In honor of Yeardley Love, the University of Virginia student that tragically died May 3, Affinity Management-operated Musket Ridge Golf Club in Myersville, MD, is donating 100% of green fees from its 1 p.m. tee times in June. All proceeds will be donated to the Yeardley Love Women’s Lacrosse Scholarship Fund. Musket Ridge is one of the top courses in Maryland and regularly draws golfers from throughout the Mid-Atlantic.

Love wore the No. 1 jersey on the UVa women’s lacrosse team – 1 p.m. tee times start at $75 and additional donations will be welcomed. In the event more than one group wants the 1 p.m. tee time Musket Ridge will accept bids to raise more money.

Damon DeVito, managing director of Charlottesville-based Affinity Management, said, “In many ways you feel powerless in such a terrible situation, but we felt like we had to do something. It’s an admittedly small step, but hopefully this will contribute to Ms. Love’s memory and in turn, increase awareness about domestic abuse.”

The Yeardley Love Women’s Lacrosse Scholarship Fund will annually provide a full scholarship for a member of the UVa women’s lacrosse team. To donate directly to the Fund, click here.

As a 2000 graduate of the University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences, I receive email updates from Dean Meredith Jung-En Woo. She has decided to start featuring guest essays on her blog; the first is from Michael Suarez, the new director of the Rare Book School at UVa and a professor of English. I thought I’d pass on the link here because the essay is inspired by the tragic loss and memory of Yeardley Love. Read it here.

The UVa Student Council has organized a candlelight vigil in memory of Yeardley tonight in the Amphitheater on Grounds. The event starts at 8 p.m. and will feature several speakers, including President Casteen. There will also be performances by the Virginia Gentlemen and the Virginia Belles. The vigil is expected to last one hour.

Please feel free to join the student body and the University community tonight as we honor Yeardley Love.

Go home, Duke.

Congrats to Adam Ghitelman on an awesome goal.

After the Duke and Virginia swapped unanswered scoring runs throughout the first half Saturday night, the dust settled with UVa leading 6-5 at intermission. Shamel Bratton led the first-half scoring with 2 goals. For Bratton, finding the cage twice in the first half helped snap a low-scoring stretch in ACC play. He had just one goal against Maryland and did not score against UNC (1 assist). It didn’t take long at all to find the netting against the Blue Devils; Bratton scored at 13:57 in the first quarter on the first shot of the game.

“Coming off a game like that where I felt like it wasn’t my best to say the least, just getting out here and getting my confidence early, that kind of played into the rest of the game,” Bratton said. “I don’t think I shot the ball as much as I could’ve, but usually you watch the film and see where you can get some back.”

Indeed, Bratton took just 3 total shots in the game and he scored on both of the ones that were on-goal. Of course, it’s hard to take shots if the offense doesn’t have the ball. The Blue Devils dominated the face-offs and groundballs in the second half, leaving Virginia scrambling on defense and in hurry-up mode on offense. UVa took just 11 shots after intermission, less than half the 23 attempts it created before halftime. The result, as anyone that follows the Hoos knows was another loss to Duke, this time by a 13-9 score.

“It’s really difficult when they’re winning groundballs and keeping such long possessions,” Bratton said. “Especially as an offensive player, you want to get out there and you’re down and you want to get back in it. But at the same time, you have to get a possession where you can give your defense a little rest. They did a good job possessing the ball and getting long possession and capitalizing – that was the biggest thing, they were getting long possessions and scoring goals at the end of them.”

The Virginia women’s lacrosse team rolled past visiting George Mason, 17-8, on a chilly Tuesday night at Klockner Stadium. The fourth-ranked Cavaliers surged ahead with a dominant first half and were never challenged after holding GMU scoreless until 1:32 reamined in the first half. Senior All-American Kaitlin Duff, who had 3 goals and 1 assist, said the team wanted to jump out to a fast start in the Hoos’ final regular season home game.

“I think we knew it was really important to come out strong. In the past two games, we’ve kind of come out slow and eventually built our lead so going in we knew we wanted to get the first draw and the first goal,” Duff said. “I think we did a nice job.”

Multiple Hoos did a nice job in fact. In the end, 10 players scored at least one goal; in addition to Duff, Caroline McTiernan (3), Brittany Kalkstein (2), Julie Gardner (2), Whitaker Hagerman (2), Marye Kellerman (1), Caity Whiteley (1), Molly Millard (1), Kelly Austin (1) and Erin Laschinger (1) all moved the netting as well.

Kalkstein also posted 5 more draw controls, giving her 338 in her career. She passed Maryland’s Dana Dobbie’s 334 for second all-time in the NCAA. Kalkstein needs 16 more draw controls to take over the top spot on the list from Vermont’s Kristen Millar (353).

I know I frequently – maybe not frequently enough! – link to the From Old Virginia blog … but Brendan’s stuff is just so dang entertaining! This time, I’m pointing out the recent “Rays of Light” post on the blog. Wrestling, baseball, men’s soccer, men’s lacrosse, football and basketball all in one post? Well played sir! Well played!

Here’s a snippet:

Just ponder all that for a second. It’s possible, even likely, there’s never been a point in history in which UVA athletics has been so successful as a whole. Four ACC Championships. One National Championship. Three teams ranked #1 nationally. It’s as if the gods have smacked down our football and basketball teams to balance out the success on all the other fields. Or vice versa. Because these would be truly heady times indeed if we had a football and/or a basketball (men’s, that is) team that was even remotely competitive.

Brendan’s right. This may be the most successful time in UVa athletics history … even without the two revenue programs providing any boost. There’s a decent chance that Virginia will achieve its highest ranking ever in the Director’s Cup this time around. Listen, I’m not pretending that makes up for the struggles of football and basketball. I also know some fans just don’t care about anything else. And that’s OK. But nothing is changing on the results front for football and men’s basketball right now in March. My suggestion is to enjoy the good times of the other sports while you can! We’ll deal with those other two later.

This is quite a week for Virginia fans with three teams ranked No. 1 in the nation in the polls! The UVa men’s lacrosse team topped previous No. 1 Syracuse on Sunday, 11-10, to join the baseball and men’s tennis teams atop the polls. I asked Max Pomper, a senior lacrosse player, about taking over the top spot – his answer is something you’d probably get from any member of the Hoos’ three outstanding teams.

“It’s very exciting. It says a lot for our Olympic sports that we have three teams now ranked No. 1 in the country,” Pomper said. “We take a lot pride in it, but to be honest the one thing we always stress is that we want to be No. 1 at the end of May.”

So if you think it’s cool now, can you imagine how incredible it would be if all three teams won national titles this season? Here’s hoping!

Ken Clausen on Sunday’s Syracuse game:

“We’ve had a long week to prepare, which the whole team is grateful for. It will be the first big test of the season.”

“It’s a great test for our defense. We need to be on our best game. Syracuse is a team that capitalizes on mistakes. We know their middies are strong, very good players. We know we will have our hands full this Sunday.”

“Looking at the calendar before the season starts, there are a few games you always highlight and this is one of them. We’ve been able to maintain an attitude of ‘One scrimmage at a time’ and ‘One game at a time.’ Everyone’s excited to know it’s Syracuse week. I don’t think we’ve talked about it in the slightest earlier this season, but you had better believe that now 100 percent of our attention is being paid to them.”

“It’s an unbelievably competitive game. We have very similar styles of play, and that contributes to the mentality going into this game. We want to beat them at their own game.”

“Throughout my career we’ve beaten the eventual National Champion every season, but we’ve come up short in the end. This being my senior year, the senior class is putting the pressure on themselves. We have the potential and this is the first step in the season to prove to ourselves that we have what it takes.”

Earlier today I got the chance to swing by the Cavalier men’s lax practice. The team is in the midst of prepping for Sunday’s game against No. 1 Syracuse. I’ve said it before on the message boards, and I’ll say it again here: If you are going to be in/around the Charlottesville area this Sunday, you don’t want to miss this game. Coach Dom Starsia asked me to pass on this message: “I do think we are going to have a great crowd. All I would say to any casual lacrosse fan or someone who is mildly curious: If you’ve heard a little bit about lacrosse and you’ve got some curiosity about it, this is the one to come to.” (more…)