UVA Spring Sport Champions

Over the Memorial Day weekend, two of Virginia’s spring sports teams won titles. In Baltimore, the Cavalier men’s lacrosse team won their fifth NCAA title, while in Durham; the baseball team won its third ACC tournament crown.

In the first game of the lacrosse final four, UVa faced off against an upstart Denver squad making its first appearance on the big stage, compared to the Wahoo’s 21^st. Their inexperience showed as the Cavs jumped to a 5-2 first quarter lead and were up 13-3 at one point. After dispatching the Pioneers with a final score of 14-8, Virginia advanced to their ninth final, this time against rival Maryland.

On a sweltering hot Memorial Day, the Terrapin defense cooled off the Hoos, shutting them out in the first quarter. Despite playing in Maryland’s backyard at Ravens Stadium, the Cavaliers responded to take a 5-3 halftime lead. After the Terps rallied to tie the game at six in the fourth quarter, Virginia used their new ball control precision offense to connect on three straight goals, which sent the black and red clad fans heading for the exits with two minutes left. The nine goals scored by the Cavs were the second fewest on the year, the fewest also being against Maryland in an earlier loss.

This was the fifth title for the program, third since my freshman year in 2003, which is an absurdly high number when compared to the rest of the teams in my 100% theory. During that same span, only one of the other eleven teams have won a title (1% Colts in ‘06), and one other even made a title game (Cleveland Cavs in ’07). It gets even worse when you expand the time frame, since five of the teams have never won a title (UVa football and basketball, Cleveland Cavs, Capitals, and Nationals) and the Indians and Browns have not won in almost five decades. Maybe I should only have lacrosse jerseys and posters. This is certainly a good start.

Not to be forgotten, the UVa baseball team won their second ACC title game in three years over the weekend as well. Virginia won all four of their games in the tournament including victories over three top-20 schools. They will hope to capitalize on this momentum as they did two years ago when they won the tournament and advanced to their only College World Series. It helps that they will be the #1 overall seed and have this new shirt to wear around.

Its Bowl Season!

While all the attention will be on the BCS Championship game between undefeated Auburn and Oregon, I will be focusing on two of the more unheralded bowls. No, it does not involve UVA, which will be playing in the “Spring” Bowl. Nor does it involve Ohio State, which despite only one loss will only be playing in the Sugar Bowl. My attention will be on two bowls with a combined 13 years of history between all unranked teams.

First, my only cousin’s Miami of Ohio team faces off against Middle Tennessee State in the GoDaddy.com Bowl. The Redhawks completed an incredible worst to first turnaround by winning the MAC championship game last week. Coach of the year hopeful Mike Haywood improved his squad by eight games, going 7-1 in the conference. Miami has reeled off five victories in a row, four of which on the road. Meanwhile the Blue Raiders are only 6-6 in the Sun Belt, but have better statistical rankings than the Red Hawks. Formerly called the GMAC Bowl, the game takes place in Mobile on January 6^th on ESPN. Despite being the 34^th ranked bowl game, it looks like there will be some fun activities planned, and I’m sure there will be plenty of Danica Patrick commercials on TV

Meanwhile eight days earlier in DC, Maryland and East Carolina face off in the Military Bowl presented by Northrop Grumman. My girlfriend and her company help manage the event, so maybe I’ll hang out with John Wall doing his dance while punching Dwight Howard for beating the Cavs. Now with a different major sponsor, hopefully there will be some sweet flyovers or cannon shots after each touchdown. RFK will be the site of a possible shootout since the 6-6 Pirates are 112^th in defense and 12^th in offense while the Terps are 42^nd or better in both. Strangely enough Maryland had the second biggest turnaround in the nation to Miami. Terps are bitter they are going to a lower seeded ACC bowl, but if you cannot attend a bowl game a couple metro stops from your campus, you do not deserve to play in warm weather. I’ll be going just to boo the Twerps the whole time.

What about the other bowls? Try naming all 35 of them first.