U.Va. Notes: Baseball players off to summer leagues

Baseball players off to summer leagues

After returning from the College World Series last month, about 20 baseball players from U.Va. scattered to join summer-league teams.

Cavaliers coach Brian O'Connor said yesterday that eight or nine others stayed in Charlottesville.

"There's just some pitchers that threw a lot that we don't want throwing this summer, so they're just to lift here this summer and go to summer school," O'Connor said. "And there's a handful of position players that are rehabbing injuries or things like that."

Five of the recruits who signed with U.Va. start summer school there this week: shortstops Reed Gragnani (Mills Godwin High) and Stephen Bruno, catcher Ryan Levine and pitchers Branden Kline and Whit Mayberry.

In last month's Major League Baseball draft, the Red Sox selected Kline in the sixth round and Gragnani in the 27th. The Yankees picked Bruno in the 26th.

That those three players opted to take summer classes at Virginia bodes well for O'Connor's program, but each still could decide to turn pro. The deadline is Aug. 15.

"We'll just have to wait and see how it plays out," O'Connor said.

Football recruiting class for'10 is at nine

Virginia's football recruiting class for 2010 has added a ninth member: Chris Brathwaite, a 6-1, 253-pound rising senior at Holy Cross High in Flushing, N.Y.

Holy Cross is the school from which former U.Va. football star Kevin Ogletree and current U.Va. men's basketball standout Sylven Landesberg graduated.

"Virginia has a tremendous reputation," Holy Cross football coach Tom Pugh said. "Our kids know that. We're a prep school, and 96, 97 percent of our kids go to college every year."

Brathwaite has primarily played defensive tackle and defensive end for Holy Cross, but he's projected to line up at outside linebacker in U.Va.'s 3-4 scheme. He impressed Virginia's coaches with his play at that position during a recent camp in Charlottesville.

"I felt very comfortable about it," Brathwaite said. "I felt like I could contribute at the position."

Pugh said he'll use Brathwaite on the defensive line and at linebacker this season.

"He's a playmaker, and he's an extremely good athlete," Pugh said. "He dunks the basketball. . . . He runs real well. He runs 4.7 [seconds in the 40-yard dash], and that's legit."

U.Va. was the first Football Bowl Subdivision school to offer a scholarship to Brathwaite, who lives in Brooklyn and commutes to Queens each day during the school year.

"That's a big part of his discipline," Pugh said. "He's gotta get up at 5 o'clock every morning to get to school."

Two recruits shine in junior championship

The two recruits who played in the International Federation of American Football's first junior world championship -- offensive lineman Oday Aboushi and defensive back Corey Lillard -- were named to the all-tournament first team this week.

Aboushi and Lillard played for the United States, which crushed Canada 41-3 to win the gold medal Sunday in Canton, Ohio.

Eight teams competed in the tourney, which the Americans, as expected, dominated. The U.S. beat France 78-0 and Mexico 55-0.

U.S. tailback David Wilson, a Virginia Tech recruit, was named the tournament's MVP. The all-tournament first team included 14 players from the United States, five from Germany, three from Canada and two from Japan.

Pomper will return to lacrosse team

Men's lacrosse player Max Pomper, who graduated in May, has to decided to return in 2009-10. Pomper received a medical redshirt in 2006 because of an injury and thus has another season of eligibility remaining. He'll compete as a graduate student in 2010.

His decision means Virginia's top three defensive midfielders this season -- Pomper, Mike Thompson (Collegiate School) and Chris Clements -- are expected back in '10.

A year ago, the Cavaliers added a transfer from Dartmouth, Chad Gaudet, who competed as a graduate student this season and became the team's top faceoff specialist.

Another Ivy League player may be headed to Charlottesville. Todd Faiella, a 6-2, 210-pound long-stick midfielder from Brown, has applied to a graduate program at U.Va. If accepted, Faiella will join veteran coach Dom Starsia's lacrosse team.

Not until his sophomore year did Faiella play lacrosse at Brown, which, coincidentally, also is Starsia's alma mater. He played football on the Brown team that won the Ivy title in 2005. Graduate students are not allowed to compete for Ivy League teams.

-- Jeff White