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Grant family lawyer Burris under gag order; defense video expert to testify

The judge in the second-degree murder trial of Johannes Mehserle, the former BART Police officer who shot unarmed passenger Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009, ruled today that the testimony of a key defense expert witness would be allowed at trial.

Judge Robert Perry also ruled that Grant family attorney John Burris is subject to the gag order covering trial participants, even though he is unlikely to be called as a witness in the trial.

Perry also extended the gag order to include lawyers for BART who are representing the agency in the civil case against Grant’s family.

At today’s hearing, Michael Schott, an expert on forensic image analysis, gave testimony in order for the judge to decide on whether it would be allowed at trial.

Questioned by defense attorney Michael Rains about a video, widely shown in the media, which appears to show former BART Police Officer Tony Pirone punching Grant in the face minutes before the shooting, Schott said that the apparent punch was actually a light reflecting off Grant’s forehead.

He referred to what he said was video taken from a different angle at the same instant, which appears to show Pirone’s open hand near Grant’s head.

Schott also presented video frames which he said showed that Grant’s left shoulder was moving up from the platform at the time of the shot. The prosecution is expected to claim that Grant was lying flat on the platform at the time of the shooting.

Prosecutor David Stein argued that Schott’s testimony on the interpretation of the video was inadmissible at trial, saying that an expert witness should not be allowed to say “trust me” about the contents of a video that the jury could interpret for itself, especially since most people are exposed to video “everyday.”

The judge, however, disagreed. ”I found his testimony to be very helpful,” Perry said, adding that he believed some of Schott’s testimony could actually be helpful to the prosecution.

Schott’s testimony only shows “the police side” of the story, Grant family member Daryl Johnson told the Beat after the hearing. Schott is “working to protect” Mehserle, Johnson said, saying he was “disappointed that [Schott’s] opinion was admitted.”

Cephus Johnson, Grant’s uncle, said at a a press conference after the hearing that Rains is “causing all these distractions.” He said the key fact remained that Grant “was lying face down” when Mehserle drew his weapon and shot him.

Notably silent at the post-hearing press conference was Grant family attorney John Burris, who was placed under the gag order covering trial participants at the hearing.

Carl Douglas, the high-profile lawyer representing Burris at the hearing, argued that Burris is “simply a member of the public” with regards to this trial, and said a move to gag him would be “unusual.”

But Perry said that Burris is representing “so many” of the witnesses in the trial that he shouldn’t be allowed to make “public pronouncements” regarding it, even though he is unlikely to testify in the trial.

Perry also extended the gag order to the lawyers defending BART against the $50 million civil suit brought by Burris on behalf of the Grant family.

Jury selection begins tomorrow in Los Angeles, where the trial has been moved due to concerns regarding whether Mehserle could receive a fair trial in Alameda County.

Opening arguments in the case are expected on June 10.

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Column: The nightmare of pool ownership

So there I was, walking the mile-and-a-half up the hill in the 90 degree weather and 80 percent humidity for exercise. Why was I doing this? Was it because the intense sun and heat had finally fried my brain to a crisp and the prospect of an iced coffee from the convenience store at the top had become an achievable goal in my unbalanced mental state?

No. In fact, I was doing it because if I had stayed in the relative comfort and safety of home, I would have had to work on the pool.

Most people think that pools are great in the summer. Perfect for beating the heat and having fun at the same time. Those people have never owned one.

In reality a pool is an exception to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that the disorder of a system always increases. In my experience, a pool starts out a state of maximum disorder and gets worse as the summer goes on.

For example, as soon as my Dad and I took the cover off the pool we found a dead frog. A couple days later he pulled a drowned mouse out of there and the day after that I came across a waterlogged rabbit. Any day now I confidently expect to wake up and have to hire a tow truck because there’ll be a deer in there. A carefully tended pool can, in fact, wipe out an entire ecosystem over an average summer. A poorly tended pool will become filled with noxious algae and become a breeding ground for mosquitoes and take on an overwhelming resemblance to vomit.

Another problem with pools is that, as the owner, your friends expect you to invite them over to go swimming, avoiding the lines, urine and cost of public pools. However, after hours of backbreaking labor getting all the bugs and leaves out of the pool, removing dead bears and scrubbing away a bird poop stain from last year so that the pool and the area surrounding it are absolutely spotless . . . a friend will complain that “there’s too much chlorine.”

Then you will laugh and wonder how you could have chosen such a moron for a friend. Not only is the amount of chlorine in your pool far less than what it is in a public pool, but that chemical is the main line of defense between your health and the microbial life that loves water, sunlight and dead organic matter to feast on and become a dangerous infection.

Even worse they may stick all of one toe into the water and declare that it is “too cold,” ignoring the fact that not only is that the point, but that on an 80 degree day a pool temperature of 70 is going to be cool in comparison until your body has adjusted by doing things like swimming and actually being in the water.

Ultimately, when that happens the day will end on a sour note: after drowning them, your ex-friend’s body just will not burn properly in a common household mortuary incinerator.

Now, after spending the previous day on back-breaking manual labor to make your pool absolutely spotless and clean, you can relax and enjoy it that way for a few days, right? Nope, you haven’t been paying attention to the bit about thermodynamics.

See, the heart of the problem is that Satan is the patron god of pools. As soon as you turn your back algae spawned from the loins of the Evil One himself will start growing in the cracks and creases of the pool’s lining. This necessitates deploying the algaecide to kill it and also means you need to add more chlorine. All of that will kill the algae, but it will also mess up the pH balance of the pool, making the water more acidic and requiring the addition of a neutralizing agent to put it back into balance.

As if that wasn’t enough, once you’ve killed the algae it becomes an unpleasant slime clinging to the bottom of the pool and you need to vacuum, which is shorthand for “more back-breaking manual labor.”

That’s just the pool itself. On the mechanical end, there’s a pump and filter that circulates and “cleans” the water. Try as you might, patching it and taking good care of it and making sure very carefully that the system is airtight, you will never never never ever get it to stop leaking and loosing pressure. By the the fourth time it has started leaking after you’ve taken the entire system apart and put it back together—during which time the algae, leaves, bugs and all the neighborhood pets have made a concentrated, all out attack devoted to befouling the water—you’re so fed up with the thing you just put a towel under it, which promptly develops mold and crawls into a dark corner.

Those are just a few of the problems you can face as the owner of a pool. I’d write more, but I really should haul that moose out before it decomposes.

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In the future, hackers may target your car

The malicious car that murders its driver — a la Stephen King’s “Christine” — used to be mere urban legend. However, the high-tech automobiles of tomorrow could make the nightmare a modern-day reality.

Digitized vehicles — which include features like anti-lock brakes, automatic seatbelts and automatic door locks — are becoming increasingly popular. Because of this, a research group including U. California-San Diego computer-science graduate student Steve Checkoway is concerned that computer hackers may be able to gain remote access to such vehicles. The more wireless network technology advances, the more gateways for remote access will open for hackers to exploit.

“As cars become more connected to the outside world, the attack surface will increase,” Checkoway said.

To test the possibilities of remote manipulation, researchers developed CarShark — a software program that observes, takes apart and inserts code, into car computers. This way, they can test how easy it will be for unauthorized individuals or technology, to command a car’s functions.

“[CarShark] was written by us to interact with the various computers in the car,” Checkoway said. “It was developed incrementally, adding functionality as the need arose.”

To test CarShark, the researchers connected a digitized car to a laptop. Another laptop was used to wirelessly link and control the original laptop running CarShark — enabling the hacker to remotely access the vehicle’s many functions.

Initially, the researchers thought they would have to locate specific vulnerable points before hacking the car. However, they were able to adjust the car’s functions simply by inserting random codes into the car to see how it would affect the system. If the computer systems had been secure, the insertion of random codes would not have affected the car in any way. The results demonstrated that computerized cars are insecure — extremely easy to damage and attack.

The extent of potential manipulation ranged from mere annoyances — such as unlocking all doors or popping the trunk — to more immediate danger, like killing the engine.

According to Checkoway, executing this type of attack would requires a high level of computer proficiency in a field most hackers are still unaware of. Checkoway stressed that current vehicles currently on the market do not yet have the technological features to be at risk — the research was performed on future generations of automobiles, which will rely on digital technology as their main source of control.

“We don’t believe that car owners should be overly concerned at this time,” Checkoway said. “The benefits of having modern, computerized cars far outweigh the dangers posed by the attack. For example, anti-lock brakes, stability control, seatbelts that predict crashes and tighten preemptively and automatic notification of first responders in the event of a crash are just a few of the many benefits computerized cars offer.”

Checkoway said it’s unlikely an infallible defense against car hacking will be created as there are so many possible modes for attack. He said that cars are increasingly integrated with computers, new security holes are created.

However, he added that the research group has informed undisclosed automobile manufacturers about the vulnerabilities of computerized automobiles.

“Before going public with this information, we disclosed the vulnerabilities to all of the relevant stakeholders,” Checkoway said.“The response we received has been very positive.”

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Thuesen sentenced to death for murdering two students

John Thuesen was given the death penalty Friday after being on trial for the murder of Rachel and Travis Joiner. Jurors sat in court and answered “yes” to whether he will present a danger to society if allowed to live.

Thuesen, 26, walked into his girlfriend’s house March 6, 2009, in College Station, and shot and killed both siblings, who were attending Texas A&M U.

Thuesen was attending Blinn College at the time of the murders and, according to the police report, called authorities after shooting Rachel Joiner, 21, in the chest and hand, and her brother Travis Joiner, 23. KBTX reported that the source of Thuesen’s anger was a request from Rachel for space in their relationship.

He has been diagnosed with severe depression and a form of post-traumatic stress disorder, both in relation to his service in the Marine Corps and tours of duty in Iraq.

Neither condition was mitigating enough to waive the severity of the crime. The defense related disappointment with the verdict.Deliberation over Thuesen’s sentence drew out over two days, during nearly 10 combined hours of court time.

After the judge announced the sentence on the trial’s fifteenth day, Wayne Joiner, Rachel and Travis’ father, offered a few choice words.“I shook your hand on our front porch, and thanked you for your service to our country,” Joiner said. “You turned your back, walked away, drove to College Station, and less than 90 days later, my children are gone.”Shirley Joiner, the siblings’ mother, spoke to a local news station after the announcement.

“We just appreciate everything the DA’s office has done and that everything was done right so that this could move forward the way it did,” she said.

Assistant district attorneys Brian Baker and Jarvis Parsons expressed regret over the circumstances but confidence that the verdict was the right one.

“[The jury] did a terribly difficult thing, and they did an honorable thing, and the just thing.” Baker said. “We thank them for that time and that service.”

Thuesen has already been moved to Texas’ holding facility for death row inmates, but the date, time, details and finality of his execution are pending the appeal that is given to such cases by state law.

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Ohio State U. football player leads rugby club in preparation for nationals

Ohio State U. rugby will play in the U.S. collegiate rugby championships hosted at the Columbus Crew Stadium Friday through Sunday.

The first-ever USA Sevens Collegiate Championship Invitational will consist of 16 teams from across the country, including fellow Big Ten schools Michigan and Penn State.

“Nobody has played an event like this in this country at the collegiate level ever,” OSU rugby coach Tom Rooney said. “We know a lot about the athletes that are coming in, but we don’t know what kind of system they’re going to play. We don’t know what their style is going to look like, they don’t know what ours is going to look like, so this is interesting.”

Rooney is optimistic about how the Buckeyes will perform in the championships, but said the team is facing a few obstacles.

“The biggest thing that we’re struggling with currently is that we had a large graduation coming out of the fall, so we’ve got a lot of the younger players stepping up right now,” he said. “Unfortunately those players’ skills — their passing, catching, their recognizing the opposition’s weaknesses and attacking them — aren’t as highly progressed as we’d like them to be, and that’s holding us back a bit.”

Rooney said they’ve been working hard to build up those skills, but that they’re things that really take the whole season to “polish off.”

Rooney said another difficulty will be tackling because the team’s size is comparatively small this season. Their goal during play will be to stay out of contact with bigger opponents, though it will surely be forced upon them.

Beyond the team’s struggles, the rugby team has welcomed Nate Ebner, an OSU football defensive back, to play with them in the championships.

Though Ebner walked on as a football player in college, he grew up playing rugby and went as far as playing for the U.S. National U19 and U20 teams.

Rooney said that while Ebner will be a great asset to the team, everyone on the field will need to play hard to be successful.

“Nate’s going to be a big part of what we do, but he’s not going to be able to do it by himself,” Rooney said.

Ebner said that he is excited to be playing again and feels that his previous experience playing teams with high skill levels will help him do well in the competition since there won’t be anything on the field he “hasn’t physically seen before.”

Ebner, an athlete obviously talented in both football and rugby, said his struggle switching between the two sports is tackling: head-in-front in football versus head-behind in rugby.

He said he isn’t worried about his performance in the tournament despite the switch.

“I think we play a different style of sevens that these other teams aren’t going to play,” Ebner said. “They’re going to try and smash into us a little more since we’re a small team, but our style’s going to throw teams off and I think it’s going to work out.”

The tournament plans originally arose after it was announced that rugby sevens would be a new event in the 2016 Olympics.

Ebner, who made the decision to switch to football in order to focus on his education rather than constantly traveling for rugby, doesn’t have plans for after graduation but hasn’t ruled out getting involved with the new Olympic sport.

Ebner and Rooney hope the collegiate championships being held in Columbus will catch a lot of attention for the sport and have a positive impact on both OSU’s program and the sport as a whole, but are now focused solely on the games ahead of them.

“I think if the kids come in with the plan that we’ve given them and the mentality that we’re expecting them to come into the game with, we stand a good chance of making it into the final,” Rooney said. “I think that if they come in and they don’t play like we’re trying to prepare them, they’re going to struggle. Either way, it’s going to be a fantastic thing. This is an opportunity this country’s never seen before.”

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Maryland tops Northwestern 13-11 in women’s lacrosse championship game

After a half decade at the pinnacle of women’s collegiate lacrosse, Northwestern’s dynasty has come to a halt.

It was a battle for the ages and a game that lacrosse fans have been looking forward to for the last few years: NU, the sport’s latest dynasty, against U. Maryland, the sport’s most historic program.

In the end, tradition triumphed in a battle between lacrosse’s titans Sunday, and top-seeded Maryland earned its 10th national championship and broke NU’s streak of five straight titles, knocking off the Cats, 13-11.

“(Kelly Amonte Hiller) built (NU) from the ground up, they’ve had so many outstanding seasons, they’ve been so fun to watch,” Maryland coach Cathy Reese said. “We knew that and were prepared for that coming in. But winning five national championships in this day is extremely impressive.”

Equally as impressive was the Cats’ streak of 23 straight postseason victories, the longest in NCAA history, which was also snapped.

Fans from across the state of Maryland came to root for the home-state Terrapins, while there was plenty of purple in the stands, as 9,782 fans packed Johnny Unitas Stadium to watch the back-and-forth affair. It was the largest crowd ever to watch a U.S. women’s lacrosse game.

Early on, it looked like the nation’s best offense, belonging to NU (20-2), would best the nation’s top defense, Maryland (22-1). The Cats raced out to an early 6-0 lead, and Terrapins fans feared that it would be a repeat of last season’s title game shellacking, a 21-7 NU win over North Carolina.

Sophomore attacker Shannon Smith and freshman midfielder Erin Fitzgerald took advantage of several holes in the Terrapins’ vaunted defense, each tallying two goals in the first 10 minutes. Senior Danielle Spencer and junior Brooke Matthews also notched scores after winding their way into the eight-meter arc. In nine and a half minutes, NU tallied one fewer goal than the Terrapins’ defense had allowed per game.

“It felt like every shot they were taking was going in,” Reese said. “We needed to make a change defensively to allow (goalie Brittany Dipper) to save the shots she’s good at saving.”

After the Cats raced out of the gate, Maryland (22-1) shut down NU’s attack. The turning point may have come with 12 minutes left in the half, when Dipper stopped a Fitzgerald free-position shot from straight on. After that, the sophomore netminder recorded four more saves to close out the half.

“If you go down the stretch and play teams like Maryland, you’re not going to put any team away in the first half, even if we’re up 15-0 in the first half,” Spencer said. “We started to get a little casual when we were up six (to) nothing, and they made us pay.”

After the Cats pushed their lead to 8-3 halfway through the opening stanza, Maryland’s attack kicked into high drive. The Terrapins ended the half on a 5-0 run, winning the final three draws and edging the Cats, 10-7, in faceoffs. Thanks to its rally, Maryland went into intermission with an 8-8 tie and newfound momentum.

The teams traded goals to open the second half, but the Cats never got closer than when they tied the game at 10 midway through the period.

Struggling to fight from behind and facing a physical opponent slowed NU’s offense, but matters weren’t made any easier when star attacker Katrina Dowd was sidelined for about eight minutes in the second half after she slammed to the ground while jumping for a loose ball.

“We could have gone harder, we could have done anything,” Dowd said. “The game went the way it did. They did what they had to do to win it, and that’s that.”

Dowd, NU’s leading scorer and a Tewaaraton Trophy finalist, returned to the game with 13 minutes left, but her left leg still appeared to affect her. The NCAA tournament’s all-time leading scorer with 45 goals was held to zero goals and one assist, making Sunday the only contest Dowd didn’t score in all year.

“We weren’t afraid to play (Dowd),” Maryland defender Brittany Post said. “We respect her as an attacker. She’s an amazing player, but we were not afraid at all.”

The Terrapins also let Spencer score only twice.

On the other side, Maryland’s balanced offensive attack bombarded sophomore goalie Brianne LoManto from all angles. Secondary scorers Sarah Mollison and Katie Schwarzmann each found the back of the net three times, while Tewaaraton Trophy finalists Caitlyn McFadden and Karri Ellen Johnson combined to bury five goals.

Still, the Cats seemed poised for a run when Spencer charged past a defender and beat Dipper inside the left post with seven minutes left. But the officials waved off the goal and called an offensive foul, even though Spencer didn’t appear to initiate contact on the play. The call may not have had a direct impact on the outcome, but it seemed like that was NU’s chance to make a late comeback. Had the goal counted, the game would have been tied at 11.

It seemed only fitting that the team with the longest streak of national titles (seven) topped the team on a path to beat its reign.

“What an amazing night for the Terrapins,” Reese said. “I’m so proud of this team, the heart and the fight they displayed were outstanding. They showed such great composure and such great poise.”

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Pawlenty talks oil spill, immigration at U. Minnesota

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty sounded off on a number of controversial topics Thursday in an interview with Meet the Press host David Gregory at U. Minnesota.

Pawlenty said he supports the Tea Party movement, and that those involved are “mostly folks who are average Americans who want the country and the government to return to American common sense.”

When asked if he would repeal the new federal health care reform, he said he would and would replace it with something better. He called the reform “one of the misguided pieces of legislation in the modern history of the country.”

“I think it is going to fail, largely,” he said.

Some of the conversation focused on the federal government’s handling of the oil spill crisis, which Pawlenty criticized. While it’s too early to place blame with the lack of information available, he said, “We need to hold this administration and BP accountable. But as we do that, we need to make sure we have good information and good facts.”

“Why did they rely just on BP early on to tell us to what the volume of the leak was?” Pawlenty asked. “Why didn’t we independently verify that using government sources?”

He said he is glad that the president is “assuming responsibility and accountability,” though the government should have reacted more quickly.

The governor voiced support for Arizona’s new immigration law, which allows police to check the immigration status of those they suspect have entered the country illegally. However, he was critical of the media coverage of the new law.

If someone is stopped and “You have a reasonable suspicion that they may be here illegally,” Pawlenty said, “You can inquire and should inquire about their immigration status.”

In response to Gregory’s question of whether this is an invitation to commit unlawful racial profiling, Pawlenty said, “No.”

“I like his conviction, his courage,” said Paul Hamilton, a Coon Rapids financial consultant and self-proclaimed Democrat. “I don’t like his policy, but that is a personal choice. That is why we have a democracy.”

Pawlenty declined to give a forthright answer if he would run for president.

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Professor’s ‘breakthrough’ find called into question

A paleontological discovery – called the “breakthrough” find of 2009 by the academic journal Science – led by U. California-Berkeley professor of integrative biology Timothy White is now being contested by two teams of researchers.

Last October, White and a team of scientists announced that they had reconstructed the skeleton of the oldest known hominid – a 4.4 million-year-old female skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus, nicknamed Ardi – but two articles published Friday in the journal Science challenge their conclusions.

Primatologist Esteban Sarmiento of the Human Evolution Foundation in New Jersey contested Ardi’s place in the human lineage, saying the fossil lived before humans began evolving separately from apes, while another group of scientists challenged conclusions drawn about Ardi’s habitat.

“Unique skeletal characters diagnostic of the hominid lineage have been well documented,” Sarmiento said in an e-mail. “White et al has failed to show Ardipithecus has any hominid diagnostic shared derived characters. Genetics and anatomy suggests A. ramidus predates the human-African ape divergence.”

According to White, who was credited with the 1974 discovery of the 3.2 million-year-old hominid Lucy, Ardi was classified as a hominid based on dental, cranial and postcranial evidence. Sarmiento’s estimate puts the divergence of humans from African apes at approximately three to five million years ago, but a response written by White and his team argues that this estimate is not accurate.

White and his team also said that Ardi dwelled in a woodland environment, which could possibly disprove the evolutionary theory that human ancestors started walking on two feet in order to adapt to a savanna environment.

But according to a group of anthropologists and geologists led by Thure Cerling, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, Ardi’s habitat is more accurately represented by “tree or bush-savanna, with 25 percent or less woody canopy cover.”

In response to the criticism, White and his team published an article saying a savanna environment was inconsistent with evidence collected from fossil, geological and geochemical sources.

“One of the main problems with the way they approached the criticism is that they were taking our statements as absolutes and taking them out of context,” said Stanley Ambrose, a co-author of the response and professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois.

With a discovery of this magnitude, contention was expected, said White.

“There are two key parts of science, the creative and the critical, so any interpretations as major as those we published last October are bound to generate some criticism,” he said in an e-mail. “Such debate can sometimes even produce new ideas to be tested with new data.”

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Jeffrey Jordan to transfer, join brother, Marcus, on U. Central Florida roster

Another Michael Jordan offspring will be in a U. Central Florida uniform in 2010.

Jeffrey Jordan, 21, is set to transfer to UCF and join brother Marcus on the Knights’ roster.

Jordan, who played for U. Illinois, received a release to transfer to another school after this season and will have one year of eligibility remaining after he sits out the 2010 season due to NCAA transfer rules.

He averaged 1.6 points and 1.3 rebounds in 13.8 minutes of play this past season for the Illini.

On June 24, 2009, Jordan announced he would be leaving the Illini basketball team to focus on “life after basketball”, but he returned for a couple more stints with the team.

The 6-foot-3 guard will join the team as a walk on.

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With 6-5 overtime victory, Duke captures first national title at site of 2007 heartbreak

Once again, it came down to the last series, the last shot, a game-winning goal.
Unlike Saturday, there was no game of cat-and-mouse, like when Duke U. senior Ned Crotty stood dancing near the goal before finding senior Max Quinzani for the winning score. Instead, defenseman CJ Costabile cleanly won the faceoff to begin the overtime period, barreled down the center of the field with the ball firmly tucked in the netting of his 6-foot stick, and, while never venturing past the vaguely recognizable center hashmarks of the painted-over football field, made it in front of goalie Scott Rodgers.
Stick up. Shot good. Bedlam.
The longstick midfielder, who battled ankle injuries during the regular season and was scoreless entering the NCAA Tournament, had scored on one of the biggest, baddest goalies in the sport.
“Everyone thinks about that shot [as a kid],” Costabile said. “To actually have it come through, it’s fairy-tale stuff.”

It was only fitting that a shot worthy of myth would cap off one of the most dramatic five-year stretches for any sports team in history.

First came the canceled season and the questions about the program’s future. Then, the heartbreaking loss in the national title game to Johns Hopkins in 2007, and two more missed chances at the title in the Final Four. And, through it all, the looming specter of the 2006 scandal.

But Monday at Baltimore’s M&T Stadium, there was redemption—Duke won its first ever national championship.

On the sidelines were former players Zack Greer and Matt Danowski, remindersalong with fifth-year seniors Crotty, Mike Catalino, Tom Clute, Sam Payton, Steve Schoeffel, Devon Sherwood and Dan Theodoridisof the program’s tumultuous recent history. All involved were fully aware of the win’s magnitude.

“They were all crying,” head coach John Danowski said. “It meant so much to them. For me, the same thing. It’s been a very emotional time, but a very cool time…. There was so much emotion those first two years… And [they] walked on that field today and [felt] good.”
“To go these five years with the fifth-years this year, it really is amazing,” said Schoeffel, who had two goals in the game. “Those guys, the years ahead of us that didn’t win, they were all just as much a part of this, getting to this point. We won it for the guys on the team this year, but also for the guys in the past.”

But after the game, in the safety of the locker room, the players did not think about the overarching significance. It was time—finally—to celebrate.

“We turned on the music and we danced around that trophy like it was a voodoo doll,” said Quinzani, who signed with Duke even when the program’s future was in question four years ago. “It was crazy, but that’s just elation.”

The game will go down in the history books as the lowest-scoring title game in NCAA Tournament history. The Irish, eager to stifle the high-powered Duke offense, were able to control the tempo and ensure that every Blue Devil shot had to be earned through bruising defenders and perhaps the nation’s best goalie.

“It wasn’t the game that people saw the other night with Virginia, but we certainly hoped it wouldn’t be,” Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan said. “We didn’t think we would be in good shape in a game like that, but we thought we could win a game like this.”

Duke was able to only muster 13 shots in the first half, while the Irish had 19. Part of this was due to a deliberately slowed-down Notre Dame offense, which limited the number of possessions for both teams and created long stretches of scoreless play—in the second quarter, for example, neither squad scored until there was 1:24 left in the half.

The lack of offensive fireworks in the first half didn’t change for Duke when it came out of the locker room with a 3-2 lead.

Notre Dame, however, found a quick spark. The Irish erased their deficit quickly with a diving shot by David Earl that fooled freshman goalie Dan Wigrizer with only 1:19 gone from the clock. Aerial acrobatics by Zach Howell, who would finish with two goals, put the Blue Devils back on top, 4-3, at the 9:30 mark. But the lead proved to be short-lived, as Notre Dame midfielder Zach Brenneman rifled a shot with 1:12 left in the quarter past Wigrizer to bring the two teams to a tie going into the final period.

Coming out of the gate in the fourth, a quick series of shots by Justin Turri, Quinzani and Howell all failed to get by the hulking Rodgers, who finished the game with 15 saves. The Irish took possession, and with 11:56 left in the game, took their first lead since the beginning of the first quarter with a Sean Rogers goal.

Turri quickly tied it up, and neither team could take the lead during the contest’s final eight minutes.

In overtime, it all came down to the first faceoff. Costabile, who was part of a three-man rotation at the X along with Payton and Terrence Molinari, got the nod. He did not fail to deliver.

“[Faceoffs] were a battle throughout the game,” Costabile said. “To come out clean, to get my hands in there and pull it out really quick—the ball popped out in front of me, it was awesome.”

Danowski was realistic about the break that Duke got in winning the faceoff, and the quick goal that came from it.

“Winning—it’s awesome,” Danowski said. “But you also know that if the faceoff went the other way, I wouldn’t be sitting here, maybe, and it’d be 6-5. I’ve been around long enough to know that, too. It goes both ways.”Danowski had been on the wrong end for several years at Duke. But Monday, he, along with the rest of his squad, finally got to see what it’s like on the other end of the draw.

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