Virginia Captures Three ACC Titles
Sunday, April 25 2010 by Tim
About 45 minutes ago, the final whistle blew at Byrd Stadium in College Park, MD ending the 2010 ACC Lacrosse Championships and the Virginia lacrosse team joined the rowing and men’s tennis teams as ACC Champions this weekend.
Yesterday morning, the rowing team won all four races at the ACC Championships in Clemson, SC to claim their 10th ACC title. The rowing team has only not won the ACC title once in the 11 years of the event – coming in second to Clemson last year. The host Tigers came in second in all four races as Virginia got revenge for last year.
Earlier today, the Virginia men’s tennis team captured its fourth consecutive ACC title and sixth in the last seven years. While the streak numbers are staggering – Virginia has now won 61 consecutive matches against ACC opponents – this particular match was very much in doubt until the end. When the match was over, Virginia had beaten Duke 4-2, but nearly every position was heavily contested. Only one player, Virginia’s Jarmere Jenkins, won in straight sets – every other match went to three sets.
And finally, the men’s lacrosse team defeated Maryland 10-6 to take their first ACC title since the perfect season in 2006. After getting one monkey off their back on Friday, I was curious to see how the Cavaliers would respond. Well, respond they did. After Grant Catalino tied the game at 5 in the third quarter, the Hoos reeled off 5 consecutive goals before Maryland tallied the final goal when the contest was all but decided. Virginia’s offense was efficient and Ghitelman had another terrific performance.
These three titles join men’s soccer, wrestling and men’s and women’s swimming and diving to give Virginia seven titles for the 2009-2010 sports year. They become the first school to reach that tally since the conference expanded from nine teams. Virginia had previously notched six titles in 2003-2004, 2007-2008 and 2008-2009. The baseball team has a decent shot at making it eight titles next month.