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(09/02/08 1:12am)
There are many strategies that are preached to David when playing Goliath on the gridiron.“Just keep hanging around for three quarters — at the end anything can happen.” “Slow the tempo of the game down and keep the offense off the field.” “Don’t give up the big play on defense.” “Take advantage of the opportunities given to you.” “Lace the other team’s pregame meal with arsenic.” We’ve heard them all.Saturday at Scott Stadium, none of those things happened. A whirlwind 21-7 first quarter broke the Cavaliers’ backs right from the get-go; each of USC’s first three drives resulted in touchdowns, and each was under 3:05 in length. Big plays came early and often, on the ground and in the air; Virginia went nine yards on six plays after one of the few errors USC made while it was still a game, a muffed punt return in Trojan territory. I couldn’t find my way into the room of the hotel restaurant where USC ate, even through the ventilation system. (Only joking.)What was worse, when the Trojans needed a first down in a short-yardage situation, they got long yardage. Well, very long yardage. With the score 14-0 in the first quarter, a fourth-and-1 turned into a 33-yard touchdown run, and on the first drive of the second half with a 24-7 score, the Trojans converted a third-and-6 on a 42-yard strike into the heart of the defense.“I think after that first initial push that we were just able to slow them down for a little while,” senior safety Byron Glaspy said. “We made some mistakes that kept them on the field though.”Who was the culprit? Naturally, there were many.“It wouldn’t be right for my job down to anybody to say that anybody did well today,” Virginia coach Al Groh said.Indeed, no one looked particularly good, but against USC, that’s forgivable. The defensive line, however, was atrocious. The line collectively had just five tackles in the first three quarters — just three in the second and third combined — and nine total. And, while the secondary is always blamed for long bombs – USC junior quarterback Mark Sanchez had six completions of more than 15 yards, including the aforementioned completion for 42 yards and another for 49 yards — it doesn’t help when you give an All-American type quarterback like Sanchez enough time in the pocket to adjust his chin strap before unleashing a pass.True, the Cavaliers were employing a conservative three-man rush for most of the afternoon. Yes, the 3-4 is designed for the linebackers to make a sizeable portion of the tackles against the run. But three tackles in two consecutive quarters? Sanchez getting six, even seven seconds in the pocket? That is unacceptable.Junior nose tackle Nate Collins told me in training camp that he thinks this year’s defensive line will match or even exceed last year’s starting three in terms of production. From this game, I think we all are beginning to realize just how much Chris Long and Jeffrey Fitzgerald meant to this defense. How much of this is forgivable? Where do you draw the line between tipping your cap to a good team and putting your tail between your legs in embarrassment?“You go play well, play a solid game, a team like that wins, you say, ‘Well, we played about as well as we can play, they’re just real hard to beat,’” Groh said. “But there are some of those things that we did today that’s disturbing to me, disturbing to everybody in the organization.”Glaspy put it another way.“I feel like just a lot of the mistakes that we were making, that we were in control of, like missed tackles, missed assignments,” he said, “those are things that we can control, we can fix.”The good news for Virginia relates to what made so many headlines before this game: the quarterback situation. Just like the fans, the media didn’t find out who was starting at QB until sophomore Peter Lalich’s name flashed on the big screen. While a single touchdown isn’t anything to drop a hat over, Lalich did look reasonably accurate and even sidestepped a pass rusher on occasion before finding his man. Groh noted Lalich’s three turnovers, but an inexperienced quarterback debuting against one of the fastest defenses around can be forgiven for a few mistakes. On the Cavs’ lone touchdown drive in particular, Lalich looked decent considering the opponent, and with the strong corps of running backs and receivers Virginia has, decent is all the Cavs need him to be.“I think everybody who watched the game can see the type of throws that he’s capable of making,” Groh said. “He had to make those without having the opportunity to get much of a look at the defense — that pocket didn’t hold up very long.”So, despite Saturday’s obliteration, I am somewhat encouraged by Saturday’s performance. Lalich is young and will make mistakes but he clearly has the tools to set himself apart as Virginia’s starter for the next three years. The offensive line was another worry for this team, but it held its own. The D-line was nothing short of horrible, but maybe the eventual return of sophomore defensive end Sean Gottschalk will bring the line back to neutral.And, there’s even better news for Virginia. The next game is against Richmond.
(08/28/08 10:02pm)
The Virginia men’s basketball team travels to Montreal this weekend for a set of three exhibition games against opponents from the area. Saturday, the Cavaliers will play two matches at Concordia, against St. Lawrence College in the morning and Concordia in the afternoon. The Cavaliers then will play McGill Sunday.The team is allowed 10 practices to prepare for the trip, and it began preparing Aug. 19. Freshmen Sylven Landesberg, John Brandenburg and Assane Sene, however, were prohibited from joining practice until the first day of University classes Tuesday. Virginia coach Dave Leitao said these trips out of the country to play exhibition games are permitted once every four years, and noted the timing of the trip immediately after the graduation of point guard Sean Singletary was no coincidence.“I’ve tried to leave [Singletary] out of the equation,” Leitao said. “But the fact of the matter is you have a personality change as well as a talent shift, and some new personalities have to come to the forefront.”The rest of the 2008-09 schedule was also released Tuesday. Non-conference highlights include two road games at Syracuse and at Minnesota in the ACC-Big 10 Challenge during Thanksgiving Break and a matchup with Xavier at home after the Musketeers blew out the Cavaliers by 38 points in Cincinnati last January.“The biggest challenge I think we’ll have all year is how slowly or quickly we’ll be able to grow,” Leitao said. “That particular stretch of days [between the Syracuse and Minnesota games] on a Friday and the following Tuesday — with travel and everything else and the holiday at the front end of it — will test us.”In the conference portion of the schedule, Virginia will see North Carolina, Clemson and Florida State in both home and away contests, in addition to the usual two-game series with Virginia Tech and Maryland.
(08/27/08 9:40pm)
Amazing. Priceless. Interesting. Weird. Star-struck. All of these are adjectives used by former Virginia athletes to describe their experience at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Whether it was chilling with the likes of Kobe Bryant, cheering on athletes in other events or visiting the Great Wall, the experience of being an Olympian is one that these former Cavaliers will treasure for the rest of their lives.“Being in the [Olympic] Village this week’s interesting,” said 2001 University graduate Wyatt Allen, who won the bronze with the U.S. men’s eight crew team in Beijing and gold in Athens in 2004. “For me, that’s the coolest part ... just walking through the village and seeing athletes from all over the world, nodding heads with a South African track and field athlete that you pass on the walkway.”For Lindsay Shoop, however, there was nothing like winning gold. A 2003 U.Va. graduate, Shoop’s women’s eight crew team beat the Netherlands in the gold medal race by nearly 2 seconds to take home the gold medal. Shoop joins 1999 Virginia graduate and U.S. women’s soccer player Angela Hucles and 1992 Virginia graduate and U.S. women’s basketball assistant coach Dawn Staley as the third ex-Cavalier to win gold in Beijing.“You feel like you are going to jump out of your skin, but in reality you are hunched over in excruciating pain.” Shoop said. “I actually remember thinking to myself, ‘You just won the Olympics. You can do it this time. Get it together and go nuts.’ After I had caught just enough of my breath, I just started yelling and hugging my teammates around me.”Of course even beyond the medals, just being included at the Olympics is enough to humble just about anyone.“This is just amazing to walk around and be around these athletes,” Allen said. “I was in the arcade last night, and saw Pau Gasol, the Spanish basketball player from the Lakers. It’s just crazy to be around these people.”Though Allen said he had “no Kobe sightings” because the basketball players were separated from the rest of the athletes, the biggest celebrities in Beijing were not missed by everyone. “I was in the dining hall, and you get to see people like Kobe Bryant and Yao Ming and the Williams sisters, all sitting in the same dining hall with you,” said 2003 University alumna Ruby Rojas, a member of the Venezuelan softball team. “I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, can I take a picture with you?’”For Shoop, her favorite encounter with a fellow competitor was not with an athlete of international fame, but rather with the silver-medal winning U.S. women’s volleyball team one morning at breakfast. Nevertheless, her experience may have been the most inspiring.A teammate of Shoop’s “opened the conversation and in the course of it, [the volleyball team] found out that we had won [the gold medal],” Shoop said. “They got so excited about our accomplishment and wanted to see the medal. One of the girls put it on and it gave her goose bumps ... Later that week, I bumped into one of the girls and she told us that they had a pump-up talk before a critical game. It was about talking to us at breakfast and holding our medal ... Olympic athletes inspire even each other. It gives me chills to think about that.”Through these thrilling two weeks, the athletes said they did not forget their Virginia roots. Several athletes noted that they stayed in touch with former teammates and coaches before and during the Olympic Games; Croatian swimmer and 2007 University alumna Vanja Rogulj said he got to meet Erika Stewart, a fellow swimmer and freshman at U.Va. this year who represented Colombia in Beijing.“There are probably 10 or 15 guys from my years at U.Va. that I periodically get e-mails from,” Allen said. “Checking in, see[ing] how it’s going or saying congratulations.”And, Shoop noted one particular moment that was particularly reminiscent of her days as at Virginia.It is awesome to chant ‘U-S-A,’” Shoop said. “It is kind of funny though. It always reminds me of chanting “U-V-A,” and I have almost slipped a time or two.”Overall, the consensus among the former Cavaliers was that the experience of being an Olympian could not be adequately put into words. Shoop, however, gave it a shot.“I think that being a true Olympian is one whose life is changed, such that he or she begins to realize the power of the most positive aspects of who they already are,” Shoop said. “Those aspects become infinitely magnified.”
(08/23/08 6:39am)
Going into the 2008 football training camp, Virginia faced a number of questions about who would fill the holes left by 2007 graduates as well as departed and suspended players. While Chris Long is clearly the biggest name the team will have to replace, Virginia coach Al Groh also went into camp with the task of finding starters at quarterback, kicker, punter, both offensive guards and the rest of the defensive line in the team’s 3-4 scheme.Here is the latest on the status of these positions as Virginia heads into its final week of training camp.QuarterbackThe big question – who will be Virginia’s No. 1 quarterback? – has yet to be answered, at least publicly. It would seem that highly touted sophomore Peter Lalich is best suited for the job, since he is the only player who has thrown a pass in a Cavalier uniform. Virginia coach Al Groh, however, has said throughout the summer and continues to say that the competition is “wide open” among Lalich, senior Scott Deke and sophomore Marc Verica. Groh has even been suggesting the possibility that he could use more than one of the hurlers in combination.The quarterbacks themselves, meanwhile, have adopted a policy of remaining silent with the media. Deke made this statement at meet the team day Aug. 10, the last time the media has heard from any of the quarterbacks.“It’s in our best interest to just, you know, keep to ourselves and do whatever is best for this team,” he said. “Until any of us have done anything in a game worthwhile to be talking about, I think it is in our best interest to stick to ourselves and keep working to be, to do what’s best for our team.”KickerThis situation was finally resolved, in one of the most intriguing stories on the team to date: Groh said Thursday that former All-ACC soccer player Yannick Reyering, in his first year playing the American brand of football, will get the nod at place kicker. The senior was allowed only three years of soccer eligibility by the NCAA because of time he spent with a semi-pro German soccer team before enrolling at Virginia; he therefore has one year of eligibility to play another sport.An All-ACC select at forward, Reyering led the Virginia soccer team in goals all three years he was in the program. He beat out redshirt freshman Chris Hinkebein and walk-on freshman Robert Randolph for the kicking job.“As [Reyering] explained it to me, kickoffs are like kicking a penalty kick,” Groh said. “He’s also said to us that you’ve got to make a lot of kicks in soccer when the other guys are running at you ... he’s been able to relate that circumstance to field goals.”Defensive lineThe Cavaliers must not only replace Long, but also the departed Jeffrey Fitzgerald, who transferred after off-field issues caused him to leave the program, and nose tackle Allen Billyk. Next in line at these spots are junior nose tackle Nate Collins, senior defensive end Alex Field and sophomore defensive end Sean Gottschalk.So far in camp, this hasn’t changed. Collins returns with the most game experience, having made appearances in all 25 games in his career while making 48 tackles. Sean Gottschalk took a leave of absence for several days in mid-August, but it appears the missed time will not keep him out of the starting lineup. Gottschalk will likely line up on the right end, Field on the left.Collins, meanwhile, is optimistic about this group, even saying he expects this line to match or exceed the production of last year’s defensive line.“We’ve all been waiting for this time,” Collins said. “Everyone who’s in position right now, they’re ready to go.”Offensive guardsWith first-round NFL Draft choice Branden Albert and fellow graduated guard Ian-Yates Cunningham out of the picture, it will be senior Zak Stair and sophomore B.J. Cabbell who will fill in on the interior of the line, accompanied by returning starting tackles senior Eugene Monroe and junior Will Barker.Groh knows the importance of his offensive line gelling not only to protect a young quarterback, but also to spring junior Mikell Simpson and senior Cedric Peerman in the running game.“The way for us to build on our strengths and take advantage of our proven personnel is to be able to establish the run early in the season,” Groh said. “We’ve got the two runners to do it, so if we can open up some holes for them, that would make it a lot easier for the management of the game for the quarterbacks.”PunterFrom the beginning, Groh said true freshman Jimmy Howell had a shot at the starting job, and in camp he cemented that spot, winning the job over senior John Thornton and sophomore Nathan Rathjen. Howell is no average freshman punter in stature, standing 6-foot-6 and 238 pounds.“We anticipated from the start that Jimmy would start on the top of that bracket, and so far he’s remained there,” Groh said. “He seems to be getting a little more comfortable and kicking a little better actually with each practice.”
(07/14/08 4:00am)
Call it an overstatement, call it over the top, but the parallels between the 2007-08 Virginia tennis team and the Super Bowl XLII runner-up New England Patriots are too apparent to pass up.
(07/14/08 4:00am)
Foxborough, Mass. May 24 -- With Virginia leading Syracuse 10-6 with less than a quarter to play in regulation, a second trip to the men's lacrosse NCAA championship in three years seemed all but wrapped up.
(07/14/08 4:00am)
The 2007 season was a banner year for Virginia football. The Cavs finish the regular season with a 9-3 record and earn a trip to the Gator Bowl; Chris Long wins the Ted Hendricks Defensive End of the Year Award; Al Groh is crowned ACC Coach of the Year.
(07/14/08 4:00am)
Virginia baseball 2008: success or disappointment? For the fifth straight year, the Cavaliers were one of 64 teams selected to an NCAA Regional. For the fifth straight year, however, Virginia, the No. 3 seed in the Regional hosted by top-seeded Cal State Fullerton, was unable to advance, as losses to UCLA and Fullerton put Virginia's hopes of advancing to a Super Regional for the first time in the history of the program to rest.
(04/25/08 4:00am)
Foxborough, Mass.
(04/24/08 4:00am)
Going into a three-game series with Miami this weekend, the last thing the Virginia baseball team needed in its contest against William & Mary last night was yet another midweek clunker.
(04/21/08 4:00am)
As I was sitting at the baseball game yesterday afternoon, staring out into the always panoramic Davenport Field, I noticed a new feature in the left field bleachers: the "'Hoo Zone" sign. Months after a contest was started to name the new seating area -- and after what I am sure was extremely careful consideration -- the athletic department decided "'Hoo Zone" was the submission that would really get those 'Hoos rockin' those bleachers.
(04/17/08 4:00am)
After former weekend starter Sean Doolittle and closer Casey Lambert were taken in the 2007 MLB draft?, Virginia coach Brian O'Connor faced the task of reshuffling a bullpen packed with the inexperience of six freshmen. Priority number one for O'Connor was to put what experience he had at his disposal into the weekend rotation, which he did by joining senior Pat McAnaney and junior Andrew Carraway with junior Jacob Thompson in the three-man weekend crew. Priority number two was to fill the void left by Lambert at closer, and senior Michael Schwimer filled that void.
(04/16/08 4:00am)
The game between No. 16 Virginia and No. 19? Coastal Carolina Tuesday was billed as an ACC-caliber game. As the drama escalated through the first seven innings that featured shut-down pitching, timely hitting and controversial calls on both sides, the two teams did not disappoint, battling to a 3-3 score. The Chanticleers, however, pounded the Virginia bullpen for a four-run eighth and another run in the ninth, pulling away an 8-3 victory.
(04/14/08 4:00am)
College Park, Md. -- After a couple of shaky midweek games last week, Virginia baseball coach Brian O'Connor said his team was in need of a "defining moment" at some point this season.
(04/10/08 4:00am)
With the score 3-0 in favor of Liberty going into the bottom of the seventh inning last night, Virginia coach Brian O'Connor decided it was time for a team meeting.
(04/08/08 4:00am)
During preseason, Virginia baseball coach Brian O'Connor anticipated that, with such a young team this year, he would have to wait until around game 35 or 40 to tell what this team can really achieve.
(04/07/08 4:00am)
When the varsity eight boat of the Virginia men's club rowing team picked up its oars and prepared to race George Washington at the Rivanna Reservoir Saturday, the Cavaliers were not expected to win. The Colonials, after all, field a varsity squad, whereas Virginia men's rowing is a club. The Colonials get varsity funding and give varsity scholarships to varsity athletes. They get varsity gear and eat varsity food.
(04/03/08 4:00am)
Playing a sub-.500 team in Towson for a two-game, midweek series this week and coming off a convincing three-game sweep of rival Virginia Tech over the weekend, two easy victories seemed to be in order for the Virginia baseball team. Both games, however, came down to a single run, as Virginia lost its second home game of the season 7-6 last night after narrowly defeating the Tigers 9-8 the night before.
(04/02/08 4:00am)
WASHINGTON, D.C.
(03/27/08 4:00am)
For Sean Singletary, this season certainly wasn't as he envisioned it.