Freshman forward Will Bates may be the catalyst behind the Cavaliers’ offensive resurgence, scoring five of his team-leading six goals in the past four games. He was named TopDrawerSoccer’s Player of the Week Monday. Photo by Bennett Sorbo.

The long-time ACC rivalry between No. 10 Virginia and No. 6 Maryland will be rekindled tomorrow when the Cavaliers travel to College Park, Md.

This contest is a must-win for Maryland (10-4-1, 4-2-1 ACC), the 2008 ACC Tournament champions, as the Terrapins seek to score their first regular season ACC title. Currently, Wake Forest leads the conference with a 4-1-1 record; a Maryland victory, however, would tie the Demon Deacons for first place. Coming into tomorrow’s game, the Terrapins most recently lost 0-1 to Wake Forest, as they could not recover from an early Deacon goal by midfielder Luke Norman, and will need to find success against Virginia if they wish to make up lost ground.

The Terrapin offense is led by junior forward Jason Herrick, who leads the ACC in game-winning scores with six. Maryland also has been able to distribute the ball well — 12 different players have delivered assists this season.

Defensively, the Terrapins have shut out six teams, mostly because of the strong play of sophomore goalkeeper Zac MacMath. With the departure of All-American Omar Gonzalez, Rodney Wallace and A.J. DeLaGarza to the MLS, however, the backline has struggled at times. The 2009 squad has relied a great deal on freshmen defenders to aid experienced senior backs Kevin Tangney and Kwame Darko.

To defeat the Terrapins, Virginia must take advantage of this uncertainty in Maryland’s backline and capitalize on its scoring opportunities. Fresh off a 2-0 win against Boston College at home, coach George Gelnovatch and the Cavaliers (10-3-1, 3-3 ACC) will look to continue their three-game winning streak.

“I think it was one of our most, if not the most, complete game we’ve played from start to finish,” Gelnovatch said of the squad’s victory against the Golden Eagles.

Virginia recently has increased its scoring production, scoring seven of its total 20 goals this season in the past three games. Freshman forward Will Bates in particular has helped revitalize the Cavalier offense, notching five goals in the team’s last four contests.

Additionally, junior goalkeeper Diego Restrepo, who has shut out six teams and holds an impressive 0.49 goals against average, will need to contain the Terrapins early in the match. They are 8-0 this season when they score first and hold the lead at halftime.

Even if the Cavaliers execute completely, though, winning at Ludwig Field could still prove difficult. Home field advantage is always a factor, especially in tense rivalry matches with conference implications.

“It’s a very, very tough place to play,” Gelnovatch said. “It’s pretty hectic and the dimensions of the field are a little bit smaller than we’re used to. Maryland’s an athletic, aggressive, pressing team. So generally the games there, with the crowds that they get, become pretty animated.”

Last season, Maryland won both meetings against Virginia, including a 2-1 win in Charlottesville and a 1-0 shutout in the ACC championship game. The Terrapins lead the all-time series, 36-25-7, claiming seven of the last 10 contests.

“As coach is stressing, we can’t take it lightly,” freshman forward Ahkeel Rodney said. “We have a good record and we’re doing good right now, so we just can’t let down.”

Sophomore outside hitter Simone Asque was named ACC Player of the Week after matching her career-high 27 kills while adding a season-best 16 digs against Boston College last weekend. Photo by Bennett Sorbo.

Continuing conference play, the Virginia women’s volleyball team takes on Florida State and Miami in Memorial Gym this weekend, with the goal of avenging their late September losses to the Hurricanes and the Seminoles.

Virginia (9-13, 4-7 ACC) is riding the momentum of a 2-0 weekend after defeating Maryland and Boston College, mostly in part because of the team’s consistency on defense.

“It was nice to see our level of defensive ballhandling improve,” coach Lee Maes said.

That strong defense translated into effective passes.

“A good pass means a good set, which means a good hit, so it’s all relative,” sophomore outside hitter Simone Asque said.

Asque proved to be a key player in each match. She had a combined 48 kills, earning her the honor of being named ACC Player of the Week. Against Boston College, Asque recorded the eighth double-double of her career, matching her career-high 27 kills with a season-best 16 digs.

“When you get on fire, you know — she was hard to put out,” Maes said.

Although the Cavaliers may now know more about what to expect from their opponents than in their earlier matches, Maes expressed some concern about having fewer healthy players because of recent injuries. Nevertheless, he remained optimistic that his lineup changes will pay dividends.

“Even though we have a different line-up then when we played them, I think that may in itself help us, because they don’t really know what to expect,” Asque said. “It’s going to be a dogfight for sure.”

No. 17 Florida State (19-2, 10-1 ACC) sits atop the ACC standings with only one conference loss, and should prove a challenging squad to face.

The Seminoles are “a very difficult team to stop offensively, with how many different attackers they have who are threats at all times,” Maes said.

Florida State’s offense is centered around senior middle blocker Brianna Barry, who boasts the highest hit percentage in the conference, nailing more than half of her attempts this season.

Like Florida State, Miami (13-8, 6-5 ACC) will also pose a challenge for Virginia — sophomore outside hitter Lane Carico leads the ACC with 4.47 kills per set, while senior libero Cassie Loessberg leads the conference with 5.13 digs per set.

Though the competition will be stiff, Virginia will rely on its growth and preparation to carry through.

“We have a grasp of what worked and what didn’t the first time, but more importantly, it’s about our team just trying to focus on the things that we do well,” Maes said.

The Cavaliers take on Florida State at 7 p.m. Friday night and close out the weekend at noon Sunday against Miami.

Junior All-American Emil Heineking will lead the No. 12 men’s team at the ACC Championships this weekend. Heineking set the course record at the Panorama Farms Invitational earlier this month, posting a 23:16.19 time. Photo by Jason O. Watson.

Although the men’s and women’s cross country teams have jumped out to impressive starts to their seasons, neither can afford to let complacency set in as they travel to Cary, N.C. this weekend to compete in the ACC Championships.

“I think right now we need to work on making sure the confidence we have been able to accrue thus far in the season carries over into the championship,” coach Jason Vigilante said. “Like every team, we need to make sure that we are healthy, and continue to do the little things, so that on championship day, our full potential is realized.”

The Cavaliers have been able to transform that potential into real results throughout the season. The men’s team, which has won back-to-back ACC championships, has climbed its way to the No. 12 national ranking after winning all three of its meets this season. The only ranked teams it will face Saturday are No. 21 Florida State, No. 26 Duke and No. 30 N.C. State, putting a third-straight ACC title well within its reach.

“We are ready for championship season,” junior Ryan Collins said. “I think that it all came together at our last meet at Panorama. We do need a little work with our sixth to 10th [place guys], but our first to fifth runners did really well at Panorama. We showed  … we [were] able to compete with all the top guys there.”

The Panorama Farms Invitational, which took place two weeks ago, was Virginia’s most competitive race of the season up to that point. But the Cavaliers met the challenge head on, placing three runners in the top four, including junior All-American Emil Heineking, who set a new course record of 23:16. All five scoring runners finished in the top 13, separated by 50 seconds. It was the type of team performance the Cavaliers have stressed all season.

“Both teams have really impressed me with how well they have wanted to work together,” Vigilante said. “Early on in the season I really wasn’t sure, and they have been able to prove that the team is a very important aspect to them.”

The women’s team, on the other hand, suffered its first season loss at Panorama, finishing second to No. 2 Villanova. Despite the loss, the squad still retains a No. 11 national ranking, and the experience gained from running a competitive race against an elite team could benefit the team this weekend.

“I think any time that you feel that you’ve been challenged, the hope is that the team responds in a positive fashion,” Vigilante said. “Villanova really took it to us, and that’s good, because we know that if we want to be ACC champions on the women’s side, we have to bring every bit of effort that we had at the Panorama meet, and then some. It gave us the confidence that we can.”

The women’s team will need every ounce of that confidence when it lines up to race Saturday. Its toughest competition will be the defending ACC champion, No. 6 ranked Florida State, but No. 16 Duke and No. 28 North Carolina will be on the runners’ heels as well. Still, the women feel that they are capable of rising to the occasion.

“I think the team has done an awesome job getting ready for the championships,” said senior Lauretta Dezubay, who took the individual title at Virginia’s opening meet. “We’ve held back the reins when we needed to, and last meet we were able to really just run hard when everyone ran to their fullest potential. We got really fired and really excited for when it [counted].”

The men will step up to the line at 9:30 a.m., and the women will follow at 10:30 a.m.

With Halloween fast approaching Saturday, sources of gruesome and frightening displays are in great demand, and the University Museum is willing to supply.

The museum’s exhibition “The Expanding Eye” features pieces of art inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The art is meant to emphasize Poe’s craving for knowledge of creativity and the world beyond tangible reality. With 19 pieces of work, the showcase managed to surpass all my expectations, and it puzzled, horrified, enthralled and chilled me every step of the way.

In a synopsis of the display, Stephen Margulies, the museum’s volunteer curator, wrote, “Each shock, sometimes horrible in itself, opens up huge psychological or spiritual territory.”

Each piece of art portrays the artist’s interpretation of one of Poe’s stories or poems, and Poe himself is even featured in one piece by Félix Vallotton. I found, however, that the art was significantly less inspiring than the writings they embody.

Nathan Oliveira’s collection of black and white lithographs supposedly combines the physical and metaphysical aspects of Poe’s work, incorporating whirlpools, saving angels and blindness. In all honesty, I felt blinded as I scrutinized these pieces, though not because that was necessarily their intended effect. I looked from up close, far away — I even did the retrospective look with my hand on my chin — and yet I couldn’t derive any sense of the artists’ messages from the paintings. I can understand how one picture depicted a giant whirlpool and I could even make out the white angel beyond a pit of darkness in another. Such abstractions — I suppose — I simply cannot fathom, however, because I derived little from the images other than black and white blobs.

Not all of the featured works are abstract, though. Illustrations for Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Masque of the Red Death” were included, as well as James Ensor’s depiction of Poe’s unsettling story “Hop Frog.” In Ensor’s The Vengeance of Hop Frog, the singed corpses of a king and seven nobles dangle from the ceiling amid a throng of spectators. Though I had never read the story, I understood clearly the gruesome spectacle of death, and it even had me thinking back to my old high school days of reading “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” as they share similar references to torture, death and revenge.

Many of the other paintings are similar in their grotesque distortions of human suffering, no doubt reflecting Poe’s preoccupation with beauty that meets a premature death. Although not all of the art was to my personal tastes — I’ve always been a fan of vibrant colors — it definitely was time well spent. If you’re interested, the exhibit will be open through Jan. 3.

Note: The author does not assume responsibility for any lost or damaged limbs, minds or souls in the promotion of this exhibit.