Attackman

PHILADELPHIA -- Syracuse attackman Joe Yevoli comes into his last NCAA tournament final four experience with mixed emotions. When Yevoli lines up to face top-seeded, undefeated Virginia today at Lincoln Financial Field, the graduate student will be trying to beat the team with which he won a national title in 2003, and Yevoli will be thrilled to have his father, Joseph, in attendance. Yevoli's father was found to have cancer in November. Doctors removed a tumor from his leg, then found the disease had spread to his lungs and liver.

Duke's NCAA Division I men's lacrosse quarterfinal game was less than a quarter old, and Blue Devils attackman Matt Danowski was already making a statement. Twice he had blown by Cornell defenseman Kyle Georgalas for goals. Early in the second quarter, he leaped through two defenders, then faked out goalkeeper Matt McMonagle for another goal. By the end of the game, Danowski had scored five goals in Duke's 11-8 win. Georgalas offered no excuses. He got torched. The week before, Danowski scored five goals in a 23-4 tournament-opening victory over Fairfield.

Washington College got what it wanted, avenging a two-game sweep last season by thumping host Goucher, 16-8, last Saturday. In the process, the Shoremen may have gotten something that could pay dividends in the future. Nine different players scored goals in the victory, and while senior attackman Bennett Cord - last season's leading scorer - registered two goals and one assist, Washington's offense was much more diversified than just one player. Among the highlights, junior midfielder Hunter Nowicki paced the team with three goals and one assist, sophomore midfielder Grant Hughes scored three times, and senior attackman Matt Lewis posted one goal and two assists.

Matt Rewkowski, an All-Atlantic Coast Conference attackman who led Duke in goals and points this spring, plans to transfer to Johns Hopkins and play lacrosse for the Blue Jays next season. A 6-foot, 190-pound sophomore from Bethpage, N.Y., who compiled 36 goals and 11 assists this year, Rewkowski will have two seasons of eligibility remaining. He leaves a program that did not make the NCAA tournament for one that returns seven starters from the team that reached the championship game last month.

Keeping Virginia's Steele Stanwick off the scoreboard is a task easier said than done, but on Saturday, that job is likely to fall into the hands of Johns Hopkins' Tucker Durkin. The junior defenseman for the No. 2 Blue Jays has shadowed some of the game's top players, but acknowledged that the 2011 Tewaaraton Award winner and senior attackman for the No. 1 Cavaliers requires a different approach. “Obviously, he's one of the best players in the country,” Durkin said Wednesday.

On the lacrosse field, Travis Reed is a 5-foot-9, 195-pound whirlwind around the cage, constantly searching for a shooting lane while trying to elude defenders with an array of moves and feints. Off the field, the Maryland freshman attackman's energy level isn't quite so high. "I think he sleeps more than any human being I've ever met," said fellow freshman attackman Ryan Young. "He sleeps all day. He's a caveman." Reed didn't dispute his friend's assertion. "I like to sleep," Reed said.

With the departure of last year's entire starting attack, Hood senior Joey O'Hara has a prime opportunity to insert himself as a starter. And he's trying to do it on one leg. O'Hara tore the anterior cruciate ligament in one knee last summer, and it's the same ligament that he strained as a sophomore. He returned last March and finished the season tied for third on the team in goals with 11. Coach Jeremy Mattoon said he would love to slow O'Hara's return and ease him back onto the field, but this is the last year of O'Hara's eligibility.

Alone at a dead-end street in Timonium, 4-year-old Greg Patchak picked up his two-wheel bike for the first time while his father went inside to take an hourlong phone call.On one try, Patchak lost his balance and scuffed up his elbows. The next attempt, he toppled over again and grazed his knees.Another try another fall. And when his father returned, he cringed at the bloody arms and legs before staring in amazement as his son successfully rode the bike all by himself."I remember he still had a big smile," Patchak's father, Richard, said.

Cornell's Rob Pannell was the 2011 National Player of the Year, scoring more than five points per game. This season was supposed to be his coronation as he led Cornell to its first NCAA title since 1977. But a broken foot suffered March 3 has put the attackman's season on hold and his future in question. "You ask yourself, 'Why me?' You put in hard work for three years - it was supposed to be my time to share with teammates and classmates," he told me Tuesday. Coming into this season, Pannell and Virginia attackman Steele Stanwick (Loyola)

Loyola sophomore lacrosse player Alex Roesner has committed to the admissions process at Penn, continuing a growing trend of commitments by underclassmen. The 5-foot-11, 165-pound attackman played varsity as a freshman for the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association runner-up. He is a member of Looney's Lacrosse Club and a two-time Most Valuable Player of the championship game in the Dick's Tournament of Champions. Roesner strongly also considered Michigan, Ohio State, Princeton, Villanova and Fairfield.