"The Skinny” on this weekend’s contests for swimming & diving, women’s basketball and wrestling
The Virginia swimming and dive teams combined for three diving event victories in four matches in a two-day tri-meet against Michigan and Penn State this past weekend in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The Cavalier Daily Sports staff reviews this weekend's upcoming events, including men's golf, field hockey, volleyball, rowing, swim and dive and cross country.
The Cavalier women (1-0) defeated the Volunteers (1-1), 174-121 for their 300th dual meet win in program history. Tennessee’s men (2-0) prevailed over Virginia (0-1), 210-90.
“The Skinny” on weekend matchups for swimming and diving, cross country, rowing, field hockey and men's golf.
The Virginia men’s swimming and diving team wrapped up its season this past weekend at the NCAA Championship meet in Iowa City, Iowa.
As a coach, succeeding a legend is one of the toughest jobs in all of sports, especially in collegiate athletics.
As collegiate athletics become more and more competitive, it is rare to find many Division I athletes with less than a decade of experience in their sport.
At the conclusion of Saturday’s events, the Virginia women’s swimming and diving team could finally take a collective sigh of relief – it had accomplished its goal of becoming the best team in program history. The Cavaliers earned 229 points at the women’s NCAA championship meet to earn a fifth place finish, besting the program’s previous top finish of seventh in 1988.
Senior JB Kolod and junior Becca Corbett stole the spotlight for the Virginia diving teams last week at the NCAA Zone A Diving Championships in Buffalo, New York, punching tickets to their respective NCAA Championship meets in all three diving events.
The Skinny on weekend competition for Virginia’s baseball, wrestling, swimming and diving, women’s lacrosse, women’s golf, softball, and men’s and women’s tennis teams.
While former coach Mark Bernardino’s management of the swim program during his tenure would seem to have set the team up for a bright future, any continued success the men’s program was poised for was quickly dismantled by Augie Busch’s leadership.
For over a decade stretching from 1999-2013, the words “Virginia men’s swimming and diving” and “ACC Champions” were essentially synonymous. The Cavaliers won 14 of the 15 conference championships during that span under former coach Mark Bernardino.
The Virginia women’s swimming and diving team entered the season with the ambitious goal of taking the title as the storied program’s best squad. No doubt ever existed that the milestone was within reach. But to outsiders, the Cavaliers probably did not seem on the right trajectory about a month ago.
To the surprise of many, the Virginia women’s swimming and diving team provided the same heart-pounding action against North Carolina as they did a year ago. Only this time around, the Cavaliers found themselves on the wrong side of the outcome.
With a loss to Miami Wednesday night, Virginia fell to 0-3 on the road against ACC opponents, but the team hopes to bounce back against Georgia Tech at home, where the Cavaliers are 10-1 this season.
Friday and Saturday, the Virginia swimming and diving teams persevered through the pain in an impressive performance against Virginia Tech.
After a week of training in Florida, Busch has his team focused on Virginia Tech. A year ago, the Cavalier women blew the Hokies out of the water, taking a 245-125 victory. As usual in ACC competition, few are worried the Saturday’s result will be much different.
Virginia will travel south this weekend to compete in the Georgia Fall Invitational, which will serve as the swimmers’ first chance at making NCAA times. The No. 9 Cavalier women (2-1) will compete against No. 2 Georgia (7-0), No. 5 California (3-1), No. 6 Auburn (6-0-1), No. 15 Penn State (8-1) and Florida State (1-2) while the Virginia men (1-3) will compete against those team’s male counterparts — No. 1 California (3-0), No. 4 Georgia (5-1), No. 13 Auburn (3-2), No. 18 Penn State (5-2) and No. 20 Florida State (1-2).
The official results did not look overwhelmingly encouraging for Virginia after the three-day Ohio State Invitational. But since the Cavaliers only sent their divers on the weekend, the takeaways were positive thanks to impressive individual performances.
