White: Groh Reflects On W&M Game

In case you haven't been following VirginiaSports.com lately, don't forget that Jeff White, the former UVa beat writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, provides regular updates on the Hoos. For example, here are some excerpts from Jeff's postgame look at the 26-14 loss to William & Mary:

Al Groh has said repeatedly over the years that quarterback is the most important position in football, and his point was driven home again Saturday night in UVa's season-opener.

In the 26-14 loss to William and Mary, Groh and offensive coordinator Gregg Brandon used three quarterbacks -- starter Vic Hall, Jameel Sewell and, in the fourth quarter, Marc Verica. None distinguished himself against a defense to which Virginia was thought to be superior athletically.

...

Groh said he envisioned rotating Hall and Sewell the way some teams use two tailbacks. The hope was that both would be "able to get into a nice rhythm and be productive ... What the total play count would be would, of course, be determined by circumstances and maybe who had the particularly hot hand. But as you could see, nobody had a particularly hot hand last night."

...

Groh was asked about reserve tailback Keith Payne's decision last week to quit the football team. Payne, who would have been a redshirt junior for the Cavaliers this season, plans to remain at the University and finish work on his degree.

Once Payne graduates, he hopes to transfer to another school for his final season of football eligibility.

"Keith wasn't satisfied with his role on the team," Groh said, "and we discussed it with him, and we agreed that he either had to be in with both feet - can't be in with one foot and out with the other. You have to be accepting of your role and understand what it is and try to do the very best job you can with it, or else perhaps something else is a better alternative."

You can follow all of Jeff's stories - last week featured updates on swimming, women's soccer and baseball in addition to football - at this link.

This Week In Recruiting
By Chris Horne

Saturday's visitor list included one top junior, defensive tackle Corey Marshall, who has earned official scholarship offers from Tennessee, Virginia and Virginia Tech. The 6'1.5", 255-pound junior racked up 12 tackles including three sacks and an interception on Friday night, helping Dinwiddie to a sound defeat of Poquoson.

Marshall's teammate, promising junior quarterback prospect Chris Hall, also attended Saturday's contest versus William & Mary. The 6'4" prospect began his first season as Billy Mills' starting quarterback and did well, passing for 248 yards and two scores and rushing for 89 yards and a touchdown.

Hall has not yet been offered but is one to watch.

In terms of the 2010 class, a couple of commitments were on hand Saturday. They were Deep Run (Glen Allen, VA) offensive lineman Conner Davis and Bethel (Hampton, VA) standout cornerback Rijo Walker. We'll pass along any other names as we confirm them this week.

TheSabre will also work to confirm visitors for this weekend's matchup against TCU, so stay tuned. First Colonial (Virginia Beach, VA) safety/linebacker Nick Dew, Southeastern (Detroit, MI) defensive tackle Johnathon Hankins and Good Counsel (Wheaton, MD) cornerback Louis Young are some of the possibilities.

While Saturday wasn't a big day as far as visitors were concerned, the weekend did reportedly produce good news for the Hoos. According to Rivals.com, UVa has picked up verbal commitment number two for the 2011 recruiting class. TheSabre.com hopes to have more on this recruit today, so stay tuned.

On the basketball recruiting front, Virginia hosted top 2010 commit K.T. Harrell for an official visit this past weekend. We'll have more on the 6'4", 210-pound guard's visit today or tomorrow. Harrell, who hails from Montgomery, Alabama, is ranked #35 in Rivals.com's Top 150.

This weekend will be a big one for the Cavalier basketball staff, who may host as many as four prospects on official visits. Lake Chelan (WA) guard/forward Joe Harris, a commitment, will be in town, and top targets Josh Henderson, a center out of Cave Spring (Roanoke, VA), and James Johnson, a 6'9" forward out of Elsinore (Wildomar, CA), are also expected to visit. We'll confirm whether or not Jerian Grant, a 6'4" guard out of DeMatha (Hyattsville, MD), still plans to visit.

Chris Horne, our resident recruiting expert, provides updates throughout the week for Edge subscribers about UVa's commitments and recruiting targets in football and men's basketball. To sign up for an Edge subscription, please check out the Sabre Edge Sign Up and Information Page. If you're already on board as an Edge subscriber, click the links below to catch up on recruiting.

Sabre Edge recruiting updates from the past week ...

UVa Recruiting Notes: New BBall Offer Out
Virginia head coach Tony Bennett extended another 2010 class scholarship this week. The prospect who received the offer is currently on another college campus but plans on visiting UVa next weekend. Who is the latest high school senior to earn a Virginia scholarship offer? Also, check out the latest in football recruiting in this edition of "Recruiting Notes."

Standout Junior Center Visiting ACC Schools
Chantilly (VA) center John Manning is in the midst of a flurry of visits, taking in three ACC schools beginning with today's experience at the University of Virginia. The 6-11 junior, whose parents both attended UVa, has been to Charlottesville before. He has not, however, visited since Tony Bennett took over the program.

More recent recruiting updates on The Sabre ...

• Top Forward Narrows List, Sets Officials
• Dinwiddie DL Scores First Official Offer
• Kolb Focusing on Three

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Changes Coming

Wahoo fans,

We will be working to change the design of TheSabre.com this month. The changes will not affect your ability to use the site and the changes will not all happen at once - we will change each page's design one by one. The new design will be clean and functional and include new navigation elements, including drop down navigation that will allow you to jump to just about anywhere on the site with one click. This new design is a wider format, so you'll need to have your screen resolution set at a minimum of 1024x768 and will need to fully expand your browser. Chances are, 99 percent of you are already doing this if you've visited most news or sports sites on the web (i.e. ESPN, CNN, etc.).

Besides freshening up and widening the site, as well as adding better navigation, one of the primary reasons for this change is to bring the design code up to today's standards. For you technical types, it means we're moving out of our table-based layout and into a full CSS layout that is XHTML compliant for most of the site. While the message boards will adopt the new look, the programming for them will still be the same until we switch over to a new board system hopefully next spring or summer.

We hope you enjoy the changes. If you have any problems with the site or see anything broken or misaligned, please let us know so that we can make adjustments promptly.

Sabre Staff

Cavaliers Dominate Preseason ITA Rankings

Virginia Athletic Media Relations

The Virginia men's tennis team had a strong presence as the ITA announced its 2009-10 preseason singles and doubles rankings. The Cavaliers led all schools with seven players ranked in the preseason top 125 singles while also being the only school to have two top-20 doubles teams.

Among the seven Cavaliers ranked in singles, two are ranked among the top 15. Junior Sanam Singh (Chandigarh, India) is No. 9, while classmate Michael Shabaz (Fairfax, Va.) is No. 14. Seniors Houston Barrick (Brentwood, Tenn.) and Lee Singer (Laguna Niguel, Calif.) are ranked No. 50 and No. 56 respectively, while sophomore Drew Courtney (Clifton, Va.) is No. 84. Sophomore Steven Eelkman Rooda (Amersfoort, The Netherlands) earns his first career ranking at No. 112 and first-year Julen Uriguen (Guatemala City, Guatemala) is No. 116.

In the preseason doubles rankings, the team of Barrick and Singh are ranked No. 4, while Shabaz and first-year Jarmere Jenkins (College Park, Md.) are No. 17.

The Cavaliers begin their fall season next weekend, Sept. 9-11, as they host the UVa Invitational at the Snyder Tennis Center.

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Around the World of Wahoo Sports ...

• Barlow's Overtime Goal Lifts UVa Over Washington, 2-1: Virginia senior Neil Barlow scored the game-winning goal in the 99th minute and the Cavaliers defeated Washington, 2-1, Sunday afternoon in their final game of the Portland Nike Invitational at the Clive Charles Soccer Complex. With two victories, including Friday's 3-0 victory over Portland, Virginia won the round-robin tournament. Tony Tchani was named the tournament's offensive most valuable player and Ross LaBauex was named the tournament's defensive most valuable player.
• Cavalier Women's Soccer Ties Arizona State 1-1: The No. 11 Virginia women's soccer team completed its trip to the Southwest with a 1-1 draw at Arizona State in the final game of the Sun Devil Desert Classic. The draw brings the Cavaliers' record to 3-1-1 on the season. Lauren Alwine scored her third goal of the season on an assist by Meghan Lenczyk.
• UVa Places 7th in Stroke Play at Match Play Championship: The No. 9 Virginia women's golf team advanced to the championship bracket at the National Golf Coaches Association's Match Play Championships after finishing seventh in the 16-team field after 36 holes of stroke play Sunday. The Cavaliers shot rounds of 16-over 304 and 9-over 297 for a two-round total of 601.
• Cavaliers Win Second-Straight Holiday Inn Jefferson Cup Title, Sweep Campbell: The Virginia volleyball team won its second-consecutive Holiday Inn Jefferson Cup under head coach Lee Maes on Saturday afternoon, sweeping Campbell, 3-0 (26-24, 25-18, 25-17). The Cavaliers also defeated NC Central and VCU to clench the title. Lauren Dickson earned tournament MVP honors. AJ Cushman and Rachel Gray joined Dickson on the all-tournament team.
• Madison Collects Career Victory No. 250: Virginia head coach Michele Madison collected her 250th career victory Friday as the Cavaliers (3-0) defeated Providence 2-1. Freshman Tara Puffenberger scored both goals for the Orange and Blue to mark her first career collegiate goal.
• Wrestling Earns Highest Ranking Ever in Preseason Poll: The Virginia wrestling team is ranked 20th in the preseason Division I rankings as released by D1Wrestling.net. The ranking is the highest at any time in program history, and it marks the third straight year the Cavaliers have cracked the Top 25.

For more Hoo news or to read full releases, check out Virginiasports.com.

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Issue No. 29 - March 21, 2002

Virginia Baseball defeats top-ranked FSU

New stadium, new attitude? The UVa baseball team knocked off #1 Florida State in their conference opener last Friday, 11-10. The Hoos rallied to win in the bottom of the 9th inning off of a single by Kyle Werman. Werman's base hit drove in the winning score by Chris Sweet. Florida State rallied the next day, defeating the Cavaliers 8-3 and 14-4 in a double header.

The Cavs are 10-9 on the season and 1-2 in the ACC. Next up? The Cavs travel to Durham, N.C. to play the Duke Blue Devils March 22nd through March 24th. The Hoos play three contests over the course of those three days.

The UVa baseball game against the James Madison Dukes, originally scheduled for Wednesday, March 20th, was cancelled due to inclement weather conditions in the Charlottesville area. The contest has been rescheduled for Monday, April 1st at 3:00 p.m. and will be played in Charlottesville.

Look for an article on Dan Street, UVa baseball's best hitter and pitcher, in next month's Sabre Newsletter.

Check Out SabreMail #29.

Coming Soon

The Sabre has you covered when it comes to Hoo news. Here are a few of the articles to expect on the site soon:

• Postgame Coverage: The Sabre's postgame looks at William & Mary continue with JHoo's 10 Things and Greg's Stock Report.
• Soccer: The Sabre follows the soccer teams as they prep for Friday home games.
• Kelsey Wolfe: The Sabre caught up with Kelsey Wolfe, who recently committed to Debbie Ryan's women's basketball program.

In Case You Missed It ...

Sabre articles since the last SabreMail

The Last Straw?
When things started poorly early in the 2006 season, Al Groh once said that playing three quarterbacks in a search for improved offense would be a real ham and egg operation. I guess Virginia fans now know what that looks like. The Hoos tried three quarterbacks on Saturday night against William & Mary, a rotation that felt haphazard and uncomfortable throughout the stunning 26-14 defeat.

Tribe Takes Down Virginia
Cavalier coach Al Groh has spoken highly of his team's versatility at many positions; the only versatility that the Hoos showed Saturday, though, was in the ways they turned the ball over. After all, with 7 turnovers - the most in a game since 1994 - Virginia's performance in its 26-14 loss to William & Mary was an absolute horror show.

Priorities, Picks, & Power Players - W&M
For each game this season, The Sabre will present a final peek at the week's match-up with a new feature called Priorities, Picks, and Power Players. In the "Priorities" section, we take a look at the keys to a Virginia victory. In the "Picks" section, Sabre Editor Kris Wright and another Sabre representative make a case for who will win and give you a final score. In the "Power Players" section, The Sabre predicts who some of the key players could be for that Saturday's showdown. Take a look at the William & Mary edition!

Hall Is Someone To Believe In
Shortly after the Spring Game of April 2007, I wrote a piece pleading for the use of Vic Hall on offense. It wasn't some startling revelation, mind you, since the good folks down in Gretna had been saying similar things all along. But the message was clear. Put the ball in Hall's hands more. Why? Two words.

Burrell Looks To Boost Performance
Every competitive athlete who rides the bench doesn't want to be there. Every player longs to get his chance. That is especially true for games like last Aug. 30 for the Cavaliers when they were playing USC on national television. Put me in, Coach. But what if it is at the expense of a best friend suffering a season-ending injury? That's what outside linebacker Denzel Burrell faced when one of his best friends, Aaron Clark, blew out his knee a year ago.

Game Preview 2009 - W&M
Virginia hasn't won a season opener since 2005 when it defeated visiting Western Michigan 31-19. The Hoos hope to stop that slide on Saturday at 6 p.m. when William & Mary arrives for the Cavaliers' first contest of 2009. UVa leads the all-time series 26-5-1 and owns a 20-3 record in Charlottesville. Dive into The Sabre's game preview for everything you need to know about the contest.

Press Conference Notes '09: W&M
From Al Groh on down to the players, Virginia insists that it treats every game the same. At Monday's press conference, though, reporters asked several variations of the same question: there has to be some difference in the mindset between opening with an FCS team like William & Mary this year and a perennial BCS National Championship contender like USC last year, right?

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