In 1987, Freeland was the first African American athlete in the ACC to help Virginia earn an ACC Championship — the team’s first — marking a major milestone for the program.
The Virginia men’s week in Georgia was one of individual brilliance undermined by a lack of depth throughout the roster. The Cavaliers’ top three point scorers — King, Williamson and Heilman — each made A-finals and medaled, sitting among the ACC’s elite.
Curzan, Moesch, Canny and Curtis closed out the championships by obliterating Virginia’s previous NCAA record of 3:05.84 with a 3:05.30 — the old mark swum by alumnae and Virginia legends Maxine Parker, Kate Douglass and Gretchen and Alex Walsh.
Virginia is hot off the Cavalier Invitational, the final home meet of the 2025-26 season calendar.
As Virginia heads to Atlanta, it is primarily navigating the limits of its own excellence.
The Cavalier women remain unbeaten with their decisive 181-113 victory, while the men fell 172.5-89.5 against a powerhouse NC State lineup.
Despite entering as the ranked team, the Virginia men once again fell to a lower-ranked Hokies squad for a second straight year.
The Cavaliers cruised to dominant victories over both unranked Penn State squads, with the women sweeping all 10 events en route to a 154-61 win and the men taking all but one race to prevail 133-85.
Few college programs in any sport get the chance to chase a sixth, seventh or eighth straight national title. But if that dominance means some recruits would rather try to end the run than extend it, that’s simply the tax of being the best.
In a weekend designed to test depth and nerves, the Virginia women mostly made the CSCAA Dual Meet Challenge look like business as usual.
![“[That whole class] is everything they have been hyped up to be,” DeSorbo said. “Heilman and Williamson in particular are the real deal and other guys are elevating because of them.](https://snworksceo.imgix.net/cav/4f32b0b3-555e-43cd-9d36-27de7adbaef0.sized-1000x1000.png?w=1000&ar=4%3A3&fit=crop&crop=faces&facepad=3&auto=format)
Virginia now heads into a break from collegiate competition until the new year.
Events like the Power 4 Challenge are a deliberate bet that clearer competition, simple scoring and a strong multi-media presence can draw new eyes to a sport that already produces a large share of Olympic talent.
Despite limited high-caliber competition in their regular season schedule, Virginia has established itself as the way-too-early favorite to hoist a historic sixth national championship trophy come March.
The divers were told that the diving team was going to be put on “pause” for the foreseeable future.
In a fiery, competitive atmosphere, Virginia came out on top on both the men’s and women’s sides, with the men eking out a one-point victory.
“We want the stands packed. We want it loud. We want it obnoxious,” Fenwick said.
“I just want [the athletes] to be the best version of themselves," Fenwick said. "We want them to look back on their four-year experience here and look at it as the best time of their life."
The loss on the men’s side comes with a springboard-sized caveat — since Virginia no longer sponsors varsity diving, Florida’s divers competed completely uncontested and were still able to score toward the dual.
With standout talent graduated from both the Cavalier and Gator rosters, both individual races and relays will be closer this go around, according to Coach Todd DeSorbo.
With a lighter travel squad for Saturday’s exhibition at Navy’s Lejeune Hall in Annapolis, Md., the Cavaliers staged a scrimmage-style meet with a couple of twists.
