Specialist

Salisbury coach Jim Berkman is fond of saying that it's fitting for the only two undefeated teams in Division III - the Sea Gulls (22-0) and SUNY-Cortland (21-0) - to meet in Sunday's NCAA tournament final at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. Tyler Granelli has an entirely different motive. The junior faceoff specialist was cut by the Red Dragons in the fall of 2010 after compiling six points and 11 groundballs in 14 games as a freshman in 2009. Granelli elected to transfer to Salisbury and after sitting out 2010 to rehabilitate a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee, he has won 66.0 percent (446-of-676)

The most prominent storyline of Wednesday night's NCAA tournament quarterfinal between visiting Cabrini and No. 1 seed Salisbury involves the Cavaliers' top-ranked defense against the Sea Gulls' top-ranked offense. Another thread figures to be the battle on faceoffs between Cabrini freshman Anthony DiNenno and Salisbury junior Tyler Granelli. DiNenno ranks first in Division I with a 69.6 percentage (211-of-303). Granelli isn't far behind, ranking third with a 68.4 percentage (210-of-307)

The way Loyola coach Charley Toomey explains it, J.P. Dalton wasn't supposed to be the team's primary faceoff specialist. “We didn't expect that he would be the guy this year,” Toomey said Thursday of the senior who has won 54.2 percent (180-of-332) of his draws this season. “We had a young man here who we had every intention of probably taking every faceoff, but he's not in the locker room at the moment. J.P. was forced into this role and has just never given it up to anybody else in our locker room.

For the second time in the last three contests, Maryland gave freshman Charlie Raffa more faceoffs than junior Curtis Holmes. In the team's 12-8 victory over Mount St. Mary's on April 25, Raffa took 10 faceoffs, winning six. Holmes won 4-of-10. The disparity was much wider in the Terps' 13-11 loss to Colgate last Saturday when Raffa went 12-of-24 and Holmes was 0-of-3. As the team prepares to meet No. 7 seed Lehigh and junior Ryan Snyder (132-of-259 for 51.0 percent) in Sunday night's first-round NCAA tournament game, Maryland coach John Tillman confirmed that he intended to go with the player having the most success on faceoffs.

The Ravens won't know the extent of Terrell Suggs' Achilles tendon injury until Tuesday, but they are prepared to be without their top pass rusher and the reigning NFL's Defensive Player of the Year for a good part - if not all - of the 2012 season. Suggs tore his Achilles last Saturday during a workout in Arizona. He'll see noted foot specialist Dr. Robert Anderson on Tuesday in North Carolina to find out the severity of the tear and to have it surgically repaired. “I've already been to see two different doctors.

Harriett Ann Colder, a reading specialist who established a remedial education company that helped students with English, math and reading, died Tuesdayof multiple organ failure at Howard County General Hospital. The longtime Ellicott City resident was 74. The former Harriett Ann Orth, who went by Ann, was born in Baltimore and raised in Towson. After graduating from Towson High School in 1955, she earned her bachelor's degree from what is now Towson University in 1959. In the early 1960s, she earned a master's degree in remedial reading and diagnosis of learning disabilities from Loyola College of Maryland.

With the draft starting tomorrow night, today will be the final day of The Sun's position-by-look at the Ravens. Today, we'll examine the specialists: Current specialists under contract : Kicker: Billy Cundiff; Punter: Sam Koch; Long snapper: Morgan Cox; Returners: Lardarius Webb, David Reed, Philip Livas.   Chances that the Ravens draft a specialist in first three rounds : As much of a priority as the Ravens have made upgrading their special teams, which struggled last season, they are not going to be spend an early pick in the draft on it exclusively.

It was hardly a secret that the Ravens were interested in acquiring a return specialist this offseason. After all, they had Ted Ginn Jr. in for a visit before he re-signed with the San Francisco 49ers and they were reportedly linked to receiver and returner Eddie Royal, who eventually joined the San Diego Chargers. But at Wednesday's news conference at the Castle in Owings Mills, head coach John Harbaugh again confirmed that the Ravens feel a dangerous returner is something they wanted to -- and still can -- add. “We're looking,” he said.

During ESPN's telecast of Maryland's eventual 12-8 loss to Virginia last Saturday, analysts Matt Ward and Ryan Boyle mentioned Curtis Holmes' battle with minor injuries. On Tuesday, Terps coach John Tillman confirmed that those unspecified ailments have affected the junior faceoff specialist's play this season. “In our opinion, it seems like it comes back to that,” Tillman said. “We've studied film from last year and this year, and we keep coming back to, 'We're probably getting everybody's best efforts,' whereas last year, Curtis was kind of the unknown.

Entering this season, the duty of taking the lion's share of faceoffs for Towson was expected to go to junior Matt Thomas. That role has now shifted to redshirt junior Ian Mills. In three of the team's last four contests, Mills has won at least 11 draws, including a career-best 17 against both Stony Brook and Delaware. He won 11-of-19 faceoffs in Saturday night's 10-9 double-overtime win against Hofstra, including four straight that enabled the Tigers to score the final four goals of regulation and send the game into overtime.