Cavs outlast Beavers in 13
Lambert, offense lift UVa into title game
By Jay Jenkins / jjenkins@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
June 3, 2007

If polled, the largest crowd to ever watch a baseball game at the University of Virginia would likely have a new answer if asked the most memorable game in program history.

Virginia, in remarkable fashion, mounted a pair of one-run comebacks, survived two injuries to its corner outfielders and outlasted Oregon State, 7-4, in a 13-inning marathon in the Charlottesville Regional in front of 3,212 nail-biting fans.

By winning the contest that lasted 4 hours and 53 minutes and included 464 pitches, Virginia (45-14) stays in the winner’s bracket of the regional. The Cavaliers, slated to play at 6 p.m., must await the winner of today’s elimination game between Oregon State (39-18) and Rutgers, which avoided elimination Saturday afternoon with an 11-10 win over Lafayette, the No. 4 seed.

Without hesitation, Virginia coach Brian O’Connor called Saturday's victory over the defending national champion the "best and most important" at Virginia.

The skipper can stake that claim for obvious reasons.

Despite playing in the NCAA Tournament in each of O’Connor’s three previous seasons, Virginia had never opened a regional with back-to-back victories.

"That is what makes that a great win for our program," O’Connor said. "To be 2-0 is huge. Obviously, we have some guys that are banged up, but we had some guys that rose up in big situations when we needed them."

The heroes were plentiful, including reliever Casey Lambert, who, after starting two games in the past two weeks, was called upon in a critical situation in the seventh inning out of the bullpen.

Lambert, who worked 6.2 innings in relief of UVa starter Jacob Thompson, scattered five hits and fanned eight Beavers.

The southpaw, however, allowed a game-tying run in the bottom of the 10th after a hard-hit grounder off the bat of Oregon State catcher Mitch Canham rolled up Virginia first baseman Sean Doolittle’s glove and trickled into foul territory. The miscue allowed Chris Hopkins to score from second base, tying the contest, at 4-4.

"I was fine after that," Lambert said. "I collected myself."

Lambert was near perfect from that point forward, blanking Oregon State until his offense could respond against the Beavers’ top reliever, Eddie Kunz.

That occurred, finally, in the top of the 13th inning after Tim Henry opened the frame with a leadoff single.

After a sacrifice bunt from Mike Mitchell -- who came into the game in the first inning after Brandon Marsh was injured by a beanball -- and an intentional walk to Sean Doolittle, John Scaglione delivered a single to right that proved to be the game-winning hit.

"It was one of the biggest hits in my life and one of the biggest games in UVa's program," said Scaglione, who entered the game in the fifth after left fielder Brandon Guyer suffered a shoulder injury sliding safely into the plate on a safety squeeze dropped down by Beau Seabury.

Virginia added two more insurance runs – David Adams and Seabury connected on back-to-back RBI singles to give the Cavaliers a three-run cushion.

That was ample support for Lambert, who allowed two runners to reach in the bottom of the frame before securing his third win of the season and the first by a Virginia reliever in an NCAA Tournament game since 1996.

"I was able to hold them down long enough," Lambert said. "It took all I had but I made it just as long as I needed to."

Lost in the shuffle of the victory was Thompson’s ability to shake off a rough first inning that saw the right-hander throw 18 of his 31 pitches out of the strike zone. Oregon State capitalized, scoring twice in the frame.

"It was very uncharacteristic of Jacob," O’Connor said. "He usually throws strikes. I think he was just too excited and out of his rhythm a little bit."

The sophomore, who saw his ERA climb to 1.51 by allowing three runs in the contest, silenced the Beavers until allowing a solo homer to Darwin Barney in the sixth inning.

"What won us the ball game was him settling down and not giving up more runs," O’Connor added. "That shows his development and how far he has come."

Virginia may be forced to finish the regional without Guyer and Marsh, two of the mainstays at the top of the Cavaliers’ batting order.

O’Connor said both players would be looked at today by a team physician.

"I don’t know for sure," O’Connor said. "We will find out [today]."

As for Virginia’s pitching staff, the skipper said "all hands" not named Doolittle, Lambert and Thompson would be available. A starter, however, was not named.

 

Watershed win shows Virginia's character
By Jerry Ratcliffe / jratcliffe@dailyprogress.com | 978-7251
June 3, 2007

No sooner had Virginia won its opening-round game in NCAA Regional play on Friday, then Cavaliers coach Brian O’Connor was already talking about Saturday’s matchup with reigning national champion Oregon State.

O’Connor, a guy who doesn’t mince words, called it the biggest game of the year, and there was some history to his statement. Three years worth to be exact.

For all the glory that the energetic coach had brought to the UVa program, all the 40-win seasons, the school records, overflow crowds - all of a sudden the only thing that mattered was beating whomever stood in the Wahoos’ way of going 2-0 in a regional for the first time since 1972.

In O’Connor’s mind, going 2-0 would be huge in the regionals. He was speaking from experience. The Cavs had not accomplished the feat in the past three years and paid dearly for it, having never advanced out of the first weekend of play, an obstacle that the UVa coach believed had held back the progress of the program.

While beating Oregon State, 7-4, in a 13-inning, 4-hour and 53-minute marathon Saturday night doesn’t guarantee the Cavaliers will spend next weekend in Nashville, Tenn., site of the Super Regional, it certainly improved Virginia’s chances.

“To go through what we went through in this ball game, the atmosphere, what was on the line and to have two of our best players [Brandon Guyer and Brandon Marsh] go out [with injuries], and have another guy step in like John Scaglione, who maybe played three innings in his career in left field and make a great catch and get some clutch hits, just speaks to the character of this team,” O’Connor said of his 45-14 squad.

Truly it was a gutsy win as the Cavs grinded it out, finally breaking through with a three-run, top of the 13th to knock off a gritty Oregon State team.

Virginia won with pitching and character, but it may have been a Pyrrhic victory in that, while the Cavaliers won, at what cost? It doesn’t look good for Marsh or Guyer, who supply a lot of punch to the lineup.

“Victory is always good,” O’Connor said. “But tonight, it came with a price.”

The coach was correct. Winning isn’t easy in this event as evidenced by three No. 1 seeds that were floored in Friday’s openers. The top-seeded Cavs live another day, and O’Connor will take it with a smile.

“The nine guys that I write in that lineup tomorrow night, whoever it is, I know will give us 100 percent every pitch,” O’Connor said. “And I’ll take that against anybody.”

 

Cavaliers score three times in 13th to topple Oregon State in NCAA regional
Sunday, Jun 03, 2007 - 12:01 AM Updated: 02:14 AM
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Fireworks exploded over an alumni gathering at the University of Virginia last night, a 10-minute show of color and light that ended around 9:55.

At nearby Davenport Field, the celebration didn't begin in earnest until 10:53 p.m. That's when the U.Va. baseball team recorded the final out in an NCAA tournament game that had started 4 hours and 53 minutes earlier.

The Cavaliers, seeded No. 1 in the regional they're hosting, blew an opportunity to defeat defending NCAA champion Oregon State in the 10th inning.

But Brian O'Connor's club persevered. Virginia put up three runs in the top of the 13th, and reliever Casey Lambert shut down the fourth-seeded Beavers to secure a 7-4 victory before a raucous crowd of 3,212, a Davenport Field record.

Lambert, in the longest relief stint of his career, went the final 62/3innings after taking over for starter Jacob Thompson. And now U.Va. (45-14), which opened the tournament Friday with a win over Lafayette, needs only one more victory to capture an NCAA regional for the first time in four seasons under O'Connor.

Weather permitting, Oregon State (39-18) will face No. 2 seed Rutgers (42-20) today at 1 p.m. in an elimination game. The Big East champion Scarlet Knights ousted No. 4 seed Lafayette 11-10 in yesterday's first game. The teams combined for 31 hits, including four home runs in the final two innings.

Virginia is scheduled to meet the OSU-Rutgers winner at 6 p.m. If the Cavaliers win, they'll advance to the NCAA Super Regionals. If they lose, the two finalists will meet again tomorrow for the regional title.

After nine innings last night, U.Va. and Oregon State were tied 3-3. Virginia scored a run in the 10th, and Lambert was an out away from victory in the bottom half of the inning, but the Beavers rallied for a run to extend the game.

The score was stillknotted at 4 in the 13th, when U.Va. senior Tim Henry led off with a single, then stole second. Mike Mitchell's textbook sacrifice bunt moved Henry to third, bringing up junior Sean Doolittle. As they had in the sixth -- an eternity earlier -- the Beavers chose to intentionally walk the all-ACC performer.

To the plate came senior John Scaglione, playing only because of the injury that starting left-fielder Brandon Guyer suffered in the fifth. Scaglione singled in Henry with the go-ahead run.

David Adams followed with an RBI single, and then Beau Seabury did the same to make it 7-4. In the bottom of the 13th, Lambert retired the first two batters he faced before allowing two base-runners. But the senior left-hander from nearby St. Anne's-Belfield got Lonnie Lechelt to ground out, and the game was finally over.

U.Va., already playing without star Greg Miclat (shoulder), lost two starters during the game. In the first inning, senior right-fielder Brandon Marsh, who was 4 for 4 against Lafayette, suffered a bone bruise near his left wrist when he was hit by a pitch.

In the fifth, Guyer left with a shoulder injury after scoring the run that made it 2-2. The all-ACC outfielder leads Virginia with eight home runs and came in hitting .369.

In NCAA tournament games, the higher-seeded team isn't necessarily the home team. So it was that U.Va. batted first last night.

The Cavs struck first, too, taking a 1-0 lead when Henry scored on Doolittle's bloop single to left. That made Doolittle the school's career leader in RBI, raising his three-year total to 167.

Thompson struggled early. After striking out the first batter he faced. The all-ACC right-hander allowed a single, then issued three consecutive walks. That made it 1-1, and Oregon State went up 2-1 on an RBI groundout.

With one out and Guyer on first in the fifth, Adams singled up the middle, moving Guyer to third. The next batter, Seabury, laid down a bunt. The Beavers appeared to have foiled the suicide squeeze, but Guyer's headfirst slide jarred the ball from catcher Mitch Canham's mitt, and the game was tied at 2. But U.Va.'s joy over the tying run was tempered by the sight of Guyer in pain near home plate.

Guyer dislocated his shoulder and is expected to miss the rest of the tournament.

 

Cavs top reigning champs
Virginia needs 13 innings, but outlasts Oregon State to stay unbeaten in its NCAA regional.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- After filling a reliever's role in 107 of his first 108 college games and then making two late-season starts, Virginia senior Casey Lambert thought he was prepared for any situation.

"I don't know what to think anymore," Lambert said late Saturday night. "Apparently, I'm the fifth-inning-on starter."

Lambert entered the Cavaliers' NCAA game with Oregon State in the seventh inning and threw 95 pitches before Virginia beat the defending national champions 7-4 in 13 innings.

The game lasted 4 hours and 53 minutes, but for a Cavaliers team that had never won its first two games in the NCAA tournament, it was worth the wait.

Virginia's victory puts the Cavaliers into a 6 p.m. game today against the winner of a 1 p.m. elimination game between Rutgers and Oregon State, although rain could push today's scheduled games into Monday. The Scarlet Knights beat Lafayette 11-10.

Injury replacement John Scaglione rapped a tie-breaking single to right to spark a three-run, 13th-inning rally against Oregon State closer Eddie Kunz, who went 4 23 innings.

"It's one of the biggest hits I've had in my life," Scaglione said.

Lambert got credit for the win after pitching 6 23 innings of relief.

Virginia had gone ahead 4-3 on a sacrifice fly by Tim Henry in the top of the 10th inning, but the Beavers tied the score on Mitch Canham's single off the glove of first baseman Sean Doolittle in their half of the inning.

Only moments earlier, Lambert had stopped a ball hit directly at him and thrown out the runner. It seemed to have a staggering effect on him, although he pitched three more innings.

"I couldn't find part of my anatomy for a while," Lambert said. "Then I found it, but I couldn't find the strike zone."

Virginia (45-14) had hoped to have Lambert available to start the Cavaliers' third game of the regional, but Oregon State, wearing the same throwback uniforms in which it won last year's NCAA title, would not cooperate.

UVa sophomore starter Jacob Thompson walked three straight batters as the Beavers took a 2-1 lead after the first inning.

Virginia was able to force a 3-3 tie before Thompson exited in the seventh, but the Cavaliers' offense got progressively more anemic.

The Cavaliers lost two more regulars in the early innings Saturday.

Right-fielder Brandon Marsh, coming off a 4-for-4 outing Friday night, was hit by a pitch in the first inning and did not return to the field.

First-team All-ACC outfielder and Game 1 hero Brandon Guyer enabled Virginia to force a 2-2 tie when he slammed into catcher Mitch Canham in the fifth, but Guyer did not return.

"It doesn't look good for them tomorrow," coach Brian O'Connor said. "I've never had a team go through as much adversity."

Replacements Mike Mitchell (Marsh) and Scaglione (Guyer) each turned in defensive gems.

Scaglione took an extra-base hit away from Canham with a twisting catch in the seventh that turned into a double play when UVa second baseman David Adams noticed that baserunner Mike Lissman had not touched second base on his return to first after rounding the bag.

Virginia had plenty of opportunities against deliberate Oregon State starter Mike Stutes, but failed to capitalize, even in the first inning, when they grabbed a 1-0 lead.

The Cavaliers, designated the visitor by NCAA rules, got a hit from Henry to start the game. After Stutes hit Marsh, Doolittle's single brought Henry home.

After a double-play grounder by Guyer, the Cavaliers stranded two runners in five of the first six innings, ending three of those innings with a runner on third.

Stutes stepped off the rubber so many times that fans implored him to "throw the ball," but he was able to quiet them by striking out nine in 613 innings, five of them looking and a sixth after an appeal to the first-base umpire.

 

Virginia's humble champ
Somdev Devvarman wins the ACC's first NCAA men's singles title - but you likely won't hear about it from him.
BY MELINDA WALDROP
247-4634
June 3, 2007

About six months ago, Brian Boland went to breakfast with Somdev Devvarman, a junior on Boland's Virginia tennis team.

They almost didn't make it to the meal.

"I felt like I was walking through the lawn with a rock star," Boland said. "It was absolutely ridiculous. Every single person we saw, they knew him, and he knew them, and he would say, 'Hi, how ya doing, Jeff?' I've never seen anything like it in my life."

An odd reaction to a tennis player on a football- and basketball-focused campus? Maybe. But it didn't really surprise Boland.

"There's probably not a student-athlete at the University of Virginia that knows more people," said Boland of Devvarman, who became the first men's player in ACC history to win an NCAA singles title. "He's one of the happiest, most delightful people you'd ever meet. ... He really is pretty low-key. He has a tremendous perspective on what's important. The way he lives his life is the same way he deals with the pressure on a tennis court. He's such a happy person."

Devvarman has more reason than ever to be happy these days after defeating Georgia's John Isner 7-6 (9-7), 4-6, 7-6 (7-2) in Athens, Ga., on Monday for the title.

"Right now it feels pretty good," said Devvarman, 22, of Chennai, India. "I think I'm still enjoying it."

In his post-match press conference, Devvarman made sure to thank a long list of supporters, right down to his strength coach.

"He took the fame almost away from himself and shared it with everybody else, which is just like Somdev," Boland said. "That's why he's so likeable. It's not about Somdev. ... I told him that he could enjoy this for a week and then I'm going to put him back to reality. (But) he won't be that hard to bring down to earth, because he's such a level-headed guy."

Devvarman relied on his even-keel personality - and a well-rounded game - to pull out a third-set tiebreaker in the NCAA tournament's first round.

He won that match to keep alive his goal to avenge last year's disappointment, when he lost to UCLA's Benjamin Kohlloeffel after becoming just the second player in Cavalier history to make it to the NCAA singles final.

"I felt like this year I definitely played better tennis throughout the season," Devvarman said. "I felt like I was a more complete player. I felt strong and could rely on certain parts of my game throughout the tournament."

That included a faster, better-placed serve and a stronger forehand that has helped the one-time counterpuncher become a better player than even his coach imagined he could be.

Boland took notice of Devvarman when he cracked the top 50 in the International Tennis Federation junior rankings and began recruiting him, even though "he certainly wasn't someone that we thought would come in and play No. 1 or 2 (singles) right away," Boland said. "He was someone that I thought was extremely athletic and had a tremendous amount of potential, but he had a long way to in terms of development."

In fact, Devvarman's need to get better - and his recognition of that fact - helped him wind up in Charlottesville. Realistic that he wasn't ready to turn pro despite training at the Brittannia Amritraj Tennis Academy (BAT) in Chennai since he was 15, Devvarman listened when Boland extolled the advantages of college tennis. So did his parents, Ransana and Pravanjan Devvarman, who wanted their son to get a solid education.

Devvarman visited Virginia in May 2004. He didn't look at another school.

"I loved it so much that I felt like it would be a perfect fit," he said.

Devvarman, planning his first extended trip back to India next week, said his parents are proud of his NCAA championship, "but for them, it's not that important," he said. "It's not that big a deal, which is actually a pretty nice thing. I like it like that."

But he must be a household name now in India, where veterans such as Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi and rising stars like Sania Mirza are making tennis ever more popular?

"Not at all," Devvarman said. "There's too many people there. I'm definitely not anywhere close to being famous."

Devvarman's international profile won't increase any time soon because he plans to return for his senior season at U.Va. with one goal in mind - and it's not a second straight singles championship.

"I really want to win a national championship for Virginia in the team event, which is the main thing," Devvarman said. "I think that would be a lot more sweet than what I accomplished this year." «