What a difference a year makes. Entering last season, the Virginia baseball team was mired in mediocrity.
In sports, experience is everything. It is the factor that overcomes the jitters and fears of big-stage performance.
The recent success the men's basketball team has experienced against the soft under-belly of the ACC earned freshman Sean Singletary the conference's Rookie of the Week honor for the fourth time this season. The Philadelphia native scored 19 points and added 12 rebounds while maintaining an impressive assist-to-turnover ratio of 9-to-1 in the Cavaliers' two home victories over Florida State and rival Virginia Tech. Singletary's best performance of the week came against the Hokies as he compiled 10 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and three steals in one of his most dynamic performances of the season after struggling since the beginning of conference play. This Saturday, the 6-foot point guard will have a tough assignment when Maryland point guard, John Gilchrist, comes to U-Hall.
Virginia pitcher Mike Ballard's surgically-prepared left arm passed its first test with flying colors and helped the third-year pitcher receive the ACC's Pitcher of the Week award. In his first pitching appearance since the 2003 season, the Virginia Beach native led the Cavaliers to a 2-0 victory at UNC Wilmington on Feb.
The Virginia men's basketball team (13-9, 4-7 ACC) has been following a script of late that may seem very familiar to Cavalier hoops fans.
Chris Canty, a former defensive lineman for the University of Virginia, was hurt in a nightclub in Scottsdale, Ariz.
The University lost a tight game, 3-2, to North Carolina on Sunday, finishing with a 2-3 overall record on the weekend road trip.
Glancing down the bench at a recent Virginia wrestling meet, three men stood out among the orange-and-blue-clad athletes going through their pre-game motions and head coach Lenny Bernstein. One was a light-haired man in his mid-twenties, calmly checking with officials and conversing with Cavalier head coach Bernstein before competition got under way.
By Eric Ast Cavalier Daily Senior Writer When a team wins a championship, at some point after the trophy has been hoisted and the celebration has subsided -- and in some cases before the champagne has even dried -- the thoughts of the coaches, fans and players move to whether they'll be celebrating once again next season. While assessing a team's chances of repeating a championship win, the most immediate questions are which players the team is losing and who will be coming in to replace them.
The Cavaliers track team competed in the Virginia Tech Challenge over the weekend as a tune-up for next week's ACC championships. David Sullivan broke his own school record in the pole vault with a second-place vault of 5.3 meters, which also qualified him for the NCAA tournament. Virginia also brought home second-place finishes in the men's and women's distance medley relays, junior Kellen Blassingame in the 400 and sophomore Alex Tatu in the mile.
Well, it is that time of year again. Time to report for the start of the season, despite only a short break.
With the weather expected to be upper 60s and sunny today, it's time to do some spring cleaning and empty out the file of random sports stories... -With no resolution to the labor dispute in sight, the National Hockey League is expected to make a formal announcement later today to cancel the 2004-05 season.
Virginia tennis had a weekend of split results as the men's team defeated two ranked teams and the women fell to Pennsylvania Saturday. The men's tennis team finished a five game homestand with their fifth win of the season.
The Virginia women's basketball team held a slim 59-58 lead over Virginia Tech with 7.7 seconds remaining last night.
It was the perfect day for a game of baseball in North Carolina, and the Cavaliers were playing a tie-breaking third game in a series against Wilmington with a pitching matchup between Wilmington's Thomas Benton against the Cavaliers' Jeff Kamrath. Since the Seahawks won Friday's game and Virginia took Saturday's, Sunday's matchup was especially significant.
I grew up in a family where three uncles attended the University of Virginia, and they and my parents (William and Mary graduates with the need to live vicariously through Virginia sports) always told me about the history of Cavalier basketball.
Gary Forbes came off the Virginia bench with one mission: stop Virginia Tech's Zabian Dowdell. That defensive substitution turned into the offensive spark the Cavaliers needed to avenge a Jan.
Familiar faces, unfamiliar places. Such is the life of a University baseball reporter with access to a car. And so I found myself in Wilmington, N.C.
Among a pair of e-mails asking me if I was interested in free Cialis, I received a message in my inbox from Devin Smith Tuesday afternoon.
It was a comeback fueled by two freshmen coming off the bench. Unfortunately, the comeback was too little, too late as the Virginia Cavaliers (16-8, 5-5) fell to the visiting Miami Hurricanes (12-11, 4-6) by the score of 66-60 last night. The freshman duo of Takisha Granberry and Denesha Kenion scored seven consecutive points that helped jumpstart the sluggish Cavaliers late in the second half.
