Dear Old U.Va.

Weekend Recap

Sunday, February 21 2010 by Tim

It was an interesting starting weekend for several spring sports, to go along with the conclusion of one sport and the continuation of a couple others. Overall, it was a positive weekend for the ‘Hoos and there’s definitely going to be some exciting spring sports action on grounds this weekend. Let’s see how things went:

Baseball

Gotta start with baseball. The #2 team in the country started off its season on Friday by traveling down to #11 East Carolina. Pretty rough way to start off. As I mentioned yesterday, the Cavaliers got the win on Friday, taking down the Pirates 6-2. Saturday was not as successful as the Wahoos couldn’t find their bats and lost 1-6. Thankfully their bats came alive today, as they jumped out to a huge lead (they led 13-4 heading into the bottom of the 8th inning) and held on for a 14-11 win.

A series win on the road against a top-15 team is a terrific way to start the season. The Cavaliers now have nine consecutive home games before their next road contests – a short jump down I-64 to Williamsburg and then the first ACC weekend series in Tallahassee.

Of note to Wahoo Fan is now other top-5 teams did this weekend:

#1 Texas went 1-2 at home against unranked New Mexico.
#3 LSU had a home sweep of Centenary.
#4 Cal-State Fullerton went 1-2 at home this weekend, losing to unranked Oregon and unranked Pepperdine.
#5 Rice traveled to Stanford (joining the Hoos as the only top-5 team to hit the road) and lost all three games.

So… could the ‘Hoos be #1 when the new rankings are released? Or will LSU leapfrog Virginia? Since Virginia is ranked lower than #2 in a couple of the other polls, I’m going to give the edge to the Tigers. But with this 9 game homestand coming up, any faltering by the Tigers could push the Cavaliers into the top slot.

Did I really just say that the Cavalier baseball team has a chance at being the #1-ranked team in the country?? It’s amazing how far BOC has brought this ball club.

Women’s Swimming and Diving

Perhaps this one should have come first. The women went down to Chapel Hill for the ACC Championships and just simply kicked butt. I think their shirts were a pretty solid way of describing how the ACC meet went:

Let’s just take one quote from the VirginiaSports.com recap that sums it up:

The Cavaliers finished with 877.5 points en route to winning 14 of 18 swimming events, including all five relays, to finish ahead of second place North Carolina (642.5) and third place Florida State (545).

Yeah… beating your closest competitor by nearly 35% and winning over 75% of the events at the meet. Yeah, that’s domination.

Men’s Lacrosse

The men’s Lacrosse team started off their spring 2010 season with a road trip to Drexel. It could have been a bit disastrous for the #3 team in the country, as the ‘Hoos fell behind 1-4 early and were tied 8-8 late. But somehow they managed to pull it off, scoring the final three goals of the contest to win it 11-8. Sophomore Steele Stanwick led all scorers with 3 (tied with Drexel’s Scott Perri) and added two assists. Chris Bocklet and Rhamel Bratton both added a pair of goals, while Shamel Bratton, Connor English, Matt White and Brian Carroll notched a goal a piece. For those keeping track, that’s five goals by Sophomores, three by Juniors, two by Freshmen and one by a Senior. While the game was a bit scary to track, it’s good to see all those young’ns having a big impact.

Women’s Lacrosse

Speaking of scary games to watch… the #10 women’s Lacrosse team started their spring 2010 season off with a game against #14 Loyola on the turf field. Loyola dominated the Cavs start to finish and took home a 15-11 victory. It was brutal to watch. We seemed to have better athletes on the field, but it seemed like every ground ball and every scrum went to Loyola. I guess they wanted it more.

Men’s Tennis

The men’s Tennis team hosted a double-headed at the Boar’s Head Sports Club this weekend. They took on #35 LSU in the first game and had their first ACC match against Boston College in the second game. As has become common for the #1 team in the country and three-time defending ITA Team Indoors Champions… they won going away. 7-0, 7-0. In case you’re wondering, they Wahoos have out-scored their opponents 36-2 since their unexpected loss to Kentucky earlier in the season. That streak includes the #3, 5, 7, 15 and 35 teams in the country. I think they should get copies of the Women’s S&D shirts…

Softball

The Softball team didn’t have what I would call a successful outing at the LSU Tiger Classic this weekend, but it did score a huge upset win over #4 Michigan 2-1 on Saturday. That was their only win on the weekend, though as they went 1-4 overall. Still, definitely good to see them able to compete with one of the best teams in the country, if only for one game.

Wrestling

The Wrestling team, ranked #23 lost at home to Maryland 11-22 in their final regular season meet. Losing to the #10 team in the country is nothing to be ashamed of, but it’d be nice to beat the Terps in our house. The ACC Championships are up next in Raleigh next weekend.

Men’s Basketball

I think we had a game against Clemson. I don’t really remember as I have gotten very good at blocking out terrible performances like that.

Well, there you have it folks. Overall, a solid weekend. All of the same teams are back in action next weekend, so expect another update next Sunday.