After the rumor mill swirled during the week, official news out of Virginia this afternoon indicates that senior Shamel Bratton has been dismissed from the Virginia men’s lacrosse team. Here is the official news release from UVa Athletics Media Relations:

Virginia men’s head lacrosse coach Dom Starsia announced today (April 29) that senior midfielder Shamel Bratton has been dismissed from the team for the violation of team policies.

“I want to wish Shamel the very best in his future endeavors,” Starsia said. “He has made many contributions to the program. At the same time, there are standards of behavior within the framework of the team that we expect to be met by all of our student-athletes. Failure to do so on a consistent basis has resulted in the loss of the privilege of being a member of this team.”

Bratton concludes his UVa career with 89 goals, which ranks No. 3 all-time among Virginia midfielders. The Huntington, N.Y., native also finishes with 40 career assists and 129 career points, ranking No. 5 and No. 1 respectively among UVa midfielders all-time. Bratton finishes the season with 20 goals and eight assists on 22.2 percent shooting.

The Cavaliers host Penn on Saturday at 3 p.m. in the final game of the regular season.

Hayes Permar over at the ACC Sports Journal (ACCSports.com) posted an “around the ACC” style article on Thursday. The lead topic? A few “would you rather” scenarios for ACC fans. For Virginia, Permar had the following question:

Virginia: If you could only retain one, whom would you keep: Tony Bennett or Mike London?

So have at it Wahoo fans on our men’s basketball, football, and EDGE message boards. After all, as Permar correctly points out in the article, message boards are the virtual barber shops of the internet:

“And that’s what the message board is: on its good days, on its bad, whether it’s sharing opinion, serving as a source of information, or a safe-zone for ranting or over-praising as you see fit, the message board community is like the small collection of connected locals getting together in the barber shop, where everyone feels his voice can and should be heard.”

At least that’s how we hope you feel here at TheSabre.com. Everyone’s a local and everyone’s got a voice. Pull up a chair and chat for a while!

The UVa men’s tennis team recently wrapped up its fifth straight undefeated regular season in ACC play, knocking off Georgia Tech 6-1 on Sunday for the program’s 74th straight conference win. This weekend, the Cavaliers will try to make it five straight ACC Championships at the ACC Tournament in Cary, N.C. Virginia has won 7 of the last 8 men’s tennis titles in the league. The Hoos had a first round bye and face Maryland at 9 a.m. on Friday for the first step of their title quest.

Despite all of that recent success in the conference, senior Michael Shabaz said that the team is expecting a tough battle from its ACC opponents this weekend.

“We’re expecting a lot of competition. We’re starting off with a bye, which helps,” Shabaz said. “It’s going to be tough. The ACC Tournament always has got a lot of depth and a lot of great competition. The ACC seems to be a pretty solid conference this year overall top to bottom and we’re going to have to play some of our best tennis.”

With a tip of the cap to poster VailSkis, here’s a link to the Green Bay Press-Gazette where Rob Demovsky reports that Virginia and Wisconsin-Green Bay will meet up in men’s basketball for the next three seasons. UVa will play once on the road, while UWGB will travel twice to the John Paul Jones Arena. Talk about the series in this message board thread.

Ras-I Dowling participated in drills for NFL scouts at UVa on Monday. Dowling went through a series of drills for scouts from approximately 15 NFL teams at the McCue Center weight room and on the practice field.

Dowling performed well with all of his weight room drills and posted impressive numbers in the bench press (19 repetitions at 225 pounds), broad jump (10 feet, 8 inches) and vertical jump (38 inches).

In speed drills, Dowling slipped a number of times on the field turf surface causing him to gather his composure and attempt the drill again. When Dowling was able to gain traction he blazed through a series of agility and speed tests, particularly the 40-yard dash and 3-cone drill.
The highlight of the day for Dowling and all in attendance was the defensive back drills. Dowling was quick in his turns, broke hard out of his cuts, and caught all but one ball thrown in his direction. Most interesting was a moment where two scouts accidentally threw balls at the same time from different angles. Dowling ducked the inadvertent one, which was coming fast toward his head, while simultaneously securing the other – all in stride. It got a laugh out of many of the scouts, and the unintended ‘distraction’ drill can only help his ratings regarding his focus and pass catching skills.

See below photos of Ras-I from the workout and click here for Sabre TV video.