Author: eric-angevine

 ‘‘I’m going to retire from this game,’’ mutters UVA junior Jarmere Jenkins.

He roots around behind the heavy curtains hanging in front of the wall behind Court 7 at the Boyd Tinsley Tennis Center, the Boar’s Head Sports Club’s cavernous indoor tennis facility, searching for a stray ball and collecting his thoughts.

Jarmere Jenkins, UVA junior co-captain, is an explosive hitter who can overpower opponents and cover the court like a blanket. (Photo by Matt Riley)

At least that’s what it sounded like he was saying. Whatever he said, it was under his breath, not meant for the ears of the 1,070 spectators who had braved heavy snow to claim a spot on the hard aluminum bleachers overlooking the gladiator’s pit Jenkins was standing in.

His body language—shoulders slumped rounder than usual and the hair-trigger look in his eye—sent the clear message that the nation’s 10th-ranked college singles player was frustrated.

Jenkins found the ball, which Ohio State University’s 16th-ranked Chase Buchanan had fired past him just moments before, glowered at it, and stalked back onto the court. If the Cavaliers, ranked second best in the nation as a team, advanced, they would play top-ranked University of Southern California in the title game, with a chance to earn their fifth-straight national indoor team championship in front of the hometown fans.

The one-on-one battle between Jenkins and Buchanan was one of many that played out on Court 7 over the middle two weekends in January. For the first time in history, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) agreed to host both the men’s and women’s National Indoor Team Championship tournaments at a single facility, making for an early season battle royal between the nation’s best players.

Twelve women’s teams descended on Charlottesville from February 10-13, and UCLA walked away victorious on the final day. The operations team at the Boar’s Head had about a day to recover from a series of late-night marathons, before they had to gear up for the men. Five teams—Cal, UCLA, Pepperdine, Stanford and USC—made the exhausting journey from the West Coast to central Virginia to take part.

“We’ve been on Virginia time all week, setting our alarms early so we’ll be alert,” said Cal Head Coach Peter Wright, who brought 11 players with him from Berkeley. “Win or lose, you’re in a draw with the top teams. You find out a lot about yourselves and how you compete. We’re here to win, but whatever happens just motivates us for later.”

USC arrived as the top-ranked team in the nation, last year’s collegiate champion Steve Johnson flanked by a new partner in crime, the highly touted 6’4" German freshman Yannick Hanffman.

Peter Smith, USC’s easygoing, silver-haired coach, knows his team has a target on its back, and that nobody wants to win this tournament more than the home team. “You think a lot of things. That’s certainly one of them. You try to stay disciplined and play one match at a time. Virginia’s aware of us and we’re aware of them, but there’s 14 other teams we’ve got to deal with,” Smith said.

The tournament’s format was designed to make the trip worthwhile as an early season proving ground, with each team guaranteed three matches, win or lose, against the nation’s top competition. Wright’s Cal Bears, ranked No. 13 in the nation, fell to No. 4 Georgia on the first day. In the consolation bracket, Cal defeated No. 12 Pepperdine and lost to No. 8 UCLA, both teams they could have played without leaving their home state.

The rigors of travel are part of tennis life. While some players worked out on the court between sessions, others hunched over notebooks on metal benches in the gallery. They had homework to turn in when they got back.

The home court edge
Back on Court 7, Jenkins’ frustration is coming to a boil. Steady, cool-headed Chase Buchanan has taken the first set 7-5. This UVA team has never lost at the Boar’s Head, but things are beginning to look dark.

In a collegiate team match, there are seven points up for grabs. The teams play three doubles matches—the first team to win two matches taking a point. Jenkins and his partner, senior Drew Courtney, beat their opponents in their doubles match, but Ohio State won the other two to take the point.

Jenkins is a set down, and his team is facing the prospect of having to win four out of six singles matches to reach the tournament final against USC. That much distance now, between him and a showdown with Johnson and Hanfmann. A set down, not hitting spots, not seeing the ball well.

The fans love Jenkins, who moves around the court a little bit pigeon-toed, like Andre did. They’re trying to lift him. “C’mon, JJ!” and “You’ve got this one, JJ!”, bursting into wild applause as he slots a backhand volley into the corner, just past Buchanan’s outstretched racket. All six singles matches are going on at once, side by side, and the grunts mix with the pop of the balls and reverberate across the hard surface. As the games turn on decisive points, the numbers lighting up the large scoreboard tell the story.

Jenkins is right in the middle of all that, on Court 7 where the teams’ top singles players do battle and the row of bleachers courtside allows spectators the chance to see the players’ eyes dilate before they make contact. It should be an advantage for Jenkins. Former UVA stars Dominic Inglot and Samdev Devarrman—fixtures on the ATP professional circuit since graduating—are in his corner, calling out advice and encouragement from prime seats. Head Coach Brian Boland has turned trips to the Tinsley Tennis Center into a dreaded experience for opponents, in part because of the tight familial character of his team. He knows Jenkins feeds off of the older guys.

“Yeah, they love it. That’s why so many of us coach; the opportunity to build these unbelievable relationships, not only for four years but hopefully for a lifetime,” Boland said. “If you have great relationships with your current and former players, and you kind of set them up to accomplish the goals and dreams that they have for themselves when they take their first step off Grounds at the University of Virginia, then I feel like I’ve done my job.”
Court 10 is less than 100 yards away from Court 7, but the atmosphere is a world away. Drew Courtney, a co-captain, has won his first set, and leads the second. Guatemalan junior Julen Uriguen has split sets on Court 12. Justin Shane is reeling on 11, to his left, but Courtney can only control the outcome of his own match. The 6’5" senior is from Clifton, Virginia, and his family has packed the nearby bleachers.

UVA coach Brian Boland knows how to juggle personalities. Here he shares a quiet word with senior captain Drew Courtney. (Photo by Matt Riley)

“It’s cool to have some familiar faces in the crowd that you can vibe off of,” he said later. “We have the best fans in the country. We appreciate it, and it’s so fun to be able to play in an atmosphere like this when they’re going crazy. It’s definitely an advantage.”

They are ecstatic when Courtney closes the match, earning Virginia’s first point. After he shakes hands with his opponent, he thanks the referee, walks up the courtside ramp toward his family, but stops short to exchange a few words with USC’s Johnson. The Trojans advanced earlier, brushing aside No. 4 Georgia with the same alacrity they displayed in dispatching early-round foes Duke and Tennessee.

As Courtney’s courtside exchange with Johnson proves, familiarity and friendship often cross team lines in the college tennis world. Most of the players have warred through the juniors, many of them traveling together to national tournaments and tour events. As a UVA fan you could consider Johnson the enemy. He finished the 2011 season ranked No. 1, one spot ahead of UVA’s Alex Domijan, and won doubles and singles points to help USC win the NCAA title over Virginia by a narrow 4-3 margin.

“Drew, Jarmere and myself…we’ve been playing against each other since we were 12,” Johnson said. “We’re good friends off the court, but on the court we put our friendships aside for a couple of hours.”

Shane gets behind early in the second set, leaving Uriguen in a lonely third-set showdown on the far end of the building, two empty courts between him and the rest of the action. Ohio State is up 2-1 with four sets of players still on the court.

All for one, one for all
On Court 7, Jenkins has turned the match around. His frustration boiled over early in the second set, prompting him to take an angry swipe at a ball that sent it skyward so hard and fast that it penetrated the space-age material covering the ceiling, lodging fast. It’s a temper tantrum, and Jenkins may see a bill for the repairs later in the semester, but as he stares at the hole he has made, his frustration dissipates. At 5’11", he is not as tall as many of his teammates—Alex Domijan, one court over, is a towering 6’7"—but Jenkins looks more like a cornerback than a tennis player.

As the matches on the lower courts wind down, UVA Associate Coach Andres Pedroso has taken up station near Jenkins.

“Beat him with your legs!” he urges. “Not one ball with your hands! This guy cannot handle you!”

Jenkins rares back and powers a serve past Buchanan for an ace. While Pedroso amps up Jenkins, Boland is on a different tack with the other players, offering a quiet word of advice to freshman Mitchell Frank then to Domijan, during the changeover. For the more experienced player, a fatherly hand on the shoulder and a single word of encouragement are sufficient.

“The way you would coach Justin versus the way you would coach Mitchell or Alex or Jarmere is just different,” Boland said. “It’s an individual sport, so you have to learn to adjust to each player and what makes it work for him, rather than them all adjusting to your personality.”

With six matches going on at once, college tennis coaches have to be master jugglers. Often, that means the older players essentially coach themselves so the younger players can get the attention they need.

USC’s Smith handles his players with a seemingly avuncular laissez-faire that disguises a meticulous attention to detail, sauntering between courts in his grey hoodie, asking a player to set up one step to his left to take away a wide serve in the ad court. He has arranged special meals to accommodate Hanfmann’s gluten-free diet, and keeps careful tabs on the mental state of players, even when they’re on the sidelines, waiting. “Tennis players aren’t used to being up in the stands cheering,” he said, with a wry smile. “They’re by nature very selfish creatures. When they have to be helping and supporting, it’s a good lesson for them.”
As a returning champion and a senior team captain with USTA men’s singles events under his belt from the offseason, Johnson hasn’t gotten much advice from Smith, who knows he’s got the even-tempered, big-hitting Hanfmann batting second in his powerful lineup.

UVA co-captains Jarmere Jenkins and Drew Courtney have a near-telepathic bond that helps them excel in doubles play. (Photo by Matt Riley)

Hanfmann strikes a deep and heavy ball off both sides and moves well, like Wayne Ferreira. Johnson is twitchy, explosive, and ferociously competitive. His killer instinct and serve and return games separate him from the pack. He can also be petulant on the court. During a dispute with an official in his first-round match, he approached the chair and drummed a tennis ball between the aluminum rungs beneath the chair umpire’s feet to emphasize his point. His periodic quips continued throughout the match, until the official declared firmly, “That’s enough,” ending the onslaught. On Sunday, a second official felt his wrath, which can be directed at himself at times, but which doesn’t seem to bother him so much as it lets him dictate terms to the world. The chair umpires endured his theatrical shrugs of dismay and sarcastic badgering with stone-faced equanimity, and Johnson won both matches in straight sets.

“I felt that I hit a serve that was in,” he said after his Friday match. “And I wanted to voice my opinion that I felt that it was good. We all miss some, so I don’t want to say I was upset.”

If coaches must deal with different personalities in different ways, chair umpires must do the opposite: The integrity of the game demands that they render rule of law to both the feisty and the polite in even-handed fashion. Head Referee Scott Dillon said he works to make sure his crew rotates frequently throughout the long weekend, so they don’t end up seeing the same player over and over again.

“Each works four or five matches per day, but they’ll never do more than two in a row before taking a match off,” Dillon said, adding that he maintains absolute faith in the professionalism and endurance of his officials, nearly all of whom are certified for the highest levels of tennis and have worked pro events like the U.S. Open.

“Other than the NCAA tournament, this is the premier event in college tennis,” Dillon says.

End of the fight
We’re back on Court 7, and a glance at the scoreboard tells Jarmere Jenkins that the situation remains dire. Uriguen and Domijan, first-set winners, have both dropped second sets and moved to decisive thirds. Jenkins has turned the momentum in his match, beating Buchanan 7-5 in the second, and he’s jumped out to a 2-1 lead in the third.

USC team captain Steve Johnson, defending national singles champion, lets out a primal scream after downing Georgia ace Sadio Doumbia at the NTI. (Photo by Matt Riley)

An inordinate amount of pressure has fallen on freshman Mitchell Frank, who lost 7-5 in his first set and is tied at 6-6 with Ohio State’s Peter Kobelt.

Frank likes to grind.

“I try to be as physical as possible, see if [my opponent] can stay with me,” Frank said, grinning confidently beneath a mop of sandy hair. “Some can, many can’t. I try to do a lot of training and lots of fitness and I feel like I’m in better shape most times. I go out there and play my game and try to make the other guy see how much he’s willing to suffer.”

Frank entered the weekend as the ITA’s top-ranked singles player, in part because he’s a top talent in the college game, but also because more experienced players often skip early-season team events to play the pros. Johnson, for instance, took Belgian Steve Darcis—the ATP Tour’s 66th-ranked player—to tiebreakers in both sets of a close loss at the SAP Open on February 13, just days before arriving in Charlottesville. Frank has played the same types of tournaments.

“I’ve already been out on the Futures Circuit for a while, finding out what that’s like,” Frank said. “You have to get out there and lose a lot, win a lot, and keep coming back. That’s what it takes to be successful at this level and continue to improve going forward.”

Kobelt wins the tiebreaker, tilting the balance 3-1 in Ohio State’s favor. Uriguen, Domijan, and Jenkins all have to win for UVA to go through.

A college tennis match might only last an hour but it could also last more than three. As soon as one team wins its fourth point, the contest ceases, and the matches still in progress end mid-set.

“When I was playing, it wasn’t unusual for matches to go seven hours,” said Tim Delaney, a spectator who played for Georgia from 1975 to 1978. “We played all of the singles matches first, and doubles didn’t start until after everyone had finished.”

Delaney drove down from Washington, D.C., to visit with former teammate Manny Diaz, now coach of the No.4 Bulldogs. He said the sudden-death format works a little better for a crowd-friendly event like the NTI.

Maybe for the fans, but it still stings when Ohio State’s Blaz Rola finishes Domijan on Court 8, leaving Uriguen and Jenkins, each leading their respective matches, helpless as their opponents drop their racquets mid-point and run to join the ecstatic Buckeye mob surrounding Rola.

The Cavaliers, ranked No. 2 in the country, have just lost their shot at an unprecedented fifth straight NTI title and suffered their first home loss since the 2006 NTI semifinals in front of their home fans.

The lesson
For the Cavaliers, the ACC season still looms, with a trip to Blacksburg on February 26. The league tournament starts April 19, followed by the NCAA championships in May. Boland expects his players to use the loss as fuel. USC is gunning for a fourth straight NCAA title, and nobody is likely to forget that their most recent, in 2011, came at the direct expense of UVA.

“I think you learn the most about people when they go through adversity, and when they take losses. You can’t let it drag you down,” Boland said. “From an emotional standpoint, a lot of our players have come a long ways, starting with Jarmere Jenkins, and it goes right on down the lineup. We can manage our expectations so we can make sure the guys have both feet on the ground—ready to work hard, handle adversity and get the most out of tennis and school every day.”

USC coach Peter Smith, seen here conferring with freshman sensation Yannick Hanfmann, is a master at wedding individual play to team goals. (Photo by Matt Riley)

Ohio State surprised everyone at the NTI, doing everything it could to add USC to its list of victims in Monday’s final. After taking the doubles point again, the Buckeyes backed the Trojans up a step.

“We got punched in the face in doubles,” said Smith after the match. “I told them if you get punched in the face, you better get up and punch back.”

USC lost two singles matches, but rallied back from the brink to win. Johnson handled Buchanan, and then Hanfmann—the freshman with tour-ready groundstrokes—bounced back to win a deciding third set, giving USC its first NTI title since 1988.

“You never like to watch someone else doing the celebrating,” Boland said philosophically. “But we’ve been the ones celebrating more often than not.”

Jarmere Jenkins has absorbed his coach’s philosophy. He has his eyes on the prize of an NCAA title, and a likely rematch with USC. He knows he and Courtney will have to face Johnson and Hanfmann in doubles if that happens, and that he and Johnson, as top singles competitors, may be destined to meet in individual combat as well.

“I would have had to play him,” Jenkins said, a fire smoldering in his eyes even in defeat. “We grew up together, and we like to see each other do well, but as UVA playing against USC, we don’t really care too much for each other.”

Johnson doesn’t back down from the implied challenge, either, though he’s diplomatic as he stands beside Jenkins.

“We’ll bang heads,” he said, with a wicked grin. “And then right after, we’ll let it slide and go out and be buddies again.”

(Photo by Jack Looney)

As I walked through the crowd at Virginia’s Scott Stadium with basketball player Assane Sene, the reactions were mixed.

Some football fans were so engrossed in their food purchases that they managed to ignore the 7′ tall man in sweats gliding through their midst. Others, like the two young girls trying to cut across traffic in the concourse, were oblivious to his presence until they nearly stepped on his rather noteworthy feet. One stopped and looked up, up, up, before stating the painfully obvious: “Wow, you’re tall.”

As we made our way into the stands, our progress was slowed by a determined toddler, taking the concrete steps one at a time in front of us. Sene, gentle giant that he is, waited patiently for the little guy to find his seat, and someone finally noticed him, and said simply “Assane.” The murmur traveled quickly through the stands until the entire section was looking at him, standing there, as various voices sang out his name. “Assane! ASSANE!”

They all seemed so happy to see him. The vibe was infectious. Sene’s somewhat sleepy eyes and neutral expression dissolved into a million-megawatt smile. Soon the way was clear, and we continued our descent toward the field, Sene slapping hands and waving, with that genuine, joyous grin on his face.

Assane Sene is 4,021 miles from home, but he’s among friends.

Under African skies
Assane Sene was born in Saint-Louis, Senegal, the youngest of five children of Seybatou Beye and Cheikh Sene. His mother passed away from a heart ailment before he grew to adulthood, but she laid a foundation for the future while she was alive: Sene had to promise her that he would seek success through education first and basketball second, wherever that road might lead.

Digital Xs and Os Video technology pushes frontiers of performance analysis  “Stats accuse, but video indicts,” said James Rogol, video coordinator for UVA women’s basketball. “If you can coordinate the two, analysis becomes much easier.” From 2008 to 2011, Rogol held the same post at the Univeristy of California at Berkeley, and he recently made the cross-country move to Charlottesville as a member of Joanne Boyle’s staff, but he’s no stranger to Mr. Jefferson’s University. In fact, he’s a 2006 Virginia graduate who built his resume in the video services department at his alma mater before the Cal job opened up. “I majored in Russian and East European Studies, which is coming in very handy on a daily basis,” Rogol joked. His degree might sound more suited to dusty library searches, but Rogol is actually one of the most valued members of Boyle’s staff. He carries an iPad tablet with him to practices and games. Using state-of-the-art software called SportsCode, he is able to create highlight packages and break down video on the fly. It’s a far cry from the days when practice film was handed out later on DVD, and even more distant from the tortuously slow process of dubbing VHS tape or film. Rogol tags each play or drill as it happens, and downloads the video to a central server. Boyle and her assistants have the video broken down and ready to watch at the push of a button by the time they return to their offices in the John Paul Jones Arena. “Color coding helps pick things out,” Rogol said. “Offense is blue, defense is orange. There can be a lot of data: missed and made baskets, all of our play calls, offense, defense, turnovers, player minutes…” UVA Men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett is able to access similar data, including a huge database of archival footage of opponents that resides on that same central server. He still watches edits on his laptop, but said that Rogol is “some kind of a guru,” when it comes to the iPad application. “I’m really interested in that,” Bennett said. “That’s probably what’s next.” Bennett likes the way technology has helped him streamline the process of imparting knowledge to his players. “I can type little notes that appear on the screen that say, ‘Watch your hands’ or ‘Watch your pivot foot, you’re traveling every time,’” Bennett said. “I can type it in there and it comes up on a little tab, like a post-it note. They can rewind it and do it at their own pace.” The men’s basketball staff also uses data gathered from heart-rate monitors to fine-tune conditioning drills. Sometimes, an assistant coach dons a harness with a radius of long pipes sticking out to simulate the reach of a defensive shot blocker. Shooting form is perfected with the help of a machine that knows the perfect arc a basketball must take on the way to the basket. Bennett is careful to note that the technological gadgets are a helpful tool, not a cure-all. “You can show guys, but you need to be careful. Over-analysis leads to paralysis,” Bennett said. “You’ve got to have it in balance. But there are definitely ways you can use it that are so good.”—E.A.

The nation of Senegal sits on the westernmost edge of the African continent. An area roughly the size of South Dakota, the country is home to over 12 million people, hills and plains, and miles of land fronting the Atlantic Ocean. It is a politically stable, democratic republic with a good educational system but only 39 percent adult literacy.

“There are a lot of problems over there, because they only have a few universities, not like here, where there are a ton,” Sene said in his deep, mildly accented voice. “Over there, there aren’t more than 20 universities in the whole of Senegal. It’s too packed in the university, so it can be really hard for you if you succeed on your exam but can’t go to university. That’s why I wanted to come here to finish my education.”

Many Senegalese, like many Americans, see achievement in sports as a ticket out of poverty. For most, that means soccer or wrestling––the latter is a rapidly growing sport in Africa––but for the 7′ Sene, it was a chance encounter with basketball that opened up doors. First the doors to the SEEDS academy, founded in 2002 by Senegal native Amadou Gallo Fall, a former player at the University of the District of Columbia who is now head of NBA Africa. SEEDS helps foster the athletic and educational growth of promising players from the African continent. Almost from the first day that Sene touched a basketball, SEEDS was a part of his life.

“I went to the SEEDS academy in, I think I can say it was 2006,” Sene remembered. “Actually, that was probably my first year playing basketball. I was back home in Saint-Louis, four hours away from Dakar, the capital of Senegal. People would just come to me while I was playing ball.”

The most notable visitors to Saint-Louis during that crucial time were the members of an earlier team put together by SEEDS. “I remember my first time working with them was when they came down to Saint-Louis; they were more ready, physically and mentally ready, so I was a bit down. But they picked me up and said, ‘No, you just have to keep working,’” Sene recalled. “Then a few months later I got a letter saying that I got invited to Basketball Without Borders in South Africa. I just showed them my hard work, playing physical with them, even though I was really, really, really skinny and there were some big bodies. They told me, ‘Keep working, we see a lot of potential in you, and if you keep working, you’re going to get better.’”

When Fall visited Sene’s home, he tried to find out what the young player wanted out of life. Fall got the answer he was hoping for from Sene’s father.

“My dad is just a really straight guy,” Sene laughed. “My dad was like, ‘There’s no question, Assane is going to have to go to school at the same time. If he wants to keep playing basketball, he can play basketball, but school he has to do.’”

At SEEDS, Sene’s academic learning curve remained steady. Learning how to play basketball at a high level after such a late start was more of a struggle.

“His story and my story is the same thing,” said Fall, speaking via phone from South Africa. “I started playing late. We played soccer, because there was no infrastructure. A lot of times you are excluded from the game through pure luck. That’s why I’m excited to have the opportunity to set up infrastructure across the country and really use our game as a tool to change our communities.”

Sene’s diligence on and off the court paid off. He was offered a scholarship to South Kent, a tony prep school in Connecticut. His American adventure—and his quest to live up to the promise he made to his mother—was beginning.

Coming to America
At South Kent, the culture shock was palpable. The young man who favored shorts, t-shirts and sandals in the tropical heat of Saint Louis had to wear a uniform and learn how to knot a tie. And then there was winter. “Man, it was cold in Connecticut!” Sene declared.

UVA’s 7′ center, Assane Sene, shares a light moment with a teammate during the Cavaliers’ 86-53 victory over Longwood, December 3 at the John Paul Jones Arena. (Photo by Jack Looney)

The language barrier felt like an actual, physical wall. Senegal was a French colony from the mid-16th century up until independence in 1960, and the traditional languages of Wolof, Pulaar, Jola and Mandinka coexist alongside French, the official language of government and education. Sene, a natural polyglot, picked it up quickly, but struggled at times even to understand his homework from French class.

“We’re learning how to do it as we go,” said Fall. “I’m hoping to get the Peace Corps to collaborate and lend their expertise with language [at SEEDS].”

Another, less obvious line of demarcation between Sene and his New England classmates was religion. South Kent adheres to a strict policy of non-discrimination, but the school is accredited by the National Association of Episcopal Schools and requires students to go to chapel every Sunday. Sene, like some 90 percent of his countrymen, is a practicing Muslim, so I asked him if it bothered him to be sent to Christian services.

“Not at all, not at all,” he responded, shaking his head emphatically. “The way my parents raised me, you got to respect everybody. In my own opinion, I think praying is praying. We all follow one God. If you go to a Muslim country, people don’t say God, because that’s not their language. They say Allah. You go to a French country, they say Dieu, you come here, they say God. There is only one and we all believe in one, that’s how my parents raised me.”
When the South Kent student body prayed for him on graduation day, he felt the positive vibes of the community, and didn’t worry about the words or the setting. The dietary restrictions of his faith were another matter entirely. Sene recounted one uneasy moment from his days at prep school, when unfamiliar food options caused him to slip up.

“When I was in South Kent, they gave me some barbeque ribs, and oh my god they were so good!” Sene said, closing his eyes and reveling in the sense memory. “I saw everybody taking ribs and they looked really good. My teammates, they tricked me, they let me finish, then they are like ‘Yo! Did you know what that is?’ I was like ‘no’. ‘That was pork!’ and I was like ‘Oh my God.’ But when you don’t know, you don’t know. You gotta ask.”

Hearing about these experiences over a transatlantic phone line, Amadou Fall waxed philosophical. “These guys are smart. You can explain to them that they have to respect the faith and their environment. That’s part of the whole cross-cultural exchange, you know? It’s part of the growth process.”

Sene’s path eventually led him to Charlottesville, where he was recruited by since-departed head coach Dave Leitao. For the past three seasons, the team has been coached by Tony Bennett, the former Washington State head coach who values offensive rebounding and interior defense, two things Assane Sene happens to be very good at.

Well, you say, the kid is 7′ tall, of course he can rebound and block shots, right? Recall, however, that he’s only been playing basketball for six years. Note, as well, that he’s still very slender. Matched up against 6’8", 240-lb. Jordan Morgan in November’s 70-58 win over Michigan, Sene frequently looked like an octopus wrestling a grizzly bear as he battled for position under the basket. His lack of bulk and relatively unpolished offensive game don’t lead to prolific scoring, but Sene notched his 100th blocked shot in a Virginia uniform during that same matchup.

The learning curve Joanne Boyle has high expectations for Lady Cavs “People like winners, right?” Joanne Boyle says this to me in her plush office in the John Paul Jones Arena, mere hours before her first official game as head coach of the Virginia women’s basketball team. The upbeat tone in her voice makes it clear that she relishes the challenge of winning over fans still reeling from the departure of Debbie Ryan, the Hall of Fame coach who became an institution over 34 years at UVA. “I’ve always had a great relationship with Debbie,” Boyle said. “I have no problem saying that she built Virginia women’s basketball. I have so much respect for her and what she did, but for me, I have to stay in the moment, keep building this program and hopefully get it back to some of the success it had when Debbie was here.” Boyle, 47, came to Charlottesville from the University of California-Berkeley, where she led the Golden Bears to postseason play in each of her six seasons, including an NIT title. The cross-country move sounds daunting, until you realize how deep her roots in this area run. Prior to her stint at Cal, Boyle was head coach at Richmond for three years. Before that, she made her name as one of UVA’s primary adversaries, as a player and assistant coach for rival Duke University. The gravitational pull of the Atlantic Coast Conference was part of what made it a no-brainer to take the job she now holds. “Never in a million years did I think that Virginia was going to open up,” Boyle said. “But it did, and obviously I had to take a look at it. They’ve had so much winning tradition here, there are such great facilities in place. It’s an academic school with a supportive administration in a great conference. For me, there’s only a couple of places that can offer all of those things, along with fan and community support. It encompasses a great package in terms of recruiting and bringing young women here. And when I came on campus it really sold it for me.” Virginia Athletic Director Craig Littlepage called the hiring of Boyle a “perfect fit,” and all evidence to date indicates that he was correct. In collegiate athletics, a coaching change will often result in player-coach clashes and transfers to other programs as a new staff turns things upside-down and young players resist the change. Not so at UVA, where all of Debbie Ryan’s recruits have stayed put and bought into the new system. “If we hadn’t hired a good coach, I’m sure a lot of people would have transferred,” says China Crosby, the fiery junior point guard from New York. “She built a family-like relationship. What I like about this coaching staff is that they’ll call you out on anything, but they’ll let you know that it’s just to get you better. They really respect us, and that’s something we all really appreciate.” Boyle sets the tone for Virginia’s squad, but acknowledges that her assistant coaches have done a lot of the hands-on teaching as the team tackles the steep learning curve involved in implementing new offensive and defensive sets. During practice, the voice most often heard above the sound of squeaking sneakers is that of Kim McNeill, a former Richmond player and coach who left Boyle’s staff at Cal to work for the program at Georgia, but jumped at the chance to come back to her home state this season. Much of the one-on-one defensive instruction is handled by McNeill’s newlywed husband, Cory McNeill, a Baltimore native who left Georgetown to work alongside his bride at UVA. Katie O’Connor is a former Virginia Tech Hokie who ended a seven-year run as an assistant at Kansas to return to the Commonwealth. When Boyle speaks up in practice, she is direct, matter-of-fact and doesn’t shout. Her smiles are rare but potent. “I think it’s good for the girls to hear other voices than my own,” said Boyle. “[My assistants] are rock stars and each have 10 or more years of experience as assistant coaches at successful programs. We have a great chemistry on our staff and a great balance, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.” Boyle expects her teams to be tough and smart, qualities that her new charges have shown in abundance. The sparkling gem of the Lady Cavaliers’ non-conference campaign thus far is a 69-64 home win against then-No. 3 Tennessee, the eight-time national champions coached by living legend Pat Summitt. UVA’s ostensibly overmatched squad played aggressively, notching 13 steals, and gutted out an overtime period that sealed a signature win for the new head coach. “I think that win meant a lot in a lot of different areas,” said senior forward Chelsea Shine. “Coach Boyle calls us a blue collar team a lot. We’re not a team of All-Americans. But when we work hard we can beat anyone. That really set it in stone for us. If we continue to build and continue to work, these are the kinds of results we can expect.” Joanne Boyle’s brand of basketball is bound to be a hit in Cavalier-mad Charlottesville, and local fans can only hope that she’ll make UVA her home for years to come. Boyle has always been on the move, from Durham, to professional play overseas, back through Duke and on to Richmond. Then to the West Coast and now Charlottesville. She hasn’t had a lot of time to settle in yet. “I pretty much unloaded into a townhouse and it’s been townhouse-work, townhouse-work since then,” Boyle said. “So I’m pretty much settling into a routine, but so much of that routine is about the job right now.” Boyle and her hard-driving staff have already landed a top-20 recruiting class that will help establish the team’s long-term future, but Boyle insists that her close-knit team will brighten the near future, and secure a successful season, by living and learning in the moment. “We’re a work in progress,” she said. And then, with the same understated insistence she employs when she’s talking to her players, she makes a promise. “We’ll be a better basketball team in January than we are now.”—E.A.

“There’s a lot of things that don’t show up in the stats,” Sene said after the game. “Like guarding the shooter and bothering their shots. Those are my things I can do to help my team win. So even though they don’t show up on the sheet, I am really happy to do them.”
His lack of bulk contributes to a surprising mobility as well. During the same November game, Sene flashed out to the three point line to help defend against a smaller player in Michigan’s four-guard set, then raced back to the hoop to get a hand in the face of the big man who ended up with the ball. The shot missed, and Sene added another strong play to his invisible book of non-statistics.

At home in ’Hooville
Sene has found many things he likes about America. Platinum-selling hip-hop artist Akon––born in St. Louis to Senegalese parents––provided an easy entry point to stateside music trends, but his teammates have helped him blow that door wide open.

“I like American music,” he said. “I like to dance. I like to have fun and I like to enjoy life. Not too much, but I like to have fun, especially when I’m with my teammates. I like Akon because he’s from Senegal. I like Drake, I like Lil’ Wayne.”

Just when I thought I had Sene’s musical taste pegged, he threw me a curveball. “I like country music sometimes. I like Taylor Swift. I like a lot of good music.”

He also attends football home games whenever possible, which explains why he and I met for our conversation at halftime of the Duke/UVA game. When I asked him about his introduction to football, his face lit up. “When I first came down to visit UVA, they were playing Pittsburgh. They beat them so bad, and the crowd… it was so nice, I was really excited to be here. At that time, I was like ‘Wow, if I go to UVA, I will definitely go to a football game.’”

When Sene is interested in a subject, it’s like his voice can barely contain the excitement. I could almost picture him cheering along with the crowd, having absolutely no idea what was happening, but being caught up in the moment anyway.

His teammates have helped him learn more about the game since, Sene said. “For instance, right now, I was asking Jontel about No. 2, Dominique Terrell. He’s in my class. I was like ‘What position does he play?’ Jontel was like, ‘He’s a corner,’ so now I know. He told me his job and everything, so now I know.”

He also loves burritos. Man alive, does he love burritos. He knows to avoid the pork now, but the convenient mixture of ingredients in an edible wrapper must remind him a bit of the food he ate back home with his family. I asked him what we’d eat if I visited him in Senegal. “I would make you some chicken, probably. Some rice and fish, rice and meat,” he said. “A little bit spicy. I haven’t been home for a while, so I definitely miss the Senegalese food.”
Sene says he has met several Muslims and other natives of Africa since he’s been in Charlottesville, but has yet to find any other Senegalese students.

“There are some people from Nigeria, but not Senegal. There is one girl, she says she is from Senegal, but I think she’s born here. I said ‘You’re not Senegalese, you can’t even speak Wolof’. I always mess around with her and make fun of her,” he said. I get the sense that the target of his gentle humor is charmed enough not to take offense.

In his fourth year with the Cavaliers, Sene is a starter, but he won’t be called upon to do the bulk of the scoring in the paint. “God gave us all different ways we are good. Abilities. Like me, God gave me the abilities to block shots, rebound, run the floor, which a lot of people can’t do,” he said. “Without defense, you cannot win.”

Be that as it may, scoring is still at a premium for the big man. He has scored in double figures only five times in his UVA career, and only once this, his final season. Mike Scott, in his fifth year following an injury redshirt in 2010-2011, is the beast on the backboard. Sene learned a lot playing without his frontcourt partner last year, but the entire team is glad to have Scott back where he belongs.

“To expect Assane to be this throw-it-in-the-post, Hakeem Olajuwan dominant low-post scorer, that’s not his game,” said head coach Tony Bennett. “He starts from his strengths, which to me is his activity and his willingness to do whatever needs to be done; whether it’s to screen, get on the offensive glass or finishing plays when he has the opportunity. Helping his teammates defensively, that’s where he starts.”

It’s a nice resume, but it makes NBA dreams sound like a long shot. Fall thinks that’s O.K. “Not many people can make it to the NBA. That can’t be the end-all-be-all,” he said, his voice crackling across the ocean. “Some of them [SEEDS graduates] are lucky enough to go and play in Europe while they’re still young and have the experience of a different culture. But they have a college degree, a sense of community and a desire to serve. They are all great people in the communities where they are, and they are all very connected to the original community in Senegal.”

That desire to make connections, to bring his knowledge and experiences back to the people of Senegal, is part of what drives Sene in his sojourn at the University of Virginia. He has enjoyed serving as a de facto ambassador for his country in America, and he’ll take a part of Charlottesville back to Senegal with him some day, when basketball is done and he returns to share his experiences with African kids who might find that school and basketball are a nice mix after all. Before that happens, he says he’d like to play basketball professionally, overseas if not in the U.S., and that he wouldn’t mind coaching in the future. He is also champing at the bit to follow in Fall’s footsteps, spreading the gospel of basketball and education in his native country.

Whatever he does, Assane Sene won’t take the lazy route. His future will be governed by what sounds like a perfect rebounder’s credo:

“The reason why I’m always thankful about what I have is because there are a lot of people who don’t have this opportunity. I’m taking this opportunity with both hands. Not with only one hand. With both my hands.”

The story of Matt Nelson’s incredible comeback begins with him going head-to-head with his twin brother Nick. He hopes it ends with the two of them standing back-to-back on the winners’ podium this spring as NCAA champions.

Nelson, originally from Pittsburgh, was a dominant high school wrestler. He was 22-1 in his junior season at Shaler High, cruising into the state tournament, when a seemingly minor training accident nearly put him out of the game for good.

UVA wrestler Matt Nelson came back from a traumatic brain injury and nearly a four-year layoff to compete this season. Virginia Sports Media photo.

“I was in practice with my twin brother, and we hit heads,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone that belied the impact the event has had on his life. “I knew I was out of it, but I just had to win a state title, so I kept going, kept wrestling. Pretty soon coach realized I wasn’t acting right, wasn’t moving right, so he sent me down to the trainer.”

It was February 2007 and Nelson’s doctor diagnosed him with a concussion. “He sat me down like a little kid and said ‘Look, man, you’re not wrestling, it could hurt you for the rest of your life,’” the 23-year-old recalled.

Not only was his dream of a state title crushed by the news, but Nelson’s symptoms soon got worse. During his senior year at Shaler, he battled blinding headaches for 100 days straight, so his doctor put him on powerful medication. Incoming UVA coach Steve Garland honored his promise to bring both Nelson twins to Charlottesville to wrestle, but the prospects of Matt returning to competition hovered between slim and none.

“Coming into my first year here, I felt pretty good, I thought I might be able to get back to wrestling, but my doctor told me ‘You know, schoolwork means you’re going to have to use your brain, it’s going to be tougher than you think,’” Nelson said. “I’m a wrestler; when things don’t go your way, you just work harder. I kept working out on my own, but I was struggling [in class]. Turns out [staying active] was the worst thing I could have done.”

He studied harder than he ever had in his life, but the information kept getting lost in the miasma of post-concussion symptoms, as well as the medication he took to hold those symptoms at bay. Eventually, Nelson was forced to withdraw from the University and return home to focus on his recovery at a brain rehabilitation center. He admits that his self-pity was at an all-time high, until he got to know some of his fellow sufferers.

“There were people who got run over, hit by telephone poles, people in comas…” he said. “I’ll never forget the day I came in mad at the world and there was a lady there in a walker, and the therapist showed her a picture and asked her who it was. It was her own 4-year-old daughter, but she had no idea who it was. That was a real punch in the gut.”

Armed with the knowledge that his was not yet the saddest story on earth, Nelson used his own goal of wrestling again, and earning that all-elusive title, to motivate his recovery. “Your brain is a city, and the concussion was a tornado,” Nelson said. “So my doctors had to rebuild all of the roads and get them to connect again.” He took a handful of community college hours to keep his academics on track, but the time off took a toll on his body. The elite 5’6" athlete had ballooned to 175 pounds—40 more than his ideal wrestling weight of 132.

“The precursor is that me and my brother were born two months premature. I was two pounds, he was three pounds. My skin had to be painted on, I needed blood, I had a rare lung disease.” The weight gain might have been miraculous in itself if it hadn’t been for the fact that Nelson still harbored one dream—to wrestle for a title.

As his rehabilitation progressed, Nelson came back to UVA and spent nearly every waking hour studying in an attempt to catch up. His medication helped him focus, and he ended up nailing down a 3.7 grade point average in his first year back. He reconnected with his sport as a volunteer assistant wrestling coach at Albemarle High School. In 2009, he was healthy enough to come off his medication. He was cleared to practice with his brother and teammates at UVA facilities in Onesty Hall. He had a job at Arch’s frozen yogurt. He was happy for the first time in years.

By now, you know where this is going. Not good enough. Not for Matt Nelson.

“I told them I was going to wrestle at 133 the next season and they looked at me like I was nuts. I was last in everything, my arms were Jell-O,” he said. “The common theme in my story is don’t tell me I can’t do something.”

Nelson points out that the warrior mentality is a shared attribute on UVA’s team. “You have Matt Snyder who doesn’t have a spleen, who beat cancer,” he said. “Shawn Harris, for a year, was paralyzed in his right arm. My brother came back early from a dislocated elbow. Jedd Moore was out for three years with a broken foot. Those are my mentors.”

Burning outsider doubt as fuel, he lost the weight and was reinstated to the UVA team—currently ranked 21st in the nation by USA Today—in his fifth year of eligibility. On November 5, in his first time back on the mat in organized competition, Nelson pinned both opponents he faced. He won five matches the following weekend at N.C. State. He points to November 27, when the Cavaliers take on No. 15 Virginia Tech at John Paul Jones Arena, as a big day on his comeback trail, but acknowledges that he won’t be content until he’s standing with his brother on that long-imagined podium at the 2012 NCAA championships in St. Louis, Missouri.

“I’m not trying to be the best on November 12,” he stated, emphatically. “I’m trying to be the best on March 15 in St. Louis.”
 

As a surprisingly warm November afternoon gradually gives way to chilly dusk, Morgan Brian stands at midfield on the practice pitch near Klockner Stadium. The UVA women’s soccer team—ranked No. 4 in the nation as of November 9—is running through a full practice, its last before it hosted Long Island University in an opening-round NCAA tournament game.

ACC Freshman of the Year Morgan Brian drives traffic for the Lady Cavs from the center of midfield. Brian scored her ninth goal in the team’s opening round NCAA Tournament victory against Long Island University.

Even when Brian’s body is idle, her eyes never rest—she watches her teammates and watches the ball. It is fitting that she does this; the starting midfielder for the Cavaliers is literally at the center of every game she plays, responsible for distributing the ball, controlling the tempo of the game and, sometimes, for putting the ball in the net herself. It’s a tough job for anyone to handle, but this young woman, who has yet to take her first collegiate final exam, has done it well enough to be named the Freshman of the Year in the Atlantic Coast Conference, a league that currently places six teams in the national Top 25.

Brian is the central point upon which UVA’s vaunted attack pivots, but to be honest, she doesn’t look the part. As she waits in line for her turn at a drill, she looks like the teenager she is, all knees and elbows.

“You look at her, and you’re like… can this kid stand up to it?” said Head Coach Steve Swanson, raising a mock-skeptical eyebrow. “She’s kind of skinny, lanky, tall; but once she gets on a soccer field, the impact that she makes for our team is extraordinary. You look at the four qualities of a soccer player: the technical, the tactical, the physical and the mental and she’s up there on every one, which is rare to see in such a young player.”

Swanson’s point is proven when the team splits up for a full-field scrimmage. Where Brian’s eyes go, her brain follows, and when she sees a play developing, she is off like a gazelle, those elbows and knees flashing in perfect rhythm as she anticipates where the ball will arrive. She is Virginia’s second-leading goal scorer, with nine goals, including three game winners, but she does her damage as often as not with a crisp pass to a teammate.

Brian, a slender 5’7", may not be physically imposing, but her resume speaks for itself. She is a veteran of the U.S. Under 20 national team, where she proved her mettle against European players that often stood 6’2" and outweighed her by 10 pounds. Swanson compares her to a basketball point guard with the full skill package. “Does that player have a short-range jumper, a mid-range jumper, can she hit the three-point shot? If you can’t hit the three-point shot, you shouldn’t be taking it. She can hit it with both feet, which is rare, so you want her pulling the trigger,” he said.

Once she has an opponent fearing her feet, the passing lanes open up. Defending teams have to pick their poison. Against Long Island, she scored the team’s second goal from a cross.

Brian grew up on St. Simon’s Island, a resort community off the southeastern coast of Georgia with around 14,000 year-round residents. As a senior at Frederica Academy, she scored an astonishing 71 goals and assisted on 30 more in a 20-game season, a performance that earned her the Gatorade Female Player of the Year award. She traveled to Los Angeles to accept the trophy at ESPN’s televised ESPY awards. She also played for the Ponte Vedra Soccer club in northern Florida, appeared in the FIFA youth soccer World Cup, and maintained a 3.81 high school grade point average.

If her accolades ended there, they’d be impressive, but Brian also lives up to Frederica Academy’s adopted motto “To whom much is given, much is expected.” She joined U-17 teammate Bryane Heaberlin in founding the Many Hearts One Goal foundation to aid former international opponents on the Haitian U-17 team in the wake of the earthquake that devastated the island community. She has also been an active volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, Relay for Life, and is a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Morgan Brian is everything a top college coach like Steve Swanson could ask for, but he almost didn’t get her. She initially chose to stay near home and attend the University of Georgia. A few months after she committed, the head coach of the Bulldogs resigned. To Swanson’s delight, Brian picked up the phone and called him, and she’s been a ’Hoo ever since.

Brian says she’s glad about where she ended up. “This program has a history of playing really good soccer. That attracts me the most, the good soccer, but it’s a great education, too.”

The ’Hoos enter the NCAA tournament as a No. 2 seed, which means they start with home field advantage. Should they win their region, the semifinals and final will be played in Kennesaw, Georgia. “Yeah, back at home,” Morgan said. “It’s very motivating.”

Tournament foes may take that as a warning. Morgan Brian is watching. Where her eyes go, her brain goes, and her body follows at warp speed. You’re standing between her and three things she wants: the back of the net, her home, and a national championship.

 

UVA and Va. Tech women’s rugby teams battled for the inaugural Commonwealth Shield this weekend. Photographs by Dr. Ernest Marshall

Virginia Tech women’s rugby coach Heather Booher looks to her left with a wistful smile on her face, “This is the first one,” she says. “Hopefully we’ll own it next year.”

She’s watching four women – two in the orange and blue of UVA, and two in the grey and maroon of her visiting Tech team – pose with the Commonwealth Shield trophy. It’s a beautiful wooden shield studded with 26 smaller, silver shields that wink in the November sunlight. Thanks to a dominating 51-0 win, Virginia’s women will have their names on the trophy first and they’ll own it until Booher’s women take it away.

“People like to say that soccer is a gentlemen’s sport played by barbarians,” says Virginia Women’s Rugby head coach Nancy Kechner. “We like to say that rugby is a barbarian’s sport played by gentlemen, or, in our case, gentle women. These girls will all go have a social together after the match.”

It is rather astonishing to see this level of casual bonhomie in the wake of an 80-minute grudge match between the state’s arch-rival schools. The short, hard words used to describe the sport adorn a t-shirt favored by the Tech team: Scrum, Ruck, Maul, Repeat. Rugby’s pack formations often baffle those new to the sport, as burly forwards link arms and go head-to-head in a battle for possession of the ball. The rules governing the sport can seem impenetrable to a novice viewer, but Booher assures me that it all falls into place quickly.

“Most of my players had never even heard of rugby before they got to college,” says Booher. “We teach them everything they need to know.”

Captains of the UVA and Va. Tech women’s rugby teams pose with the Commonwealth Shield trophy. Dr. Ernest Marshall photo

Spend one afternoon in UVA’s Madbowl, and you’ll get the basics. It’s a marvelous place to watch a rivalry match, with fans and reserve players lining the slopes that surround the field of play. When the teams huddle up for pre- and post-match chants, their voices echo off of the Jeffersonian brick buildings that rise above the grassy pitch. The field itself is well below the surrounding street level, creating a crucible of sorts for the athletic endeavors that take place.

Rugby’s rhythms are often baffling to fans of American football, in part because they are often so similar. Just when you think you know what’s going on, the game throws a curve. For instance, a scoring run is called a “try”, and it’s worth five points. On the gridiron, it’s enough for a millimeter of pigskin to cross the plane of the goal line, but in rugby, the ball must literally be placed on the ground before it is officially scored, making a “try” more like an actual “touchdown”. Conversion kicks after a try are worth two points, and three-point attempts can be made on drop-kicks in the flow of play or on penalty kicks. There’s no such thing as a specialized kicker who warms up on the sideline – conversions, penalties and drop goals are attempted by players whose uniforms get dirty just like the rest.

Confused yet? Don’t be. Just enjoy the action. The graceful part of the game is completely intuitive. There is no forward pass in rugby, so there’s plenty of broken-field running and lateral passing. Scoring runs often resemble the glorious helter-skelter of a gridiron kick return, and there are spin moves, stiff-arms and tackles galore, with one important difference.

“Rugby is a contact sport,” says UVA’s Kechner. “Whereas football is a collision sport.” Rugby tacklers – mostly unprotected in shirts and shorts – must at least attempt to wrap their arms around an opponent during a tackle, or be called for a penalty. It’s hardly gentle, then again, nor is it quite so bone-breakingly violent as the American game. “As soon as you give someone pads or a helmet, you’ll find a coach who will teach you how to use them as a weapon,” says UVA men’s rugby coach Ernie Marshall.

When a rugby player is subbed out of the game, there’s no coming back, so the women who play for Kechner and Booher know the difference between pain and injury. An incidental elbow to the face, a hard tackle, fingers stomped in a ruck: play goes on, and the women unfailingly climb to their feet and get back in the game rather than take a seat.

To be fair, it’s probably much easier to get back up when you’re playing as well as Virginia’s women have in the inaugural Commonwealth Shield match. The women in blue and orange score their first try after 25 minutes of play, but then the floodgates open. Nine tries are scored by four UVA players, led by Kiley Naylor’s* four successful scoring runs. Brianna Kim kicked three successful conversions to make the final score 51-0, and had to laugh when one attempt clanged off the crossbar. “We always feel like those should at least count for one,” jokes men’s coach Ernie Marshall.

The winning UVA Women’s Rugby team poses with the Commonwealth Shield. Dr. Ernest Marshall photo.

Rugby’s world cup is second only to soccer’s similarly-named event in worldwide popularity, but it struggles to gain a toehold in the cluttered sporting landscape of the United States nonetheless. Supporters of the sport, which began in England the early 1800s, hope that the debut of Rugby 7s (a faster, shorter version of the game played with seven players on a side instead of the full game’s 15) as an Olympic sport for the 2016 games in Brazil will bring some American eyeballs to the game. But local coaches like Booher and Kechner know that the real hook comes from getting kids involved in the action.

“A St. Anne’s Bellfield student has actually contacted me, and (she) practices with us,” says Kechner. “So we think we might be able to go through STAB and hopefully get larger from there.”

Rugby is a club sport – not part of the official athletic department at UVA – so the volunteer coaches, players and supporters are not bouyed by bursting recruiting budgets and first-class facilities, but rather by determination and love of the game.

Well, that, and glory. Even a first year with no concept of what rugby is or how it is played knows that it’s a big deal to beat Virginia Tech. Tapping into that rivalry through the battle for the Commonwealth Shield – the men will play for their version of the trophy in spring – may be perfect way to make rugby personal for local fans and potential players.

Because the ladies in maroon and grey have a year to wash the taste of 51-0 out of their mouths. You can bet they’ll put in the hours of practice over the next 365 days, preparing for the all-important rematch. The Virginia women must bring the trophy with them to Blacksburg next year, and it’ll take everything they’ve got to make sure it comes back home.

*A previous version of this story said "Kylie Nelson’s four successful scoring runs."