Danny Glading sat and watched the Syracuse players rush onto the field. A double-overtime goal from Mike Leveille had just sent SU to the national championship game and sent Glading’s Virginia team home. The Orange met in the center of Gillette Stadium in a bouncing sea of orange and white.

Glading and his teammates would be on the next bus back to Charlottesville, left to ponder what could have been.

In the midst of the disappointment, Glading, a then-junior attack, was struck with empathy after seeing senior standouts Ben Rubeor and Will Barrow end their college careers in gut-wrenching defeat to their longtime rivals.

‘The first feeling I had was sadness for the seniors,’ Glading said. ‘They were such a great group of guys and such great friends to all of us that it was sad that it was their last game, last moments as Virginia lacrosse players.’

But it was something else Glading saw that provided respite from the somber atmosphere surrounding the team that day – a pack of young players, freshman mostly, that made up one of the most highly touted Virginia classes in recent decades. This could be the team’s ticket back to the final four in 2009.

Returning sophomores Rhamel and Shamel Bratton, alongside goalie Adam Ghitelman, look to lead the now No. 1 Cavaliers to a fifth national title on the strength of a newfound maturity and focus preached by head coach Dom Starsia after a season where they were ‘almost there.’

‘One of the reasons we’re No. 1 is that we were the youngest of the four teams in (the final four) last year,’ Starsia said. ‘So it’s not surprising that we’re the pick, we have a lot of guys back from a year ago. We’re just a more mature team than we were a year ago.’

Maturity though, was something Starsia scrambled to find last season. It was one of the reasons for the team’s abrupt exit. And it was one of the reasons he referred to his players as ‘his children’ or ‘his pups.’

‘It’s like talking to your children talking to these guys,’ Starsia said. ‘They look at you, and they don’t really believe you until they experience it for themselves, and we were close (last year), but we could have been better if we worked a little better, worked a little harder.’

***

Having confidence is part of the maturation process, too.

Ghitelman, a sophomore goalie, remembers the bitter sting of immaturity and how it affected his freshman season.

For the first nine games of 2008, Ghitelman played well. The undefeated Cavaliers held two of its first nine opponents to under five goals. But as the winning streak waned, the goalie became overwhelmed.

‘I guess you could say it was a mental thing,’ Ghitelman said.

More bad shots crept between the posts as Virginia’s margin of victory was growing smaller and smaller until the team’s game with then-No. 4 Maryland on March 29.

It was Virginia’s first and only game in the No. 1 ranking that year and it ended in a six-point blowout loss to the Terrapins, a loss after which coach Starsia saw telltale signs of weakness in his goalie.

‘I was sitting in the locker room after the game, and he was one of the last ones out of the locker room when I was still sitting there, and he just looked so down,’ Starsia said. ‘He just felt like he was a freshman that had the weight of the world on his shoulders and he was just taking a beating.’

Starsia benched Ghitelman for the rest of the season in favor of senior Bud Petit. All the while, Starsia worried about the broken confidence and stunted maturity of his freshman standout.

But the goalie didn’t fold. Instead of breaking down, he responded to the pressure and took Starsia’s message, investing it into rebuilding himself in the offseason.

As the starting goalie of the United States’ under-19 lacrosse team, Ghitelman lead the squad to its fifth-ever gold medal in July while garnering the award for best goalkeeper in the tournament.

‘It was unbelievable, I’ll tell you,’ Ghitelman said. ‘It was very special, and I’ll tell you it helps a lot being back here (at Virginia) with that gold medal under my belt.’

Ghitelman is ready for 2009, Starsia said. He just has to show the rest of collegiate lacrosse.

‘I think Adam is going to have a good year,’ Starsia said. ‘He’s got the confidence of his staff and his teammates, but he’s got to show the world now.’

***

Dealing with expectations is part of growing as a player, and coming into last year, nobody had higher expectations than the Bratton twins.

Rhamel and Shamel, a pair of sophomore midfielders from Huntington Station, N.Y., became the face of lacrosse before they even got to college. With speed, agility and killer instincts, the freshman duo had the eyes of the lacrosse nation upon them.

‘I get more crap out of all the attention that we get than enjoyment,’ Rhamel Bratton said. ‘My friends are always busting me about it – I think it’s funny.’

But they deserved the attention. In one three-game stretch at the beginning of the season, each of the Brattons scored a goal in those consecutive contests, cementing themselves as a target for other teams.

‘They were two of the leading freshman midfield scorers in the country last year,’ Starsia said. ‘And when I’m talking about the development of that freshman class, I’m often times referring to Rhamel and Shamel.’

The duo though, was still young, still inconsistent. Despite the numbers, they lacked focus. It wasn’t all there, Starsia said. The emphasis in training and in the weight room hadn’t come full circle just yet.

Rhamel remained a substitute coming off the bench while Shamel bounced in and out of the starting lineup for the rest of the season. Shamel finished fifth on the team in scoring, and Rhamel finished sixth. Together they totaled 24 goals and 10 assists. It was good, but it could have been better.

During the offseason, Rhamel had a stick in his hand whenever he got the chance. Shamel remained in Charlottesville to hit the gym, gaining 20 pounds of muscle. They understood their coach’s message of growth.

‘We really matured a great amount compared to last season,’ Rhamel said. We just got into better lacrosse shape, it’s really important – we should be doing fine.

Starsia agrees.

‘All last season we were telling them what they need to do, what they need to work on,’ Starsia said. ‘I’d say ‘you need to get faster, stronger’ and they were looking at me like ‘come on coach, I’ve always been the best guy on the field.’ But this season they’ve really bought into things, their effort, in and out of the weight room, 100 percent better.’

***

Starsia has grown up a lot, too. He knew he couldn’t beat himself up for the loss to Syracuse. He didn’t even watch tape until months later when a friend invited him up to his reservation in upstate New York and forced him to watch the replay.

Instead, it’s about oversight. Managing his children, his pups, and grooming them into the team that could be his fourth national title team in 18 seasons.

Now, his players believe him, they hang on his words because they know what it’s like to lose the way they did.

‘A lot of times the kids don’t really believe me until they live through it,’ Starsia said. ‘To get as close as we did a year a go, and to hit the post a couple times in the national semifinals and not have a chance to play for the national championship. It just helps the guys know that the margin between winning and losing is so slight.’

And now that they’ve grown up, there’s no time to waste, no more obstacles in their way.

‘I think we wasted a lot of time last year, but now we have that little bit of edge as we go forward. I’ve noticed we have that sharper focus,’ Starsia said. ‘There’s a little greater appreciation for the daily effort, and you only get that from living through it.’

ctorr@syr.edu

Published on February 11, 2009 at 12:00 pm