth inning. Grovatt doubled with one out, and Proscia was hit by a pitch with two out. Hultzen then singled off the glove of second baseman Gabriel Saade to bring in Grovatt.

Duke got the run right back in its half of the fourth on a two-out single by McCurdy to score Will Piwnica-Worms from second base.

The Cavaliers cut a run from the lead in the sixth inning when Grovatt launched a leadoff home run to right-center for his seventh homer of the year.

After the seven-run seventh inning, UVa added a run in the eighth when Grovatt doubled high off the Blue Monster in left field, scoring Cannon, who led off the inning with a double.

Duke cut the six-run lead in half in the bottom of the eighth, scoring on a Wilson wild pitch and RBI doubles from Tim Sherlock and Marcus Jones.

Virginia tacked on an insurance run in the ninth inning when reliever Ryan Knott threw a wild pitch to score Hultzen.



 

Cavaliers end Blue Devils' dream
BY RACHEL ULLRICH - Correspondent
Published: Sun, May. 24, 2009 05:01AMModified Sun, May. 24, 2009 12:25AM E-Mail

DURHAM -- The Duke players didn't want to think about it.

Didn't want to think about how close they were from becoming the ACC's ultimate Cinderella story. About how close they were to the ACC Tournament final -- where they had never been, in the history of the program -- a game being held in their own backyard.

It had always been a goal, a faraway hope. Suddenly, with a 4-1 lead in the fifth inning of the final game of pool play, it seemed possible.

But perhaps even before they were able to consider it fully, the chance was gone.

The Virginia Cavaliers stunned Duke by rallying to an 11-7 victory and earning the opportunity to face Florida State in the championship game today.

A seven-run seventh inning for the Cavaliers proved the difference, as UVa scored all seven of its runs with two outs and on only two hits, one error, four walks, and two hit batters.

The Blue Devils had maintained control through much of the game with its defense, but even that broke down in the seventh inning -- and the pitching was largely uncontrollable.

Reliever Michael Ness hit two batters to load the bases and then force in the tying run, and then first baseman Nate Freiman's miscue at first base, which could have gotten Duke out of the innning in a 4-4 tie, sent home another.

When pinch hitter Franco Valdes doubled off the left-field wall, the game was too far gone for the Devils to recover. Another deep drive by Keith Werman sent home two more Cavaliers, and suddenly a two-run lead had turned into a five-run deficit.

Finally a play by Duke second baseman Gabriel Saade ended the inning -- after 11 UVa hitters had gone to bat -- but the damage was done.

Duke tried to rally in the eighth, and even got three runs on the board -- also with two outs -- but couldn't muster enough to make up the deficit, and Ryan McCurdy, who had been 2-for-3 with a single and an RBI double, struck out swinging to end the inning.

Even with a win Saturday, Duke's chances of making its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1961 were slim, according to Aaron Fitt, national writer for Baseball America.

He said Duke's RPI -- 72 as of Saturday, eighth-best in the ACC -- wasn't high enough to make the 64-team field.

One inning of wide pitches and flubbed pop flies proved too much to overcome.
 

FSU vies for ACC title
'Noles will play for first league crown since 2004
By Steve Ellis
DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER
DURHAM, N.C. – Now the fun begins.

That is exactly what Florida State baseball coach Mike Martin told his team following its loss to Georgia Tech on Saturday at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

Despite the 9-2 defeat, next for FSU is an appearance in today's ACC championship game at 1 p.m. against Virginia.

"That's what I was telling the guys in the clubhouse — that now we play for the Atlantic Coast Conference championship and then the next game we play in is a regional," Martin said. "So it's really a fun time of the year for these guys."

The No. 1-seeded Seminoles (42-15), winners over Miami and Boston College during round-robin play, are making their first appearance in the tourney's championship game since 2004. That was also the last time the Seminoles won the ACC baseball tournament, and it was just their fourth tournament championship since joining the league in 1992.

"Since I've been here we haven't made it to that championship game," said second baseman Jason Stidham, the Seminoles' leading hitter in the tournament with a .455 batting average and five hits. "It's a dream that I've had coming into this program. It's just like going to Omaha."

This is a championship game that should carry some NCAA postseason implications for a team seeking to reach Omaha and the College World Series for a second consecutive year. Martin believes that a league championship, coupled with the best winning percentage in the ACC during the regular season, will be difficult for the NCAA Baseball Committee to ignore when selecting the top eight national seeds. That announcement will be made Monday. The regional sites will be known today at 3:30 p.m.

A top-eight seeded team, by winning its regional, will host the super regional the next week. The winner of each of the eight super regionals will punch a ticket to Omaha. FSU has hosted a super regional five times since the NCAA expanded the field in 1999, and advanced to Omaha three of those times.

But before the NCAA postseason begins, FSU plays for the ACC championship.

Mike McGee, today's starter on the mound for FSU, can't wait.

"It's going to be exciting," McGee said. "It's a great accomplishment especially considering that early in the year people were questioning whether we were going to even make the tournament the way we started out.

"Coming on and actually getting the ticket — the No. 1 seed — and now getting to the championship game in the tournament, it's a big deal. It feels great to have the opportunity to win it."




 

Singh Upsets #1 Seed as UVa Advances in Singles and Doubles
Courtesy: VirginiaSports.com
Release: 05/23/2009

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Virginia men’s tennis team had its run in the 2009 NCAA Individual Championships continue in the quarterfinals Saturday at the Mitchell Tennis Center. Sanam Singh (Chandigrh, India) upset the nation’s No. 1 player Arnau Brugues of Tulsa in straight sets to advance to the singles semifinals, while Dominic Inglot (London, England) and Michael Shabaz (Fairfax, Va.) defeated No. 5-8 seed Omar Altmann and Bassam Beidas of Pepperdine in straight sets to reach the doubles semifinals.

Singh took down the No. 1 seed 6-2, 6-4, ending Brugues’ 28-match winning streak. He has won all four of his matches in the tournament in straight sets, the only player to reach the semifinals without dropping a set.

Singh jumped out to an early lead, breaking Brugues at love in the third game to take a 2-1 lead. He later broke Brugues at love again in the seventh game to take a 5-2 lead before serving out the first set.

“Brugues is a great player and he was the No. 1 seed for a reason,” said Singh. “I knew he liked to control the points, so I tried to not allow him to do so and control the points with my play. I felt like I did a good job of not letting him get a grip on the match.”

The second set remained close, with both players easily holding serve in the first six games. With Brugues serving at 3-3, Singh thought he went up a break when Brugues’ cross-court forehand at ad-out just missed. But the ball was ruled good and the top seed won the next two points to hold serve. In the ensuing game, Singh fell behind 0-40, but rolled off five straight points to hold his serve and get to 4-4. The momentum of the hold helped Singh break Brugues in the next game to take a 5-4 lead before he served out the match 6-4.

“I knew that second set was going to be a battle,” said Singh. “He is too good a player just to go away and let me have it. I lost a little bit of composure at 3-4 and got down three break points, but being able to come back and hold was big. I played a strong game at 4-4 and got the break I needed.”

Singh becomes the third Cavalier to reach the semifinals of the NCAA Singles Championship. Devvarman accomplished the feat three times (2006, 2007 and 2008) and Brian Vahaly did it once (2001). The win was also Singh’s 42nd singles win of the year, the third highest total in school history behind Devvarman’s 44 wins in 2007 and 2008.

Singh will meet the No. 9-16 seed Steven Moneke of Ohio State in the semifinals on Sunday. No. 9-16 seed Blake Strode of Arkansas will meet unseeded freshman Devin Britton of Ole Miss in the other semifinal.

“I am just trying to take this tournament match-by-match,” said Singh. “I just want to get some food, get some rest and get ready to go into tomorrow’s match with the same mindset I have had every day of the tournament. Moneke is a tough player, so it should be a fun match.”

The team of Inglot and Shabaz topped Altmann and Beidas 6-4, 6-2 in the doubles quarterfinals. They become the third Cavalier team to reach the semifinals. Devvarman and Treat Huey reached the semifinals in 2007, as did the team of Vahaly and Huntley Montgomery in 2001.

In the opening set, neither team lost more than one point on their serve through the first eight games. At 4-4, Inglot and Shabaz used several big returns to break Altmann’s serve to take a 5-4 lead. Inglot served out the first set in the following game, as the Cavalier team took the opener 6-4.

“That break was big for us,” said Shabaz. “Dom was serving well, getting a lot of first serves in, so when we had him serving for the first set, we felt confident.”

Early in the second set, the Pepperdine team had two break points on Shabaz’s serve in the second game, but the Cavalier duo was able pull out the game. After Altmann held to give Pepperdine a 2-1 lead, the Virginia team rolled off five straight games to close out the match, 6-4, 6-2.

“That hold in the second game was huge,” said Shabaz. “I had a second serve at 30-40 that hit the line. When we held, we knew we had fought out of a hole. From that point, we just started swinging for winners on our return games and were able to break them a couple of times.”

Inglot and Shabaz will play Clay Donato and Taylor Fogleman of North Carolina in the semifinals on Sunday. The two teams have met three times this season with the Tar Heel duo winning two of the three matches.

“Our serving has given us a lot of confidence,” said Shabaz. “We have played three matches and haven’t been broken once. If we are holding easily, it gives us a chance to slap at some returns and see if they go in. That puts a lot of pressure on our opponents. We just want to keep that game plan going.”

Virginia becomes the first school since 2003 to have a player in the singles semifinals and two different players in the doubles semifinals. That season, Illinois had Amer Delic reach the singles semifinals and the team of Rajeev Ram and Brian Wilson reach the doubles semifinals. Both Delic and the Illini doubles team won the national championship that season.

 

Bethel's Evans determined to qualify academically for U.Va. freshman year
By Norm Wood
May 24, 2009
As Bethel High's Jontel Evans prepares for the summer before what hopefully will be his freshman year at the University of Virginia, he's turning his attention to one goal: Getting academically qualified according to NCAA standards.

Evans has no doubt he'll get the job done. Right now, he says he's on the verge of attaining the necessary core classes and standardized test score. He's just not quite there yet. As for heading to prep school, Evans says it's not going to happen. When he packs his bags in August to make his next stop, Charlottesville is the only place he plans to be.

"No," Evans said regarding whether prep school might be in his future. "I'm taking extra classes to qualify. There's nothing that's going to keep me from going (to U.Va.). I'm going to be qualified."

Evans, a 5-foot-11 guard who was a Peninsula District co-player of the year last season and a first-team Daily Press All-Stars selection, said he's taking math and science classes this summer to hopefully get his core courses out of the way. He also said he's going to take the ACT on June 13. He said his grade-point average is between 2.4 and 2.5 on a 4-point scale.

Last July, he signed a letter of intent with U.Va. He also had scholarship offers from Old Dominion, Virginia Commonwealth and Marquette.

Evans, who averaged 14.2 points per game last season, signed with U.Va. along with Tristan Spurlock, a 6-7 forward from Springfield, while Dave Leitao still was the coach. After Leitao resigned in March following a 10-18 season, U.Va. hired former Washington State coach Tony Bennett. Evans and Spurlock have confirmed plans to honor their letters of intent.

 

K-State donors miffed at Prince deal
Associated Press
Published: May 24, 2009

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Many Kansas State donors are so disgusted over the secret agreement to funnel more than $3 million to fired football coach Ron Prince they’re closing their checkbooks and vowing, “No more.”

When Jon Wefald revealed the shocking news to the state Board of Regents on Wednesday, the longtime Kansas State president actually teared up.

As shamed and humiliated as the Wildcats were in the late 1970s when NCAA sleuths caught them hiding 30 football players who weren’t supposed to be on scholarship, this may be worse. Now they’re reeling over what appears to be a secret sweetheart agreement that former athletic director and longtime Wefald sidekick Bob Krause entered into with Prince, now the special teams coach at the University of Virginia.

Discovered by accident this month by university lawyers, the agreement says the school must pay a limited liability company established by Prince $3.2 million starting in 2015. That would be in addition to the $1.2 million buyout he already received after being dismissed last November with a 17-20 record.

It’ll be up to the courts to decide how much money, if any, is paid. But there’s no doubt incoming president Kirk Schulz and incoming athletic director John Currie have a gigantic problem staring them in the face.

“K-Staters are very surprised and very sad,” said Dan Lykins, a prominent Topeka attorney and Kansas State grad. “We’re in a mess.”

Wefald, who retires next month after 23 years, says he didn’t know anything about the agreement until it was accidentally discovered. The university filed suit seeking to escape liability earlier this week, and Krause, who worked with Wefald for 30 years, resigned that day from the position he’d held after stepping down earlier as athletic director.

On Thursday, the university reserved with the state revenue department a company name almost identical to the one Prince used in setting up the company that’s supposed to get the money, no doubt a legal maneuver meant to aid their lawsuit.

Prince sent word again Friday that he had no comment.

Currie, who was introduced last Monday as Kansas State’s new AD, did not fly blindly into the storm.

“I was made aware of the situation during the process,” he said on Friday. “Beyond that, I can’t comment on any pending legal matter.”

The campus in Manhattan, Kan., is abuzz with speculation over who else might be involved. And why would Krause go behind the back of his boss and longtime friend to funnel more than $3 million to Prince? Was he going to benefit somehow?

Few men are closer than Krause to what Lykins refers to as the Kansas State family. His father-in-law, Jack Vanier, is a huge benefactor and one of the richest men in the state.

“Why in the world would Bob do this?” said Lykins. “It’s not like he’s a poor man. That’s what I would like to ask Bob some day — ‘Why in the world did you do this?”‘

Prince’s name is the only one that appears on the legal document establishing the limited liability company. As filed with the department of revenue, it states:

“The purpose for which the company is organized is to engage in the business of football coaching services and for all such other and further purposes as may be lawfully pursued and are authorized under the act.”

As they go about repairing the damage, Currie and Schulz might actually be helped by having no past ties whatsoever to Kansas State.

“They’re not bringing any laundry into the mix,” said Lykins, a member of the nine-person Kansas Board of Regents. “I think they’ll be able to get things worked out a lot quicker and a lot cleaner than somebody who had K-State ties. They both understand we need to make sure problems like this never, ever happen again.”

Lykins said he’s spoken with many fellow K-Staters who say their donations have stopped.

“But I also talk to K-Staters who tell me they will still give,” he said.

People close to Wefald say he has been personally devastated by the actions of a friend and confidant.

“We all have people we trust,” said Lykins. “Jon had complete trust in Bob Krause.

“He is very sad. He loves K-State almost as much as he loves his family. It’s like somebody punched him in the stomach and he’s having trouble breathing.”
 

Carlisle points Mavericks upward
May 23, 2009 12:36 am
By EDDIE SEFKO
The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS--

The Mavericks started this season with that new-coach smell.

Arriving fresh and ready to be broken in, Rick Carlisle was ready to take the Mavericks back to great heights. There was no denying the excitement among players. They were ready to embrace the NBA motto and prove that American Airlines Center was going to be where amazing happens.

And then, 2-7 happened.

That abysmal start yanked the enthusiasm right out of the Mavericks like a fender-bender three blocks after you drive that new ride out of the dealer's lot.

"Nobody liked the way we started," Carlisle says.

This presented a new problem for Carlisle. In his two previous coaching stops spanning six seasons at Detroit and Indiana, the former University of Virginia standout's teams had gotten out to jackrabbit starts.

Now, the Mavericks were in danger of being irrelevant before Thanksgiving. Not surprisingly, players squawked about the system. There were rumblings that the players couldn't get a grip on Carlisle's way of doing things. Some in the media speculated that the players simply didn't like their new coach.

Funny, but six months later, nobody was talking about any internal fractures.

The Mavericks' new coach may indeed have been an acquired taste. But the chemistry built slowly through the long, regular-season grind. So much so that, by the end, the Mavericks were roundly saluted for playing as hard as they could and, given the injuries they had to overcome, going about as far as anybody could reasonably expect them to in the playoffs.

"Part of our struggles early was an attempt to redefine our style of play, which can be a challenge," Carlisle says. "It took awhile to find the balance between pushing the ball and being able to put ourselves in a position to defend effectively

"As the year went along, we kept moving in the right direction. I know it was difficult for the players at times. But I admire the way they fought through so many challenges we had, especially the losing streaks."

The Mavericks had a five-game skid early as part of their horrid start, then dropped four in a row in January. They never won more than five in a row. It was that second losing streak that got the vultures circling again. Some speculated that making the playoffs was not in the Mavericks' future.

But slowly, Carlisle's methods were starting to take root. He played many different players, sometimes rearranging the rotation from game to game--the surest way a coach can frustrate his players.

But when it got time to make a playoff run, Carlisle knew what he had on his roster. He knew the strengths, and more important, he knew the holes.

"Playing in a new system with a new coach, it was an adjustment process," Jason Terry said. "But we kept working and kept improving."

A few weeks before Carlisle was hired, Avery Johnson said as he was fired that it "was a miracle" the Mavericks made the playoffs.

Since the roster didn't change significantly, what does that make the job Carlisle did?

Of course, Carlisle won't address that, but it's clear from what he and owner Mark Cuban have said that a second-round appearance is only a step toward bigger goals.

"We want to be playing in the Finals, so we've got work to do," Carlisle says. "We've got to get the guys who were here that are going to be here better. That's going to be a lot of work. We've got to be active and look for opportunities to upgrade the team overall and inject whatever we can into our core group."

It cannot be overlooked that Carlisle and Cuban have gained an appreciation for each other. Cuban has seen the adjustments Carlisle has made during the course of the season.

He's seen Carlisle give Jason Kidd a major role in calling plays. He's watched Carlisle handle pressure playoff situations adroitly, calling timeouts when they needed to be called and getting players on and off the court when situations dictated so.

And Carlisle has realized that his owner can be his best friend.

"This has been my best year in coaching," Carlisle said. "Working for Mark has helped me become a better coach.

"He's a guy who is going to do everything possible to provide the resources to be successful. He's emotional. But I'm absolutely convinced of this: When he walks in that building and sees a full house, that's something that he does not take for granted. He feels that everybody in this building is part of his family, and he feels an obligation to not only win but provide a great experience."

Carlisle realizes that a 50-win season and second-round playoff berth aren't going to be good enough to keep him employed in Dallas for four, five or six years down the line.

"This situation is about aiming for a championship. And that's one of the things I love about him," Carlisle said of Cuban.

"When you get in this position, you feel a great obligation to help Mark deliver that."