Virginia Cavaliers begin defense of their NCAA Mens Lacrosse crown as NCAA's D-1 tourney starts today; "The Big Game: Duke at Virginia Men's Lacrosse"

The Big Game: Duke at Virginia Men's Lacrosse, Episode One of  Three. April 19, 2012.
http://youtu.be/fXoo-3OYQ1o


Now I finally have a good reason to post these behind-the-scenes videos of last month's Duke at UVA match, where the then-number one-ranked Cavaliers lost to the Blue Devils, the 2010 NCAA champs at Klöckner Stadium.


The 2012 NCAA D-1 tourney starts Saturday with the 16 best teams, and UVA's defense of its hard-fought NCAA Mens Lacrosse crown begins in the lead-off game on Sunday against Princeton.


The Virginia Lacrosse Experience: http://www.experienceuvasports.com/index2-ml.php


Here's this weekend's TV schedule, with all eight games on the tube.
Saturday, May 12th:

Noon-2 p.m. -Syracuse at Duke, ESPN, DirecTV Channel 206

2:30-4:30 p.m. -Colgate at UMass, ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208

5-7 p.m. -Canisius at Loyola MD), ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208

730-930 p.m. -Denver at North Carolina, ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208

Sunday, May 13th

1-3 p.m. -Princeton at Virginia, ESPN, DirecTV Channel 206

3-5 p.m. -Stony Brook at Johns Hopkins, ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208

515-715 p.m. -Yale at Notre Dame, ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208

730-930 p.m. -Maryland at Lehigh, ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208

ESPNU Lacrosse Podcast: Quint Kessenich Talks Dom Starsia, Rob Rotanz, NCAA First Round
By Terry Foy, May 9th, 2012

http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2012/05/09/espnu-lacrosse-podcast-quint-kessenich-talks-dom-starsia-rob-rotanz-ncaa-first-round



The Big Game: Duke at Virginia Men's Lacrosse, Episode Two of Three. April 19, 2012.
http://youtu.be/XLJq73KSTcg



The Big Game: Duke at Virginia Men's Lacrosse, Episode Three of Three. April 19, 2012. http://youtu.be/y2ZYB_C4jxE



http://www.ncaa.com/championships/lacrosse-men/d1


U.S. Lacrosse YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/uslacrosse8

2012 ACC Lacrosse Tourney TV schedule for Men & Women, other NCAA Lacrosse matches on TV, Friday thru Sunday, April 20-22, 2012

The Big Game: Duke at Virginia Men's Lacrosse, Episode One. April 19, 2012.
http://youtu.be/fXoo-3OYQ1o

2012 ACC Lacrosse Tourney TV schedule for Men & Women, other NCAA Lacrosse matches on TV, Friday thru Sunday, April 20-22, 2012

The 2012 ACC Womens Lacrosse tourney is in Cary, N.C. this weekend, hosted by Duke, and games will be available online at ESPN3 and on certain RSN affiliates.


Check your area to see if you will get this on TV or have to go online. Here in South Florida, I will watch via Sun Sports, DirecTV Channel 653 to see thr two games on Friday and Saturday:
http://www.theacc.com/championships/12-womens-lacrosse-championship.html



Friday, April 20, 2012 - Quarterfinals


Noon ET – Boston College vs Virginia
- FS South 
- Sun Sports 
- CSN Mid-Atlantic 
- NESN – delay broadcast @ 10:30pm ET


2pm ET – Virginia Tech vs. Maryland
- FS South 
- Sun Sports 
- CSN Mid-Atlantic


Saturday, April 21, 2012 - Semifinals


1pm – UNC vs BC/UVA winner 
- FS South 
- Sun Sports 
- CSN Mid-Atlantic 
- NESN – delay broadcast @ 3pm ET


3pm – Duke vs UMD/VT winner 
- FS South 
- Sun Sports 
- CSN Mid-Atlantic 
- NESN – delay broadcast @ 7pm ET


Monday, April 23, 2012 -Championship Game
ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208  amd at ESPN3.com
7 p.m. Winners of the two Semifinals on Saturday


------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2012/04/19/acc-tournament-provides-big-stage-tough-competition-ahead-ncaas



Friday, April 20th, 2012  

ACC Mens Tourney in Charlottesville/UVA on ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208  

5 p.m. Duke vs. Maryland 

Last weekend Duke beat UVA at UVA, and Maryland knocked-off Johns Hopkins at Baltimore. 

7:30 p.m. North Carolina vs. Virgina

7 p.m. CBS Sports Network, DirecTV Channel 613 

Colgate at Bucknell

Saturday, April 21st, 2012

BigTenNetwork, DirecTV Channel 610

11 a.m. Air Force at Ohio State 

CBS Sports Network, DirecTV Channel 613 

Noon Johns Hopkins at Navy

CBS Sports Network, DirecTV Channel 613 

2:30 p.m. Women - #7 Notre Dame at #15 Georgetown

Georgetown is only team to defeat North Carolina this year.

http://www.und.com/allaccess/?media=316352

Sheehan Stanwick Burch and Todd Harris will be doing color commentary and play-by-play here and you know how I love Sheehan. She's a keeper!

ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 

3 p.m. Georgetown at Syracuse

BigTenNetwork, DirecTV Channel 610

5 p.m. Women - #4 Florida at #1 Northwestern (Tape Delay)

Combining two of my favorite names, Shannon Smith of Northwestern, odds-on favorite to repeat as Tewaarton Award winner, lead the Wildcats against the young and speedy Gators, still reveling in their overtime win at Johns Hopkins last week.

usalacrosse8 video: WD1: Florida Sneaks Past Johns Hopkins in Sudden Death 13-12.  http://youtu.be/HV-G6gOKpIY

ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208 

5:30 p.m. Notre Dame at Villanova

Sunday, April 22, 2012

ACC Mens Championship at Klöckner Stadium in Charlottesville/UVA

ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208  

3 p.m. Winners of Friday's Semifinals

Head's-up for Women's lacrosse fans in the Baltimore/DC area

Ohio State's Women's Lacrosse team will be playing in Baltimore on Saturday April 28th against Johns Hopkins at 1 p.m. 

Glenelg High School grads Alayna Markwordt and Katie Chase are on the Buckeyes LAX team, as are Cara Facchina and her younger sister, Mary Kate, from Mount de Sales Academy. Katie and Cara also both played for Hero's.

http://www.hopkinssports.com/allaccess/?media=301333

-----

http://www.youtube.com/user/uslacrosse8

http://espn.go.com/lacrosse/

http://insidelacrosse.com/ilwomen/

http://laxmagazine.com/landing/index

http://www.theacc.com/championships/index.html

Trending at Hallandale Beach Blog: WBAL-TV's Lowell Melser's consistently crisp, thorough & detailed reporting at the George Huguely V murder trial in Charlottesville of Cockeysville native Yeardley Love

WBAL-TV News, Baltimore video: Breaking News: Correspondent Lowell Melser reports on the details surrounding the jury in the George Huguely V trial handing down a 26-year sentence in Charlottesville, VA for the Second-degree Murder of Yeardley Love. February 22, 2012.


Trending at Hallandale Beach Blog: WBAL-TV's Lowell Melser's consistently crisp, thorough & detailed reporting at the George Huguely V murder trial in Charlottesville of Cockeysville native Yeardley Love.

Whether detailing the ins-and-outs of the voir dire process, the Huguely defense team's strategy -and even the health of the defense attorneys- the emotional and evidentiary highs-and-lows of each day before a judge who works long hours and expects as much from the 12-member jury, or revealing the heartbreaking testimony of the Love family, Lowell Melser's reporting from the hometown of UVA, the school my niece currently attends and the one that Yeardley Love had grown-up dreaming of playing for, and as a young woman had grown to love representing for four happy years, has been first-rate and exemplary, a real credit to WBAL.

I've watched Melser's reports since before the trail started, which is of such great interest to me as well as to folks in the greater Baltimore community for the myriad reasons I've mentioned here in my February 6th post, titled, Yeardley Love in our thoughts: UVA & Charlottesville, extended UVA family & U.S. Lacrosse community are bracing themselves for the graphic details/photos that'll emerge in George Huguely V's murder trial starting Monday
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/yeardley-love-in-our-thoughts-uva.html


I had really hoped to have been able to post a few days worth of Melser's stories each weekend of the trial here for you to see, but logistically, that just wasn't going to work out, given how often Google Chrome has been crashing at the worst possible times, making what should've otherwise been a 20-30 minute operation take 90 maddening minutes, instead.
Sorry about that.


Ashley Robertson in The Cavalier Daily in Charlottesville captured the gaping hole in the souls of Yeardley's family about as well as you could, something you probably never saw in whatever TV news story you saw about the verdict or sentencing, but which is important to know:

Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman called Love’s mother Sharon and older sister Lexie to testify about the impact of Yeardley’s death on their family.

Few eyes in the courtroom stayed dry and multiple jurors needed tissues as Sharon Love described losing her daughter just five years after the death of her husband.

“Every year that goes by, I’m afraid I’m forgetting little pieces about her,” Sharon Love said between sobs. “[The pain] never goes away. You just pick yourself up and try to do the best you can for Yeardley.”

Lexie Love’s testimony also evoked tears as she described the emotional pain she suffered from losing a sister she talked to “at least once a day.”

“I’ve never wanted something so bad in my life as to see her again… it physically hurts,” Lexie Love said. “It’s like something’s missing — there’s a huge hole that will always be there and nothing’s going to fill it.”

It just breaks your heart all over again.
At least it did mine.
Yeardley Love and her family are still in our thoughts.


See the whole article here:


The Cavalier Daily 
The Verdict
By Ashley Robertson, Section Editor 
February 24, 2012
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2012/02/24/the-verdict/


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http://www.wbaltv.com/index.html 


One Love Foundation: http://www.joinonelove.org/

Breaking News: USA Field Hockey earns spot at 2012 London Olympics with 4-2 upset win over #1 Argentina in Finals at Pan Am Games in Guadalajara

Breaking News: USA Field Hockey earns spot at 2012 London Olympics with a 4-2 upset win over #1 Argentina in Finals at Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.

I found out via the UVA Field Hockey Twitter account shortly after 8 p.m. tonight while watching Game Seven of the World Series:

uvafieldhockey Virginia Hockey

Congrats to @USAFieldHockey who just punched a ticket to London with a 4-2 win over world No. 1 Argentina! Well done Paige & Michelle!

(I tried to take a screen shot of it but it was too faint to post here.)

Paige Selenski (Virginia), Shannon Taylor (Syracuse), Katie O'Donnell (Maryland) and Michelle Vittese (Virginia) scored for the underdog American squad.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/10/28/sports/s171739D13.DTL

http://espn.go.com/espnw/pan-am-games/

Rachel Dawson's blog from Pan Am Games:

http://espn.go.com/espnw/7119544

http://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=uvafieldhockey

More soon on the upcoming Field Hockey conference tourneys which start next week, inc. the always tough ACC tourney in College Park that members of my FH-loving family may be attending at some point.

2011 ACC Field Hockey Championship at College Park, Maryland.

Thursday Nov. 3rd & Sunday Nov. 6th

http://www.theacc.com/sports/w-fieldh/acc-w-fieldh-body.html

http://www.theacc.com/championships/11-acc-field-hockey-championship.html

2011 NCAA Mens Lacrosse Final Four in Baltimore is a case of multiple story narratives colliding head-on; NU-MD rematch for Women should be awesome!

ESPN video: Lacrosse Final Four breakdown

http://youtu.be/MK-pbz_uiDg

The Memorial Day weekend has long been one of my favorite weekend because it combines the sheer excitement and mystery of the Indy 500 and the tough grit of the NCAA D-1 Mens Lacrosse Final Four, where defense almost always trumps showy offense.

http://www.ncaa.com/sports/lacrosse-men/d1

This year is no exception as the four teams playing at M&T Stadium in Baltimore are a clear-cut case of multiple story narratives colliding:

In the first game at 4 p.m., Denver vs. UVA, the new kid-on-the-block with the proven coach vs. the traditional power eager for redemption, while the second game pits Maryland vs. Duke, a return to glory for a traditional power vs. the new king-of-the LAX hill.

(As some of you may recall me having mentioned previously, my middle niece is a freshman at UVA, Charlottesville being one of my favorite cities. I'm rooting for a UVA-Maryland title match on Monday, which'll help make the crowd a big part of the game.)

On Friday night, courtesy of Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic, DirecTV Channel 642, I was able to catch some of the D-1 Womens Semi-finals up in Stony Brook, Long Island.

http://www.ncaa.com/championships/lacrosse-women/d1

I missed the first Semi of the night between Maryland and Duke, which saw the returning champion Terps defeat the Blue Devils, and caught the beginning of the second half of the North Carolina-Northwestern match.

In the past, I've caught LIVE or via tape all the Northwestern matches that have been telecast on the BigTenNetwork, but this year, I only saw one or two, so I was not as familiar with this group of Kelly Amonte Hiller-led Wildcats as years past, when Katrina Dowd channeled Isiah Thomas from our 1981 NCAA basketball title run, hustling, driving towards the net and either shooting or making crazy amazing passes.

It was a half largely dominated by the Wildcats, whose Shannon Smith scored with 18 seconds left in the match after UNC tied it twice in the last six minutes.

The win sends the Wildcats up against the Terps for a rematch of their classic title game last year in Towson which saw Northwestern's amazing title run end.

That might've been THE best sporting event I saw all year -by far.

Here's some information about watching the matches this weekend via TV or your nearest computer that may prove helpful for those of you reading this far from the sweltering madness of South Florida.

FYI: ESPN3 is ESPN's LIVE streaming channel, so you can watch the two Mens Sem-finals there on Saturday starting at 4 p.m., and the Championship match on Monday afternoon, too without Cable TV.

----------

Women's Final

Sunday May 29th Division I Women's Lacrosse Final - Maryland (1) vs. Northwestern (2)

to be televised LIVE at 4 p.m. Eastern on Mountain West Sports Network (The Mtn.), Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic (Plus) and joined-in-progress on The BigTenNetwork and streaming at www.NCAA.com

--------

Mens National Semi-finals

Saturday May 28th 2011 Division I Men's Lacrosse Semifinal #1 - Denver (6) vs. Virginia (7)

to be televised LIVE at 4 p.m Eastern on ESPN2 /ESPN3.com.

Semi-final # 2 - Maryland vs. Duke (5), on the same channels around 6:30 p.m.

Mens title game on Monday May 30th at 3:30 p.m. on the same two channels.

I especially encourage you to take a moment and read the following columns about the growth of this great sport, NOT that you'd know this living in South Florida, where the University of Miami has neither a Mens or Womens D-1 lacrosse team despite having so many students from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, or even a D-1 Field Hockey team, which is why the U-M is such an unappealing school for smart and talented women athletes.

It's simply NOT competitive nationally, let alone, within the ACC.

While the U-M dithers, the University of Michigan announced on Wednesday the elevation of Men's and Women's lacrosse to D-1 status.

The Washington Post

2011 NCAA men’s lacrosse semifinals showcase growth of sport

By Christian Swezey

Published: May 27, 2011

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/2011-ncaa-mens-lacrosse-semifinals-showcase-regional-growth-of-sport/2011/05/27/AG62gpCH_story.html

New York Times

Observing a Lacrosse Pioneer, McPhee Style

By George Vecsey

May 26, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/sports/mcphee-trains-his-lens-on-tierney-a-lacrosse-pioneer.html

New York Times

Denver Crosses Lacrosse’s Great Divide

By Adam Himmelsbach

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/sports/denver-crosses-lacrosses-great-divide.html

Baltimore Sun

Faceoff lacrosse blog - http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/lacrosse/blog/

Q&A with ESPN's Paul Carcaterra

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/lacrosse/blog/2011/05/qa_with_espns_paul_carcaterra_9.html

Richmond Times-Dispatch

Desire is there for U.Va. lacrosse team

By Michael Phillips

May 28, 2011

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/sports/2011/may/28/tdsport01-desire-is-there-for-uva-lacrosse-team-ar-1070117/

Crack Baby Athletic Association
Tags: SOUTH
PARKEric Cartman,Kyle Broflovski,more...

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/387407/stu-dent-ath-o-leets

No. 2 UVA at No. 1 Syracuse Mens Lacrosse tonight on ESPNU at 6 p.m.; plus, will Lacey Myers show-up?; UVA to retire Yeardley Love's number Sunday

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6173759

Well, it's not like I wasn't already looking forward to this exciting match tonight between UVA and Syracuse on ESPNU, ever since I got a good look two weekends ago during their Lacrosse Preview show and saw the schedule of televised matches this Spring.
http://espn.go.com/lacrosse/

That schedule will, apparently, include two Womens matches.
Last year I saw a lot of Northwestern's matches, but when Maryland came back to beat Northwestern in the title game at Towson, that was easily one of the most exciting things I saw all year.

Frankly, to me, it was MUCH more exciting than the Auburn-Oregon BCS Title Game in Phoenix this past January.

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Baltimore Sun
Syracuse, UVa. gear up for 'game of the year'
By Edward Lee, The Baltimore Sun
5:44 p.m. EST, March 3, 2011

It doesn't have the levels of hysteria generated when the Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers clash or when the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees meet, but the series between Syracuse and Virginia has been gaining steam in the sport of lacrosse.

That's why Friday night's contest at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y., is already being called the game of the 2011 season, and it's only early March.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/college/lacrosse/bs-sp-lax-feature-0304-20110303,0,4756447.story

But, the Internet being what it is, more than a few people who say they are fans of Syracuse student Lacey Myers, the subject of my July 21st, 2010 post, one of my most popular posts here ever -at one point earlier this week, 13 consecutive people from around the world came by the blog to look at that story on her and her well-publicized media forays on MTV and Channel 4 in England, which I had the links to- sent me emails
asking a question I can't possibly answer.

Say hello to Lacey Myers, one of "The World's Richest Teenagers" as seen on Channel 4 (U.K.) and MTV's Lacey Land. C'est la vie.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/say-hello-to-lacey-myers-one-of-worlds.html

I honestly have no idea one way or the other whether or not she will be at the Carrier Dome Friday night, rooting on her team.

But I will definitely know if she gets shown on TV, since even if I wasn't going to be watching the match anyway, some of you have pledged to let me know.
Again, as I've already written some of you, I appreciate it, but I'll be able to see for myself, so please save yourself an email and just watch the action on the field.

University of Virgina Mens Lacrosse homepage:
http://www.virginiasports.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=17800&SPID=10601&SPSID=88761

Syracuse Mens Lacrosse homepage:
http://suathletics.syr.edu/index.aspx?path=mlacrosse

FYI: The Maryland at Duke Mens match on Saturday at 1 pm will be streaming LIVE on ESPN3. I caught some of the Georgetown at Maryland match over the weekend.
http://espn.go.com/espn3/index/_/sport/lacrosse

Back in mid-February, on my birthday actually, I heard the news from some friends in the Mid-Atlantic that UVA was planning to retire Yeardley Love's number before their home game against Penn State.

Well, that emotional day for her family and friends is fast approaching.

Friday night, #5 UVA hosts defending NCAA champion and #1 Maryland, and Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. at Klockner Stadium, the ceremony takes place, so you can pretty well expect to see some media coverage of that event on Sunday and Monday, esp. on ESPN, which for a change, actually covered that tragedy and the weeks of following the team with a certain amount of class, instead of their usual pomposity.
Yeardley Love was #1.

As some of you may recall me having mentioned previously, I saw UVA's game in Evanston at Northwestern on The BigTenNetwork the same weekend that the Northwestern home
match against the first-year Florida Gators was also supposed to be telecast, but instead, the Gators match wound-up being an online P-P-V.

That was the very same weekend before Yeardley Love was murdered once she and the rest of her teammates got back to Charlottesville.

For whatever reason, once the news about that tragedy became public, The BigTenNetwork pulled the encore showing they has scheduled for that UVA-Northwestern match, and instead, showed some meaningless softball game.

The CBS-owned network collectively put their head in the sand rather than utilize their "experts" and resources to actually bring some perspective to fans on the tragedy.
I really expected much better from them.

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The Baltimore Sun's Lacrosse blog:
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/lacrosse/blog/

http://www.umterps.com/sports/w-lacros/md-w-lacros-body.html

http://www.virginiasports.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPID=10605&DB_OEM_ID=17800

http://www.gatorzone.com/lacrosse/

http://nusports.cstv.com/sports/w-lacros/nw-w-lacros-body.html