Hoo's Going to London

As the Olympics draw near at the end of the month, I found even more reasons to root for the red, white, and blue. The following UVa athletes will be competing for gold in London:

• Lauren Perdue, Swimming, 4x200 Freestyle Relay
• Matt McLean, Swimming, 4x200 Freestyle Relay
• Paige Selenski, Field Hockey
• Michelle Vittese, Field Hockey
• Becky Saurbrunn, Soccer
• Will Coleman, Equestrian

Meanwhile, these fellow Hoo’s will be representing different countries, but still look out for them as they follow their flag into Olympic Stadium.

• Somdev Devvarman, India, Tennis
• Katya Bachrouche, Lebanon, Swimming, 800 Freestyle
• David Karasek, Switzerland, Swimming, 200 Individual Medley
• Yannick Kaeser, Switzerland, Swimming, 200 Breaststroke

U! S! A! Go Hoos! Go!

Nat's at the All-Star Break

Now that the MLB season is at the All Star break, here is a look at some nuggets about the National’s much publicized successful season so far:

• DC has the best record in the NL at the All-Star break for first time since 1933
• The franchise has four players in the All-Star Game for the first time since 1994
• TV ratings are up 50%, 28% increase in attendance, “likes” on Facebook are up 30 percent, and Twitter followers are up 139 percent
• Bryce Harper became the youngest position player All Star ever
• The Nat’s pitching staff has the best ERA in the majors, best opponents batting average, best walk/hit to inning ratio, and fifth most strikeouts
• Home attendance is in the top half of the league, where they haven’t finished since 2005
• They’ve had all this success while battling injuries. Ryan Zimmerman missed 14 of 83 games, while LF Michael Morse missed 50. RF Jayson Werth has missed 56, but will be back in August as well as closer Drew Storen who has not pitched a game yet. Catcher Wilson Ramos only played in 25 games before going out for the year. That’s 24% of the ideal starting lineup starts missed from a first place team. 

Let's hope the Nationals keep this up instead of choking like in 2005 or the MLB striking like in 1994.