Last weekend, a Virginia men's sports team pulled off a monumental achievement. They did something that few Cavalier teams have ever done in the past. They repeated a past victory and put themselves in an excellent position for postseason play.
Oh yeah, and the men's basketball team beat Duke, too.
Lost in the hoopla from Thursday's comeback win over the Blue Devils was the clinic put on by the Virginia men's swimming team at the ACC championships in College Park, Md. The Cavaliers won their fourth - that's right, fourth - consecutive ACC title, and they did so in dominating fashion.
Only two other Virginia teams - the women's outdoor track teams from 1983-87 and the men's soccer teams from 1991-95 - have ever won so many ACC championships in a row.
The Cavs scored 872 points over the course of the three-day event. The runners-up, Georgia Tech, put up 580.5 points. The last-place team in the competition, Duke, scored 88 points.
That's like the Maryland men's basketball team facing North Carolina and beating them by 50 - with six other teams fighting for the ball at the same time.
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Forget what Dick Vitale says about his starting five from Duke and Maryland taking on the rest of the country. If you want to talk about a team that can truly match up with the best of the best, put sophomores Luke Wagner, Adam Kerpelman, Luke Anderson and Ian Prichard in the pool for the 800-yard freestyle relay. All they did Saturday in that event was set the ACC meet record for the event.
And that wasn't even the most impressive achievement for the Cavaliers on Saturday. The Cavaliers won six of seven events that day, and only the three-meter diving event separated the Cavs from a clean sweep on the meet's final day.
Truthfully, they probably didn't need it. At the close of the events Friday, Virginia was in first place with 578 points, far ahead of Georgia Tech with 316.5. The Cavaliers could have fallen apart Saturday and still won the title. They had it clinched after Prichard won the 1650 free in the day's first event.
Overall, for the weekend, the Cavaliers won 16 of 20 events in the championships. Five of six events on Thursday, five of seven on Friday, six of seven on Saturday. This meet was barely in doubt.
The Cavaliers set three ACC records over the weekend with Prichard's performance in the 500 free and freshman Bo Greenwood's double in the 200 and 400 individual medleys.
The 100 backstroke was indicative of the Cavaliers' domination. Wagner, sophomore Jon Haag and freshman Chad Barlow put together a 1-2-3 sweep of the event. As if that weren't enough, senior Chris Mousetis finished sixth.
The Cavaliers' success in the 100 back is indicative of the team spirit that pervades the Virginia team in an individual-oriented sport.
"This was a complete team effort from top to bottom," coach Mark Bernardino said in a statement. "We intend to win more ACC titles in a row than any team at the University of Virginia will ever win."
The Virginia swimming program has a pretty good start on that goal. Great Cavalier swimmers of the past, such as Doak Finch, Shamek Pietucha and Olympic gold medalist Ed Moses, have given way to current standouts such as Anderson, Wagner and Prichard.
Bernardino compares his team to the past Virginia sports dynasties such as the women's outdoor track teams and the men's soccer teams of the early 1990s. Those soccer teams won four NCAA championships in a row and populated the ranks of Major League Soccer for the first few years of the league's existence.
But Bernardino's teams may move past even those storied Virginia squads. The youth-laden Cavalier swimmers have the potential to continue their stranglehold on the ACC title for the next couple of years and attract top talent to the Aquatic and Fitness Center to continue the tradition.
The Cavalier swimming program may be moving past the point where Virginia teams are a valid basis for comparison. On the ACC level, the Cavaliers are moving into the company of the Duke basketball teams of the late 1980s and the North Carolina women's soccer program.
So as Virginia students and alumni camp out for basketball games and talk up the football recruiting class, the pride of the Cavalier athletic program quietly continues to build on its impressive tradition. With sophomores Anderson, Wagner and Prichard leading the way, the Cavalier swimming dynasty doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon.
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