All the news that's fit to print on one of the nation's elite small college athletic conferences. http://www.centennial.org No doubt about it; No. 2 Gettysburg College played like the best team in Division III lacrosse during SaturdayÕs non-conference game with top-ranked Salisbury at Musselman Stadium. Unfortunately for the Bullets, they only held that together for one half. Not two. http://www.gettysburgtimes.com/news/sports1.shtml Two undefeated, nationally ranked men's lacrosse teams walked onto Shirk Field at Musselman Stadium. But only top-ranked Salisbury University walked off with a perfect record, defeating No. 2 Gettysburg 11-8 after coming back from a five-goal deficit at halftime. http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080330/SPORTS/803300353 Gettysburg College hadn't beaten Salisbury University in a men's lacrosse game in six years when the teams met on Saturday afternoon at Shirk Field at Musselman Stadium in Gettysburg. Salisbury was so good that it hadn't lost in 33 games dating back to the start of its 2007 season and was ranked No. 1 in the nation, according to the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association's Coaches Poll. But Gettysburg is no slouch either, as it is ranked No. 2 and had started the season with eight straight wins, the best in its history. http://www.eveningsun.com/localsports/ci_8746325 The Salisbury University women's lacrosse team exercised a lot of demons on Saturday with a 9-7 come-from-behind victory over Franklin & Marshall. It was the Diplomats (7-1) who handed the Sea Gulls (13-0) both their losses a year ago, with one coming in the NCAA Division III championship game. http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080330/SPORTS/803300354/1006&GID=cY81MPGI3/6ZZjzUH2zCVMvXiJHLT6AHDJBHy5fc7ZE%3D At the Spring Fling lacrosse event two weeks ago in West Palm Beach, Fla., the No. 2 Salisbury women played only one game, but, more importantly, they scouted their top competition - No. 1 Franklin & Marshall. Not that the Sea Gulls had forgotten about Franklin & Marshall. After all, they lost to the Diplomats in last year's Division III national championship. The Sea Gulls just wanted to see what was new. http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/college/lacrosse/bal-sp.gullswom30mar30,0,7257628.story Ursinus basketball coach Kevin Small puts a lot of emphasis on scouting reports, and that work helped produce 29 victories and a 23-game winning streak this season. But after defending Division III champion Amherst dominated the Bears, 84-58, in the national semifinals last night at the Salem Civic Center, Small wished he had prepared differently for the Lord Jeffs. http://www.philly.com/dailynews/sports/20080322_Amherst_too_much_for_Ursinus_in_D-III_semi.html Amherst, the defending NCAA Division III men's basketball champion, proved too much for Ursinus in its first Final Four appearance since 1981. The Lord Jeffs pummeled the Bears, 84-58, in a semifinal yesterday at the Salem Civic Center, ending their winning streak at 23 games. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/sports/20080322_Ursinus_falls_hard_to_Amherst_in_semis.html There were two particular statistics that Amherst head coach David Hixon couldn't ignore all week as he prepared for the NCAA Division III Championships. http://www.pottsmerc.com:80/WebApp/appmanager/JRC/Daily?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pg_article&r21.pgpath=%2FPTM%2FSports&r21.content=%2FPTM%2FSports%2FTopStoryList_Story_1778726 Nick Shattuck tried, tried oh so hard, to hide the pain. There was no hobbling up and down the court, no call for any breaks, not even the slightest cringe. But Shattuck knew, his teammates knew, and head coach Kevin Small knew he just wasn't anywhere near 100 percent. And 50 percent may have been pushing it. http://www.pottsmerc.com:80/WebApp/appmanager/JRC/Daily;jsessionid=2Sg6HlrWSyTS4SzrdKJ7BXWnDXtQ65mnJJ4GLmFNF1tnRB2dGjj1!-234095148?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pg_article&r21.pgpath=%2FPTM%2FSports&r21.content=%2FPTM%2FSports%2FTopStoryList_Story_1778738 It took 27 years and two clutch free throws, but Ursinus finally will return to the Division III men's basketball Final Four tonight in Salem, Va. The 16th-seeded Bears (29-2) will face Amherst (Mass.), the defending national champion, at 5 p.m. in the Salem Civic Center. The Lord Jeffs are playing in their third straight Final Four. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/sports/20080321_Ursinus_faces_Amherst_in_Div__III_semifinal.html Just about every other word out of Kevin Small's mouth this week has been "big." He wasn't overemphasizing or exaggerating a thing, either. http://www.pottsmerc.com:80/WebApp/appmanager/JRC/Daily;jsessionid=LzPcHjphC7G8q0YT95ThXH5fptv8L5pyQhWnj0LXn0V4jDjnbTSz!-2040217281?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pg_article&r21.pgpath=%2FPTM%2FSports&r21.content=%2FPTM%2FSports%2FTopStoryList_Story_1774678 A smile comes to the face of Ursinus College men's basketball coach Kevin Small every time he talks about John Noonan. Noonan is one of those success stories that Small never gets tired of telling and does so as often as possible. The 6-5 guard from Havertown, by way of Friends Select School, has grown from reserve guard as a freshman into a first-team All-Centennial Conference player as a junior, and a major reason why the 16th-ranked Bears are headed to the NCAA Division III final four for the first time since 1981. http://www.delcotimes.com:80/WebApp/appmanager/JRC/Daily?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pg_article&r21.pgpath=%2FDCT%2FSports&r21.content=%2FDCT%2FSports%2FHeadlineList_Story_1775008 If Ursinus is going to bring home the Walnut and Bronze, it will need to be more than a Nick Shattuck team this weekend. That may go without saying anyway - one-man teams don't perform well at the Final Four, if their talent is able to get them that far. Nobody who has won the national championship in the past decade could fairly be classified as such. http://www.d3hoops.com/notables/2008/03/21/Shema+could+pick+up+slack/2065 It's been 27 years for the school and eight years for the Conference, but Ursinus will represent the Centennial Conference in the NCAA Division III Men's Basketball Final Four this weekend in Salem, Va. The Bears (29-2), ranked 16th nationally, will take on third-ranked Amherst, the defending national champion, at 5 p.m. on Friday, while Hope and Washington (Mo.) will meet in the second semifinal. Click on the above link for the official tournament website or the links below for quick access to the info you're looking for. http://www.odaconline.com/hoopchamp/ Belgium ... Switzerland ... Collegeville, Pa. That's the fascinating path that Michael Shema has taken. A 6-10 senior on Ursinus' NCAA Division III Final Four basketball team, Shema was born in Belgium. His parents are from Rwanda. They fled the war-ravaged country in the 1990s to escape the genocide. Shema lived in Geneva, Switzerland, before attending Westtown Friends School in Chester County. "My mother now lives in Rwanda," Shema said before Ursinus (29-2) departed for Salem, Va., and its semifinal meeting with defending champion Amherst (26-3). http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/20080320_Ursinus_Shema_tells_tale_of_basketball_perseverance_as_team_heads_to_Division_III_Final_Four.html Kevin Small passed on having the spotlight all to himself Tuesday night. Instead of dressing up in a coat and tie and attending the Philadelphia Area Small College Coaches Association's annual dinner at the University of the Sciences - where he was to receive the Sam Cozen Coach of the Year award - Small stepped into his sweats and retreated to Helfferich Hall to run his Ursinus basketball team through one more two-hour practice. http://www.pottsmerc.com:80/WebApp/appmanager/JRC/Daily;jsessionid=2LLVHvfQRSf41Q5tX0q3vyskSJ0JvxpCwq2W9NMmh2sQyB2HlTcf!1656221429?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pg_article&r21.pgpath=%2FPTM%2FSports&r21.content=%2FPTM%2FSports%2FTopStoryList_Story_1767104 A few months into her first year at Villanova, Stephanie Campbell was despondent. As a high school senior in New Jersey, she had been thrilled to receive a $19,000 athletic scholarship to play field hockey at Villanova University, a select, private institution outside Philadelphia. But she had not counted on the 7 a.m. start of every class day, something required so she could be in the locker room by noon to prepare for a four-hour shift of afternoon practices and weight-lifting sessions. Travel to games forced her to miss exams and classes. There were also mandatory team meetings, study halls and weekend practices. She was overwhelmed. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/sports/12lifestyles.html At youth sporting events, the sidelines have become the ritual community meeting place, where families sit in rows of folding chairs aligned like church pews. These congregations are diverse in spirit but unified by one gospel: heaven is your child receiving a college athletic scholarship. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/sports/10scholarships.html?ref=sports The country's celebrity college football and basketball coaches lead nationally ranked teams on television, controlling a bevy of full scholarships and a sophisticated marketing machine that swathes college athletics with an air of affluence. They are far from typical. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/sports/11coaches.html?ref=sports Perhaps no college sport has better exemplified the undefined nature of athletic scholarship distribution than baseball, where some players traditionally received as little as $400 a year while stars were awarded full scholarships. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/sports/11baseball.html?ref=sports An athlete's worth to a college is often negotiated behind the closed door of a coach's office with the scholarship amount kept a guarded secret, like a salary in a workplace. But the figures have a way of eventually getting out, as they do in any office. What happens next is not surprising: scholarship envy. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/sports/12envy.html A rival coach once paid Alex Chili the perfect compliment when he said, "she's like a female J.J. Redick." Chili, a senior 5-11 point guard for Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Md., grew up idolizing the former Duke All-American sharpshooter who was deadly from 3-point range and almost perfect at the free-throw line ... The high school star was recruited by many Division I colleges and considered Ivy League schools Cornell and Dartmouth. She was flattered to be offered a full ride to UNC-Wilmington and to get other offers from Fordham and Loyola (Md.). Instead, she picked Division III Muhlenberg College. http://www.mcall.com/sports/college/all-s-alexchili.6303544mar10,0,5049859.story What to make of Alex Chili, who for four years at Walter Johnson High in Montgomery County has ranked in the top 10 in Washington area girls' basketball in the number of three-pointers made and in free-throw percentage? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/26/AR2008022602714.html