I am embarassed to say that the ACC championship was my first soccer game in a year.  That is mostly due to most soccer games these days being at night.  Night games, with the poor lighting they bring, are typically not work going to.  But my old friend Greg Fiume, who is the Maryland Terrapins team photographer, hired me to photograph Maryland as they played for the ACC championship against Virginia.  So below and enjoy the goods.

Maryland soccer vs. Virginia photos

Wanted to give a shout out to the following ACC lacrosse players who were drafted last night in the Major League Lacrosse (MLL) draft.  They are, in order of draft:

Pick #  Team – Name, position, college

2. New Jersey - Matt Danowski [pictures], A, Duke

9. New Jersey - Joe Cinosky [pictures], D, Maryland

11. Chicago - Will Barrow [pictures], M, Virginia

12. New Jersey - Tony McDevitt [pictures], D, Duke

14. Long Island- Ben Rubeor [pictures], A, Virginia

22. Rochester - Nick O’Hara [pictures], D, Duke

27. Denver - Michael Ward [pictures], M, Duke

41. Chicago- Bud Petit [pictures], G, Virginia 

So that is eight ACC players placed in the 50 available draft spots. The #1 draft pick for Chicago went to the man, the legend, Paul Rabil [pictures] of Hopkins.

I updated my gallery of some of my favorite lacrosse photos.  This gallery is a work on progress and I’ve really neglected updating it.

I deleted a good number of the photos as well.  I was posting some photos because they contained some of the greats of lacrosse like Brodie Merrill, and less because the photos were good.  So I had a “Come to Jesus” meeting with myself, and hit the delete key a few times.  Here is my updated gallery of lacrosse favorites.

Booyah baby. The ACC put posted 3 of the top 5 preseason rankings for men’s lacrosse according to Inside Lacrosse Magazine.They are as follows:

• #1    Johns Hopkins
• #2    Duke
• #3    Virginia
• #4    Georgetown
• #5    North Carolina

Maryland wrapped up the list at #6.

Wanted to give my alma mater UNC some props for placing #1 in the inaugural ”Elite 50″ by STACK Magazine.  The magazine ranks athletic programs by looking at academia, performance and athletic opportunities.  Nearby Duke University also did well placing #5. Those in-the-know can probably guess the #2 team: Stanford. Hopefully this will not go the way of the Athletic Directors Cup where we win the first year and Stanford wins every year afterwards. The value in this #1 ranking is that the magazine is given out to high school students.   High school students who include in their ranks high caliber athletes that UNC and other schools want to recruit. In this business, good publicity goes a long way.Other ACC schools making the Elite 50 include UVA (11), Maryland (24), Clemson (30), Boston College (31) and Wake Forest (35).

East Chapel Hill midfielder Tony Mendes has become the first Under Armour All-American from the state of North Carolina. While North Carolina isn’t going to best New York or Maryland as the hot bed of future lacrosse talent any time soon, this a positive sign that the sport, and more importantly the talent, is growing in the state. Only 44 high school seniors are selected for the Under Armour All-American teams which are broken down into a “North” and “South” team. (those designations don’t mean anything in terms of where a player comes from). To be selected to play is an obvious honor. Tony will be playing at Maryland as he was looking for the chance to get out of the area.

Below is a youtube clip of highlights from his career at East Chapel Hill. The moves at the 1:49 remaining mark are just sick. [More on Tony from Inside Lacrosse]