Every sports fan is wrong a lot of the time and very wrong sometimes. If they admit it, which is rare, the topic is quickly changed to how the sports team from their area is, used to be or will in the future be better than the team from your area.
That said, many Cavalier fans have a mistake or two to admit. These mistakes were in the same season, at the same time and they are going to take a lot of orange and blue body paint to make up for.
It was the end of January 2004, and the baseball team was picked to finish seventh in the ACC. Here was a team coming off a mediocre 29-25 season and being taken over by a first-time head coach known mostly for his recruiting prowess. This season didn't look like it was going to be too much fun. Conventional thought might have been to wait a year or two for the new staff to bring in some of their own players. This was winter anyway -- most fans had basketball on their mind
Fast-forward a few days. The No. 43 men's tennis team was 2-0 with wins over No. 15 Minnesota and No. 58 Northwestern. The well-rounded fans know that the tennis team is young, talented, well-coached and with a newly-added bright freshman. All of this to a team that wasn't losing any impact players coming off a 20-8 campaign, a big jump from their 12-12 record in head coach Brian Boland's first season at Virginia in 2001.
It's July now and not too much has gone on since then. The tennis team just happened to go 24-4, win the ACC championship, beat Duke for the first time in 25 years and make the NCAA round of 16. It's not like this was the first time they won an ACC title, or got that far in the NCAA tournament.
Actually, it was. Virginia not only won a team-record 24 matches last season, but they reached as high as No. 6 in the nation for the first time in the program's history. The baseball team set new program records as well, finishing in second place in the ACC and tying a school record for wins.
The stage was set for the breakthrough in men's tennis three years ago when Virginia hired four-time Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year Brian Boland from Indiana State. Boland inherited a team that had gone 14-8 in coach Dick Stockton's last season, but was losing the best player in Virginia history in three-time All-American Brian Vahalay.
In just three months on the job, he signed one of the top recruiting classes in the nation. Of the big four, Doug Stewart, Rylan Rizza and Darrin Cohen all made their way from California, and Nick Meythaler was making a much shorter trip from Kentucky.
"I looked at it as an opportunity to make an impact when I got here," Cohen said.
Boland hired Nathan Crick and Tony Bresky from Indiana State after that first season and with his staff in tact and their bright freshmen on the court, the impact was immediate. Virginia improved to 20-8 behind 110 total wins by those four freshmen and strong contributions from transfer Chris Gonyer and less heralded freshman Stephen Rozek. Standing out that season were Rizza, who went 19-4 playing No.2 and No.3 in the lineup, and Stewart, who finished with a 21-3 record at No. 1 and was named ACC Rookie of the Year.
For all their early success and talent, progression into the top tier of college tennis was anything but a given.
"I'm really proud of what these individuals have done in one year," said Boland. "They went from virtually the same team that was ranked in the 50s to top ten. It's impressive and certainly the credit goes to the players who put the hard work in."
That hard work and the addition of ITA Mideast Region Freshman of the Year Marko Miklo helped the Cavaliers take that big step into elite company. The tennis season ended with a close 4-3 loss to Ohio State in the third round of the NCAA competition, but the season was full of both individual and team accomplishments. Virginia was ranked No.10 at the end of the year while Stewart finished at No. 13 in the nation in singles, and the doubles team of Rizza and Meythaler finished ranked No. 24.
Not to be outdone, the baseball team was also in the midst of one of the finest seasons in school history. Apparently that new coach, Brian O'Connor, the guy known for bringing in great players, can deal with them on the field as well.
The baseball team came roaring out of the gate with an aggressive style of play and a 14-2 record, but those wins were against non-conference opponents like Maryland Eastern Shore and Central Connecticut. Everybody would see how they stacked up against last season's ACC champ and heavy conference favorite Georgia Tech next.
The Cavaliers swept the series at Georgia Tech, each game either won in extra innings or decided by a single run. Close victories would wind up being a recurring theme for the Cavaliers throughout the 2004 season, where 17 victories were recorded in comeback fashion or by breaking a tie in the late innings.
After the Georgia Tech series, Virginia tread water for the rest of March -- dropping a series at home to North Carolina and at N.C. State to head into a two-game series with Brown at 20-7. All they did from that point on was win a school-record 14 straight contests, nine of which included series sweeps against conference foes Duke, Clemson and Maryland. At this point, people started to notice in a big way.
The winning streak ended with a couple of losses at perennial powerhouse Miami, but Virginia closed the season strong, winning five straight and finishing 42-11 (18-6 ACC) and in second place in the conference.
Although the Cavaliers were knocked out of the ACC tournament in two games and didn't make their way past the regional round of the NCAA Tournament, the season was lacking neither in excitement nor results. Virginia's 44 wins tied a school record and their 18 ACC victories obliterated the old mark of 11. They played an exciting and aggressive style of baseball that focused on pitching and defense and forced other teams to win the game, because the Cavaliers sure weren't going to give it to them.
"In baseball you beat yourselves, you don't get beat," assistant coach Kevin McMullan said. "So if you can pitch, manage the baseball and not give yourself up to the big inning you've got a chance to win
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