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April 19, 2003
Charlottesville, Va. – Virginia goes for its third ACC title since 1999 Sunday afternoon against Duke at 3 p.m. The Cavaliers advanced to the finals with a 13-12 overtime win over North Carolina in the semifinals on Friday night.
Duke gained a 7-6 win over Maryland in the other semifinal to set the match-up with Virginia.
Virginia suffered a series of heartaches in the ACC Tournament before winning it for the first time in 1997. The Cavaliers followed that with tournament championships in 1999 and 2000. Overall this is the seventh time in the last eight seasons the Cavaliers have played for the league championship.
Only the 1997 championship was won at home. In 1999 the Cavaliers captured the title in Chapel Hill, N.C., while in 2000 Virginia celebrated in College Park, Md.
Duke has won two consecutive ACC championships and looks to become the first to win three straight since North Carolina won the first six tournaments (1989-94).
Prior to the beginning of the tournament format in 1989, Virginia captured 11 ACC championships (1962-64-69-70-71-75-80-83-84-85-86).
This is the eighth time Virginia has tangled with Duke in the ACC Tournament and the fourth time in the finals. The Cavaliers have won five meetings, including a 12-6 win in the championship game of the 1997 tournament and an 8-7 triumph in the 1999 title game.
All three of Virginia’s ACC Tournament championships have occurred under head coach Dom Starsia, who, no doubt, would like to celebrate his 51st birthday Monday with a tournament championship.
Virginia holds a 46-15 lead in the all-time series vs. Duke. The Cavaliers have defeated Duke more than any other team in school history. The men in orange and blue have dominated the series in Charlottesville, winning 25 of 29 games on their home field. Even more impressive is that since 1953 Virginia has won 23 of the 25 meetings. The Cavaliers have won the last six games in Charlottesville, including three wins in the ACC Tournament (one being the 1997 tourney finals).
The Cavaliers hope the recent pattern of the series doesn’t repeat. After winning three straight from 1999-2000 the teams have alternated wins and Virginia has the most recent victory (just eight days ago).
The recent history of the series has been characterized by many close games. Going back to 1998, seven of the last 10 games have been decided by one or two goals.All three of Duke’s wins over Virginia since 1996 have been by one goal (1999, 2001, ’02). Incidentally, all three games were in Durham.
Duke’s only two wins in Charlottesville in the last 53 years (1992, 1994) were by one goal.
This is the fifth time in as many attempts (1994-96-97-98) Virginia has advanced to the finals when the ACC Tournament has been played at Kl?ckner Stadium. (The Cavaliers also advanced to the finals in 1990 when the tourney was played at Scott Stadium.) The results have been a mixed bag for the Wahoos however; the Cavaliers have won only one title on their home field (1997 over Duke).
Billy Glading’s goal in overtime in Friday’s semifinal win over North Carolina marked Virginia’s first overtime win in over two years. Conor Gill tallied UVa’s most recent overtime goal in the fourth overtime of a 9-8 win over Johns Hopkins in March 2001.
Glading has scored five goals in the last two games-3 last week vs. Duke when he was named ACC Player of the Week and two Friday vs. North Carolina. It’s the first multi-goal streak of his career.
All-ACC goalie Tillman Johnson was phenomenal in the win over North Carolina, tying his career high with 18 saves, including as many as a dozen one-on-ones. He seems to come up big in the big games. He also had 18 saves in the four overtime win against Johns Hopkins at Homewood two years ago and 18 in the national semifinals vs. Syracuse last year.
Johnson also had an assist on a nice outlet pass to Jack deVilliers who scored his first career goal at the 10:00 mark of the second quarter.
Senior middie A.J. Shannon had two assists Friday night and joined teammate Chris Rotelli as the 32nd player in school history to record 100 career points. Shannon has scored 73 goals and added 28 assists for 101 career points.
Face-off specialist Jack deVilliers had his roughest outing of the season on Friday. He won just 10 of 28 attempts (.357), and saw his string of winning at least half his attempts end at 10 games. He won 13 of 21 against Duke last weekend in the regular season meeting but neither Kevin Cassese nor Devan Wray had any attempts.
Chris Rotelli tied John Christmas for scoring honors Friday with three goals. It marks his first ACC Tournament hat trick.
After a slow start when he scored just once in the first seven games, freshman midfielder Kyle Dixon has scored in the last three games. He had a goal and two assists last week vs. Duke, his best scoring total of his young career.
Five Cavaliers-John Christmas, Chris Rotelli, A.J. Shannon, Matt Ward and Joe Yevoli-have all scored at least 20 points this season, the same number as last year. Billy Glading needs seven more points to reach 20. The last time Virginia had at least six 20-point scorers occurred in 2000.